We’re currently in the thick of awards season, and the coming weeks are sure to be packed with discussions over which actors, directors, and screenwriters most deserve to be honored for their work. Meanwhile, those toiling in the movie industry’s less sexy professions—the line producers, script supervisors, and key grips of the world—will probably have to watch their better-dressed brethren receive awards from the comfort of their own homes, or at best from a table near the bathroom way in the back of the hall.
This video sheds some light on one of those under-appreciated professions: film colorization. Post-production artists have been manipulating image color since filmmaking began, first by painting individual negatives by hand, then by treating them with chemicals, and finally by touching up digital images with computer programs. With the proliferation of digital cameras, the latter method has become increasingly popular. As the video below makes clear, a lot of raw, unedited digital footage has a washed-out look to it, but shooting it this way preserves a ton of information that can later be manipulated. This particular video is made up of before-and-after shots from indie horror flick The House On Pine Street, which was colored by Taylre Jones. It gives viewers a great idea of just how much work is done on an image between the time it’s shot and when it gets projected in a theater, and makes a compelling argument for seating the technical types a little closer to the stage.