Dorothy Enters Technicolor – UPDATED WITH THE SOLUTION – IOTW Report

Dorothy Enters Technicolor – UPDATED WITH THE SOLUTION

Thursday, 2 August 2018, 23:00 BFH Uncategorized 41

Okay. Here is the answer to how they pulled this feat off in 1939. (We had a number of people who either knew or figured it out.)

They painted everything in the room sepia. A body double for Dorothy wore all sepia and wore a black wig. They even had a double for Toto (a black dog.)

The door swung open and the doubles stepped out of frame, and the colorfully dressed Judy Garland stepped into the frame with the real Toto into the color set.

Pretty neat. Watch again and you can tell that this is how it was done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Today I learned how they did the transition scene from sepia to color back in 1939. Remember, they didn’t have too many sophisticated filming techniques.

So, how do you think they pulled it off? If you know for sure how they did it, don’t spoil it for the guessers.

 

41 Comments on Dorothy Enters Technicolor – UPDATED WITH THE SOLUTION

  3. It was pitch dark inside the house and there was only a dim light before she went outside? Never thought about it before. I grew up on this annual movie and watched it in B&W only until I was an adult.

    14

  5. A double for Garland was dressed in a black and white dress. She opens the door, steps off to the left and hands the dog to Garland, dressed in a color outfit, who steps in.

    9

  6. Most people don’t realize this, but the whole world was black and white prior to 1939.
    You can tell that by looking at all the old photographs, movies, newsreels, etc. Artists did paintings in color, of course, but that was only due to the high cost of B&W paint. Anyway, the cameraman for the movie, in a fantastic stroke of luck, just happened to be filming at the time the transition to color occurred. The effect worked so well for the story line that they decided not to go back and reshoot the beginning to match. Fortunately, they had already filmed the ending scenes when everything was B&W so that worked out perfectly, too.

    And now you know.

    P.S. – I hope this hasn’t been too much of a “spoiler” for those who weren’t aware of it.

    50

  9. Was it done in the same way movie makers would show actors *walking* down a city street or a country lane (when there wasn’t a street or lane)? Would they have simply screened the colorful land of OZ and inserted it into the opening of the door part? Not sure how they would have done that part.

    2

  10. Is it a technique called transitional splicing? You have to give it to Hollywood’s special effects crew for what they were able to accomplish considering what they had to work with.

    4

  20. When she opened the door, the color image was on a screen outside the door. When it filled the whole scene, they spliced the color film in for the rest of the movie. When Dorothy walks into the color scene, she is in color, too.

    It was a pretty good splice, if that was it.

    Now, I’ll read everyone else’s guesses.

    Oh, by the way. We always had B&W TV until I was about 14. When I first saw that scene in color, I audibly gasped. I never knew it was in color!

    Edit: I just realized that my idea is stupid. If the screen outside the door is color, then the film in the camera had to be color for it to show. Then the rest of the scene wouldn’t have been in sepia.

    So, never mind.

    4

  21. Claudia, yeah! It was always a big yearly TV event. The parents always said the second half was actually in color. My dad built a Heathkit color TV and we had the neighborhood over to watch it. Good stuff.

    4

  22. To a Republican this is Trumpian, MAGA.
    To a Democrat it is: “transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”

    5

  23. Today at 10:50 AM EST on MSNBC
    33 Mins Ago
    “The videos come from a fast growing right wing internet community called Q-Anon. It pushes false allegations that a child sex ring is being run by Hollywood celebreties and Democratic politicians. All of this uncovered by NBCNEWS.COM.”

    ♪ NBC ♪

    2

  30. I’m with grool. I’m in VFX and that’s what I’d want to do, but my bosses would shoot the whole scene in color and have us digitally change the inside to sepia using roto mattes. My boss’ way would be the most cost effective in present day.

    3

  32. Vietvet, I used to tell my kids that the world was all in b&w until Dorothy stepped thru the door into a world full of color. They believed it for a long time until they figured out I was telling them a tall tale. And at the end when she steps back into b&w that was it, the world had lost color again until the Wizard of Oz or some other genius found a way for the world to be in color all the time. I’ll probably tell my 2 little granddaughters the same thing, I love it when they think I know everything and it’s fun to bamboozle them for a while.

    7

  35. So made me look, made me look. Had to go to the Google book. One answer I found was that each frame of the film was hand tinted. Sounds crazy, but thousands of cartoon celluloids were hand painted for each cartoons.
    I still await the reveal, oh, Mr. Fur Hat!

  40. What about that? I just thought about what would be the easiest way to do it with what they had to work with at the time.

    No, I didn’t cheat, just got lucky.

Comments are closed.

iOTWreport.com ©2024 ----- iOTWreport is not responsible for the content of comments. All opinions in comments are solely the commenter's.