colorización nasa wilson markle artículo abc
https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/how-are-black-and-white-films-colorized.HTML
American Buzz Aldrin during the first Moon walk in 1969 (Photo Credit: NASA / Neil A. Armstrong
/ Wikimedia Commons)
This technology was invented by former NASA engineer Wilson Markle after he was assigned to color monochrome footage of the Apollo missions to the moon. The fundamental logic was reminiscent of hand colorization — in every scene, Markle ascribed predetermined colors to shades of grey. He foresaw the technology’s commercial prospect and subsequently founded Colorization Inc., which caused the term “colorization” to become ubiquitous.
Still, the techniques generated tawdry images with minor contrast, and they were often mildly pale with an appearance of colors being washed-out. A few years later, advancements in technology facilitated the advent of digital signal processing and graphic softwares to better manipulate complex imagery.
The technique required a digitized copy of the film’s best monochrome print. Again, the range of grey levels is central to the transmutation. This time, the shades are assigned by the complex software. The objects are divided into infinitesimal indivisible areas known as pixels. The technician then colors every pixel. Our eye then perceives, or rather, blurs the pixels into a continuous image.
Markle’s method used up to 4000 shades of color to fill individual pixels. Other than simply coloring, the software is also capable of sensing tiny variations in the level of light in the frames to detect movement and correct them if necessary. To account for movement, the moved pixels were simply recolored.
A majority of colors are “obvious” colors, such as blue sky, white clouds and green grass. Other colors were assigned based on acquired information of the props used in the film or the film’s available pictures. In case the technician is unsure about an object’s color, he decides on a color he feels is consistent or is characteristic of the grey scale. Or, he may presumptuously select a color he feels the director might have chosen!
The software then colors the object in every frame until it exits the frame. The entire procedure is then repeated for every object.
(Photo Credit: Flickr)
Without algorithms to detect consistent boundaries, such as a boundary to distinguish between an actor’s hair and face, coloring every pixel can be an exceedingly tedious process. Other than region discrimination, region-tracking algorithms are also scarce or underdeveloped.
The criticism of colorization
Digital colorization would cost an exorbitant 3,000 dollars per minute for a film! The average cost for a whole feature film would amount to a preposterous $3,00,000! Why would media organizations deliberately burn such a deep hole in their pockets? Is it because they are effusive philanthropic aesthetes?
Not really. People from even the most remote corners of the world were allured by the prospect of their favorite films being shown in color. The average revenue generated by these renovated films was around $5,00,000, almost double the expenditure!
A filmmaker could earn a fortune by simply plucking a movie out of the classics list, colorizing it and selling it back to the masses.
(Photo Credit: screenshots from the colorized version of ”Casablanca”)
This sort of tampering is vehemently detested by film critics, filmmakers and artists. For Roger Ebert, this tampering was tantamount to vandalism. He writes: “They arrest people who spray subway cars, they lock up people who attack paintings and sculptures in museums, and adding color to black and white films, even if it’s only to the tape shown on TV or sold in stores, is vandalism nonetheless.”
He added, “What was so wrong about black-and-white movies in the first place? By filming in black and white, movies can sometimes be more dreamlike and elegant and stylized and mysterious. They can add a whole additional dimension to reality, while color sometimes just supplies additional unnecessary information.”
Critics particularly detested media giant Ted Turner who went on a classic colorizing spree. The resentment exacerbated significantly when he decided to colorize Citizen Kane.
Manhattan (1979) Directed by Woody Allen (Photo Credit: BAMcinematek’s 9/11 MANHATTAN screenings / Flickr)
Technically, black-and-white movies illustrate the truest representation of reality. Seduced by the enamor of black and white, filmmakers persisted to make grey-scaled films, despite the availability of color technology. Consider Woody Allen’s Manhattan, which used greyscale to illustrate his untainted view of New York, or Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which was shot in black and white to intensify visceral imagery. Or the recent, The Artist whose visual monotony elicits nostalgia.