Should The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night Be Colorized for a New Generation To Enjoy?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by 2141, Oct 1, 2018.

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  1. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    By the way, who saw the need for a new word, "colorized"? (or "colourised", or however you wish to spell it.) What's wrong with just saying "colored"/"coloured"?

    I'm all in favour of neologisms, but only if the new word is serving a purpose that was not served by existing words.
     
  2. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Poll indicator suggests YES.
     
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  3. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Yes GH was right along.
     
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  4. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Have both.
     
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  5. Royce

    Royce Senior Member

    I like the way Alex thinks! :righton:
     
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  6. CBS 65780

    CBS 65780 "Could I do one more immediately?"

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    Agreed. If we are messing with 1964 movies, would we put Dr. Strangelove, Or; How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb into colour?!; that would be a travesty.
    Mind you, I think Marnie would be better in black & white. :hide:
     
  7. Fab Four Revolution

    Fab Four Revolution Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    It would have to be REALLY, REALLY good and life-like. It would take some convincing that's for sure.
     
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  8. let him run...

    let him run... Senior Member

    Location:
    Colchester, VT USA
    In Colorizing a film, you are adding something to the film that wasn't part of it originally.
    The equivalent would be if during a remix you also overdubbed extra guitar parts or auto-tuned the vocals to sound more contemporary. You know for that "new generation of fans".
     
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  9. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    No old fans can appreciate as well.
     
  10. funkydude

    funkydude Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    Yeah, it's a bit like adding a new electric four-on-the-floor bass drum to Beatles classics to make them more danceable.
     
  11. Dayfold

    Dayfold Forum Resident

    I was talking to a lad in his early 20's about movies recently. He was heavily into old movies, was trying to see as many of the classics as he could find. I asked if he'd seen The Godfather yet and he said, "no, I'm not really interested in stuff that old." His idea of old was movies from the 1980's/90's. I found that quite amusing but could relate to it when I thought about what I was into at his age.

    It has surely always been true that young people are not generally that interested in very old media. When I was a teen/early twenty something in the '90s I would have been hard pressed to find anyone of my own age into music or movies from the 1940s/50's. Myself, I was heavily into stuff from the 60s'/70's but it wasn't until I was a bit older that I got interested in classics from an even earlier period.
     
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  12. tcbtcb

    tcbtcb Forum Resident

    Location:
    sugar hill nh usa
  13. Fab Four Revolution

    Fab Four Revolution Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Reminds me of how Spider-Man calls The Empire Strikes Back 'that really old movie' in 2016's Captain America: Civil War LOL.
     
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  14. Royce

    Royce Senior Member

    Not really. It's more like adding digital reverb, compression, EQ, making a stereo mix where there wasn't one or making a mono mix where there wasn't one, ALL of which have been done to The Beatles music already.
     
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  15. Nems

    Nems Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    "I Love Lucy", "Abbott and Costello", "Laurel and Hardy", old B&W movies, etc., etc., were always a daily part of television back then. I don't remember any of us kids even once having a hard time enjoying them.
     
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  16. Deek57

    Deek57 Forum Resident

    NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, ABSOLUTLEY NOT.
     
  17. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    What next? Is nothing sacred? Next you know they will be talking about adding sound to the movie.
     
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  18. Haristar

    Haristar Apollo C. Vermouth

    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    This isn’t even because it’s a Beatles film. Films should be left as is.
     
  19. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Good points. As a graphic artist myself, I concur. Alteration of any work of art, by any but the creators themselves, is terribly insulting, and kind of a big no no.

    To illustrate even further (pun intended), it is like taking a Rembrandt or a Picasso, and saying this painting is too dark or drab. So the 'restorer' decides to add some color. Not.

    'A Hard Day's Night' is considered a classic in filmology, and is in every greatest film list. It is considered a groundbreaker in filming technique that has been emulated by filmmakers since and even today. Whether the newest generation of filmmakers knows it or not, they may likely be using many of the techniques that broke ground in 'A Hard Day's Night'.

    We of the Beatles generation are horrified by the suggestion.

    B&W photography & filming, even today, are considered high art. Light and shadow, contrast, composition....all enhanced through b&w film. And you can bet that the camera in the film that is Ringo's constant companion is loaded with 35mm b&w film.

    Sorry kids.

    Black (and white) is beautiful.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2018
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  20. Lemon Curry

    Lemon Curry (A) Face In The Crowd

    Location:
    Mahwah, NJ
    This is not true at all.

    Shooting in black and white dictates a particular approach to composing the shots. The idea is to present a full range of dark to light in every scene. The "dynamic range" of the shot, you might say.

    Colorizing that produces a cartoon-like effect. There might be some nice "gee whiz" moments, but overall it will just look wrong. Miracle on 34th Street, It's A Wonderful Life... the essence of the composition is completely lost. George Bailey at the bar, praying for help... the essence of monochrome, rendered into fluff with color.

    Remixing audio is not innocent either, but at least the goal is to overcome technical deficiencies. There is no technical deficiency in monochrome - it is beautiful.
     
  21. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Sure. But we didn't say it was a debate about deciding to make an artistic achievement in B&W...at least I didn't. It is about artificially colorizing, making up the colors of objects, buildings, signs, people's clothes; altering what did actually become an artistic achievement in spite of the restrictions.

    Just because it was decided to make the film in b&w... by the studio (and not an artistic decision)... and that it was it filmed in b&w... due to budget & time restraints...
    doesn't make it any less of an artistic achievement... in B&W. That is what makes it more remarkable.


    I'd call it kismet. Color, in retrospect, would have ruined the whole mood and feeling of that uniquely 60's English atmosphere captured in 'A Hard Day's night'. The whole nostalgia feel is parly due to the b&w filming, partly due to the subject and the times. B&W. Kismet.

    Colorizing is just wrong-no matter. I am likely a B&W film purest snob, but I am glad that this debate is only that. :rant: A film debate wherein the possibility of colorizing will most assuredly never happen...thank god.

    :magoo:
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2018
  22. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    Always the kidder, eh, alexpop? We needed a little lightening up.


    Cheers
    lk
     
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  23. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    This is too beautiful. I'll never believe that the Civil War was fought in living color!

    :unhunh:
     
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  24. MGSeveral

    MGSeveral Augm


    Why are they frantically running away when the road is clearly a dead-end behind them?
     
  25. MikeM

    MikeM Senior Member

    Location:
    Youngstown, Ohio
    Side trip...

    I was at a wedding reception a few years back. It is long been my conviction that there is an ironclad rule that states "You must play REALLY bad music at a contemporary wedding reception."

    This one certainly adhered to that rule in spades. After enduring an hour or so of this, suddenly I heard the opening strains of The Beatles' "Twist and Shout." At last, I thought…the assault on my eardrums has at least temporarily ended!

    Not so. This version was EXACTLY as you stated above...electronic drums and a heavy backbeat had been overlaid atop the original. I had to resist the urge to strangle the DJ!
     
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