They Shall Not Grow Old (documentary) - Peter Jackson

[EvilNed]

This was likely conducted in the usual 'round of interviews' style with new interviewers cycling in every few minutes, so he's probably been blathering away for some time, but then again he always kind of sounds like that. He has regained a fair bit of the weight he had lost between Rings and Hobbit movies, mind, but to be fair it is difficult to keep it off. Not under communism.

[shootemindehead]

You should check out that 'What Do Artists Do All Day?' doc, you should find it on iPlayer (it's on there until some time in December, IIRC). I'll have a look when I get a moment. Jackson says he wasn't interested in doing another 'history of the war' doc, as there's plenty of those, and wanted to focus on the troops, and likewise there's plenty of docs out there describing the dreadful nature of it all, but amidst the dark there was light as well and that's what he wanted to focus on. Aye, that's fine and there's no way he was going to be able to shove four years of war, plus snippets of the pre and post war commentary into a 90 minute documentary anyway. I just felt what he chose to highlight was slightly odd and not all that enlightening. Plus, once the novelty of the colourisation faded, as it were, what was left was sort of underwhelming in a way. It's not a disaster by any means, but it was a touch anaemic in a lot of areas. Of course, Jackson was limited by footage he could work with and usable audio. I'm intrigued by the comment about the German uniforms. Now, I'm not clued up on these things, but Jackson has a huge wealth of WW1 memorabilia from the time - a vast collection of uniforms, weapons, and even planes (!!!), a lot of which are from the war itself, and they used those as colour reference and photographed them in different conditions to help make them match. I've seen my share of authentic WWI uniforms and it was just something that struck me when I was watching. I felt that they were too grey. The common misconception of feldgrau is that it was a flat grey colour. It was in fact quite a dark greenish grey. But, I'm just being pedantic really. There were many different standards of dying for army uniforms and subtle variations too. Plus, the German uniform changed over the course of the war, the most obvious change being the introduction of the famous stahlhelm in 1916. Anyway, I wouldn't pay too much attention to my colour comment. My wife just rolled her eyes. There's always going to be some limits to the colourisation process, but they showed how it used to be done (which, indeed, is dreadful) and there's a world of difference when you compared it to what they did and how they were focusing on little details (e.g. if a solider has just been through combat, their cheeks might be a bit redder through the exertion) ... but yeah, because you're building on top of an existing black and white image, 'colour painted on top of black and white' in other words, it's never quite the same as 'simply colour', if that makes sense. Sure. I remember old colourised film and it was a travesty, to say the least. But, there's still a lot missing from these new efforts too, even if the software and technique have come a long way. It'll continue to improve no doubt. Colour is a pain in the arse though. The same colour can be wildly different looking under various conditions. Even subtle conditional changes can have a startling effect on a given colour and if you're trying to colourise old B+W film, it can no doubt be an absolute minefield. As I said though, it was certainly nice to see colour representations of these images that I've grown up looking at since I was a boy and it does add a certain "life" to what was a "black and white" world. I take it you're quite into your WW1 history, so I suppose this wouldn't necessarily bring much new to the table for you, but as more of a layman on the subject I found much more information and context than I'd had before. WWII is really my area, I suppose I can say. But, you can't really study that war without studying WWI, so one thing leads to another. My family was steeped in war. There was never a day that went by when the war wasn't discussed in some way, so it all rubbed off on me. My dad was in the Royal Engineers in the second one and my granddad and his two brothers were in the first one. My mother was an evacuee from Guernsey in 1940 and she met my old man after the war ended. They had me late in life, they were well into their 40's and I was a complete accident. So, they were kind of two generations above me when I was born in the 70's. But, when you live in a time that sees something as crazy as a world war, it tends to overshadow every other experience you have, so they talked endlessly about it, leading to a billion discussions, arguments and fights. If you're looking for more, you could do worse than check out the old BBC documentary 'The Great War'. Made in the 60's, it has a lot of interviews with the men who served. It's largely focused on Britain and Germany, though. But, unfortunately, much of WWI remembrance is, which gives a very unbalanced view of who actually fought the war. But, it's interesting nonetheless.

[ProfessorChaos]

just got back from seeing this with my father this evening. we both found it very engaging, so much so in fact that we stuck around for the 30-minute "making of" feature after the credits rolled. i was a bit let down initially that it primarily focused on the british experience, but it actually allows for a more well-developed narrative. the restoration efforts were very impressive, and the testimony of the men who lived through it was very compelling. awful to imagine how rough those guys had it back then. highly recommended film.

[bassman]

I’ve never felt so close to the First World War as I did with this documentary. Really amazing stuff that puts you right on the front lines with these guys. I love that the soldiers and interviewees are kept anonymous so that it could be cut and paste with any soldier, regardless of origin. Hopefully the US blu ray release has its own documentary on the process of making this one. Not only for the colorization, but also the audio matching, frame speeds, stability, etc. Seeing how they accomplished everything should be very interesting!

[MinionZombie]

I’ve never felt so close to the First World War as I did with this documentary. Really amazing stuff that puts you right on the front lines with these guys. I love that the soldiers and interviewees are kept anonymous so that it could be cut and paste with any soldier, regardless of origin. Hopefully the US blu ray release has its own documentary on the process of making this one. Not only for the colorization, but also the audio matching, frame speeds, stability, etc. Seeing how they accomplished everything should be very interesting! There was a half hour documentary about the making of the film, part of a BBC Four series (I think) called "What Do Artists Do All Day?", which was quite a good little look inside the essentials of making this film.

[bassman]

There was a half hour documentary about the making of the film, part of a BBC Four series (I think) called "What Do Artists Do All Day?", which was quite a good little look inside the essentials of making this film. Yeah, I’d seen you discussing it earlier in the thread, so I’m hoping it’ll be included. I watched the doc as a screening, so I’m not sure what will ultimately be on the R1 release.