"They Shall Not Grow Old" Peter Jackson's WWI film

[Riley Blue]

It brings home the horror of trench warfare far more than jerky, scratched, silent B/W footage ever can. An indication of its impact on the audience last night is that they were silent as they left; it is that powerful.

[Kinky]

They did a piece on this on the One Show last night, showing some wonderful clips, morphing from original clips to 'remastered'. Also interviewed Peter Jackson. I suspect it's part of the programme that the Beeb will show in November. A great 5+ mins of TV. Worth watching (as well as going to the cinema to watch)

[Wilksy288]

Wow, seeing a few of those clips on youtube it looks amazing. When will it be on the BBC? Wish i had heard of this before, would have definitely gone to the cinema to see it.

[Eric Mc]

Don't you follow PH?

It was flagged up a few weeks ago in this thread (5 October).

It was also covered by virtually all the UK news media over the past few weeks - especially by the BBC who have obviously part funded and produced it.

[Wilksy288]

I do indeed, however this must of slipped under my radar.

Hopefully it will be released on DVD in the future.

I wonder if they will start cleaning up the film from ww2 when that is 100 years old?

[Eric Mc]

I'm sure the project was not cheap or easy to do.

On the whole, I don't really like "colourisation" of old black and white film. This has been going on since the early 1980s and there have been a number of documentary series purporting to show colour footage - such as "World War 2 in Colour". The problem is these colourised films are usually not very well done with extremely rough, and mostly inaccurate, guesses as to what the colour actually was. They also tend to look very washed out and artificial.

Jackson has taken colourisation to a whole new level because of the time and effort he has put into it and, being Jackson, I am sure he has taken the utmost care to getting the colours as correct as possible. The smoothing out of the frame rate is amazing and really makes the film look like it was shot yesterday.

If anybody wanted to take on a colourisation project on World War 2 footage, I would only appreciate if it was done with the same care and attention as Jackson's film.

There is, of course, quite a lot of genuine colour film footage from World War 2.

[Riley Blue]

in the Q&A after the showing Peter Jackson said he'd had the budget for a 30 minute film but had managed to stretch it to over an hour (how is obvious when you view it but it doesn't detract from it). He also mentioned that he'd been given over a 100 hours of WW1 footage to work with so there's a possibility of further releases.
He hoped that the techniques employed: smoothing out the jerkiness (the original films were shot at anything from 12 frames per second to 18fps) to run at 24fps wasn't easy but it could be used on any historical film, not just war footage. Similarly the colourisation technique though he said that he felt adjusting the running speed had the biggest impact.
He also explained that he'd deliberately focussed on the trench war rather than include brief segments about the aerial war, Gallipoli, the war at sea, the contribution of Empire armies etc.

[Halmyre]

Riley Blue said:

in the Q&A after the showing Peter Jackson said he'd had the budget for a 30 minute film but had managed to stretch it to over an hour (how is obvious when you view it but it doesn't detract from it). He also mentioned that he'd been given over a 100 hours of WW1 footage to work with so there's a possibility of further releases.
He hoped that the techniques employed: smoothing out the jerkiness (the original films were shot at anything from 12 frames per second to 18fps) to run at 24fps wasn't easy but it could be used on any historical film, not just war footage. Similarly the colourisation technique though he said that he felt adjusting the running speed had the biggest impact.
He also explained that he'd deliberately focussed on the trench war rather than include brief segments about the aerial war, Gallipoli, the war at sea, the contribution of Empire armies etc.

BIB - I'm inclined to read that as Jackson not necessarily agreeing with the colourisation concept.

As well done as it is, it's still fake, 'prettification', and mainly done to cater for those who refuse to watch anything that's only in B&W.

[FourWheelDrift]

Plenty of WWI colour photos to help get the colours right as well as the surviving equipment around today. One thing that always stands out for me is how often it's a bright sunny day, something you don't imagine with the bleak conditions of trench warfare or recognise in dark B&W films and photos despite the obvious shadows. Just to add, it probably helped withe movie cameras of the day to film in brighter conditions.

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Wednesday 17th October 10:58

[yellowjack]

peterperkins said:

I hope they have poppy sellers at the cinema.

Nothing at the cinema I went to.

One very beautiful lady in a poppy themed dress, but not much in the way of poppy-wearing in general that I saw.

In fact, one couple came into the showing fairly close to kick-off carrying nachos, popcorn, and a bucket of drink with a straw in the top. Then he sat next to my wife. Her hand found mine, I got a squeeze and then "the look". Fortunately (for him) he finished stuffing his god-awful nachos down his fat head before the film started properly. And he seemed to have grasped the gravity of his error after a few minutes, because the slurping from his Tommy-Tippee sippy cup stopped and we were never troubled by the rustling of popcorn.

Aside from that one couple, the entire audience was pretty much silent for the entire film, such was the power of what we were watching.

I wasn't intending to stay to watch the Q&A at the end (I can't drive right now so needed to catch the last bus home). But after the film, my wife and I both decided to listen to Peter Jackson speak about making the film. Worth doing too, even if we had to catch a different bus and walk a mile in the dark from the closest stop to home.

It would be wrong to say I "enjoyed" this film, but I'm so glad I paid to see it on a cinema screen. Awesome, but in the traditional meaning of the word. So much more power in the images restored and (sympathetically) coloured than in their original form...

Riley Blue said:

It brings home the horror of trench warfare far more than jerky, scratched, silent B/W footage ever can. An indication of its impact on the audience last night is that they were silent as they left; it is that powerful.

I joined the army at the age of 17. By the age of 20 I was fighting a war. I have to say that in the past, I've viewed film from WW1 and felt detached from it. The jerky movements of the odd frame rates, and the scratchy, grainy quality of the 100 year old film placed the men in the film at a great distance from my experience. Then Peter Jackson comes along and does this, and I'm left feeling like these men were comrades in arms. Listening to him speak at the end, I felt the same as he did - that the biggest change had been to bring out the men's faces, to make them look like human beings again. The last people to see these images as we saw them last night were the men turning the handles on those early film cameras.

PJ also dealt with the lack of genuine combat footage really well, I thought. The whole thing was handled sensitively, even the images of the wounded, and the broken bodies of the dead. Millions were killed, after all, and to edit out the absolute horror would be wrong. We've been too cosseted by many documentaries we've seen in the past. They tend to show the 'staged' combat scenes where men just fall down, but still look like men. War isn't like that. Perhaps now they'll summon together the leaders of every nation in the UN, lock them in the debating chamber and make them sit through this film. That might actually be powerful enough to knock some sense into people in positions of power, and persuade them to sort their quarrels out without resorting to feeding their own citizens into the grinding mill...



...I hope everyone will see this film. And maybe when they've seen it,
people will actually "Remember Them" instead of mumbling along
with the chaplain without understanding what it is that they are actually
saying.

[dukeboy749r]

Halmyre said:

BIB - I'm inclined to read that as Jackson not necessarily agreeing with the colourisation concept.

As well done as it is, it's still fake, 'prettification', and mainly done to cater for those who refuse to watch anything that's only in B&W.

Actually, in an interview Jackson suggested he was pleased about the colourisation, as the original people saw it in colour and to be able to give modern audiences a sense of connection, it was better being presented like this

[yellowjack]

Halmyre said:

Riley Blue said:

in the Q&A after the showing Peter Jackson said he'd had the budget for a 30 minute film but had managed to stretch it to over an hour (how is obvious when you view it but it doesn't detract from it). He also mentioned that he'd been given over a 100 hours of WW1 footage to work with so there's a possibility of further releases.
He hoped that the techniques employed: smoothing out the jerkiness (the original films were shot at anything from 12 frames per second to 18fps) to run at 24fps wasn't easy but it could be used on any historical film, not just war footage. Similarly the colourisation technique though he said that he felt adjusting the running speed had the biggest impact.
He also explained that he'd deliberately focussed on the trench war rather than include brief segments about the aerial war, Gallipoli, the war at sea, the contribution of Empire armies etc.

BIB - I'm inclined to read that as Jackson not necessarily agreeing with the colourisation concept.

As well done as it is, it's still fake, 'prettification', and mainly done to cater for those who refuse to watch anything that's only in B&W.

In the Q&A after the film, PJ made it clear that by far the most expensive, and most time consuming element of making the film was the colourisation process. It took so much time, he explained, because it was done one element at a time, frame by frame. By contrast, much of the in-fill of "missing" frames to take the film from it's original frame rate(s) to 24 fps was computer-assisted. So once the original film is digitised, and then the grain 'smoothed' out and any scratches and damage repaired, the creation of a properly timed film that looks natural when shown at the modern frame rate is mostly achieved by computer assistance. He also said that the colourisation was done by an independent company. At the end he mentioned that a lot of the footage he'd been sent to reduce down to the film he made was sent back to the IWM archive restored and smoothed out (but still in black and white) at no charge. Jackson came across as a thoroughly nice bloke. Lots of family connections to WW1, so for him it was personal, and important that this film was done with respect. I think he achieved that, and then some. Although listening to him at the end I couldn't help but be worried about his health. He sounded quite wheezy, with laboured breathing at times.

I strongly disagree with the bit in bold too. Sorry, but there it is.

The fact is that we see our world in colour. Watching B&W film puts barriers up. It alters the way in which we interact with, and understand those events. Sympathetic colourisation like I saw in PJ's film doesn't "prettify" or "fake" anything. It just breaks down the barriers between us and the lives (and deaths) of ordinary men who marched off to Flanders' Fields full of hope that they'd be "home in time for Christmas".

ETA:

director Peter Jackson said:

“I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, so they can regain their humanity once more – rather than be seen only as Charlie Chaplin-type figures in the vintage archive film. By using our computing power to erase the technical limitations of 100 year cinema, we can see and hear the Great War as they experienced it.”

Job done, Sir!

Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 17th October 11:45

[LivingTheDream]

I've been trying to find a showing local and at a time that 1 can take my 12 year old to see it but proving difficult which is a great shame.

He's massively into military history and this feels it should be seen at the cinema but it looks like we'll have to wait til the BBC showing.

surprising nowhere is showing it at the weekends - only during the week and often during the day.

[Riley Blue]

yellowjack said:

Halmyre said:

Riley Blue said:

in the Q&A after the showing Peter Jackson said he'd had the budget for a 30 minute film but had managed to stretch it to over an hour (how is obvious when you view it but it doesn't detract from it). He also mentioned that he'd been given over a 100 hours of WW1 footage to work with so there's a possibility of further releases.
He hoped that the techniques employed: smoothing out the jerkiness (the original films were shot at anything from 12 frames per second to 18fps) to run at 24fps wasn't easy but it could be used on any historical film, not just war footage. Similarly the colourisation technique though he said that he felt adjusting the running speed had the biggest impact.
He also explained that he'd deliberately focussed on the trench war rather than include brief segments about the aerial war, Gallipoli, the war at sea, the contribution of Empire armies etc.

BIB - I'm inclined to read that as Jackson not necessarily agreeing with the colourisation concept.

As well done as it is, it's still fake, 'prettification', and mainly done to cater for those who refuse to watch anything that's only in B&W.

In the Q&A after the film, PJ made it clear that by far the most expensive, and most time consuming element of making the film was the colourisation process. It took so much time, he explained, because it was done one element at a time, frame by frame. By contrast, much of the in-fill of "missing" frames to take the film from it's original frame rate(s) to 24 fps was computer-assisted. So once the original film is digitised, and then the grain 'smoothed' out and any scratches and damage repaired, the creation of a properly timed film that looks natural when shown at the modern frame rate is mostly achieved by computer assistance. He also said that the colourisation was done by an independent company. At the end he mentioned that a lot of the footage he'd been sent to reduce down to the film he made was sent back to the IWM archive restored and smoothed out (but still in black and white) at no charge. Jackson came across as a thoroughly nice bloke. Lots of family connections to WW1, so for him it was personal, and important that this film was done with respect. I think he achieved that, and then some. Although listening to him at the end I couldn't help but be worried about his health. He sounded quite wheezy, with laboured breathing at times.

I strongly disagree with the bit in bold too. Sorry, but there it is.

The fact is that we see our world in colour. Watching B&W film puts barriers up. It alters the way in which we interact with, and understand those events. Sympathetic colourisation like I saw in PJ's film doesn't "prettify" or "fake" anything. It just breaks down the barriers between us and the lives (and deaths) of ordinary men who marched off to Flanders' Fields full of hope that they'd be "home in time for Christmas".

I disagree too. There was nothing 'fake' about the film, quite the opposite, it was far more realistic. After all, the men who fought saw it all in colour.

The comments from those who returned were very revealing; on recounting that he said hello to someone he knew, the reply to one ex-soldier was, "Haven't seen you for a while, thought you must have been on nights."

Possibly the most telling comments were those about the German soldiers: "Just lads like us."

[LoonyTunes]

On the TV in November? Cannot wait.

[Kinky]

Here's the One Show from last night. Fast forward to 13;14 to see the segment: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bn87gy/the...

They also said that it will be shown on the Beeb in November, and then will be available on iPlayer.

[ukaskew]

LivingTheDream said:

I've been trying to find a showing local and at a time that 1 can take my 12 year old to see it but proving difficult which is a great shame.

He's massively into military history and this feels it should be seen at the cinema but it looks like we'll have to wait til the BBC showing.

surprising nowhere is showing it at the weekends - only during the week and often during the day.

I think in most of the country it was a one-off screening at 6pm last night coupled with the Q&A to link in with the Film Festival screening, not an actual cinema release as such.

Picturehouse Cinemas (such as the Little Theatre in Bath) have a couple of extra screenings, i.e. it's on at 6pm in Bath next Monday.

[LoonyTunes]

Isn't it a 15 certificate?

[Androgynous]

LoonyTunes said:

On the TV in November? Cannot wait.

Me too, couldn't get to the local showing but this is on my must see list!

[LivingTheDream]

ukaskew said:

LivingTheDream said:

I've been trying to find a showing local and at a time that 1 can take my 12 year old to see it but proving difficult which is a great shame.

He's massively into military history and this feels it should be seen at the cinema but it looks like we'll have to wait til the BBC showing.

surprising nowhere is showing it at the weekends - only during the week and often during the day.

I think in most of the country it was a one-off screening at 6pm last night coupled with the Q&A to link in with the Film Festival screening, not an actual cinema release as such.

Picturehouse Cinemas (such as the Little Theatre in Bath) have a couple of extra screenings, i.e. it's on at 6pm in Bath next Monday.

There's quite a lot of smaller cinemas showing it over the next couple of weeks - I have found a sunday showing now - 1.5 hours drive away