Quotulatiousness

January 24, 2018

Peter Jackson to bring modern digital technology to bear on IWM film footage of the Great War

Filed under: Britain, History, Media, Military, WW1 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Elizabeth sent me a link to this Daily Mail article on Peter Jackson’s new project:

When you think of First World War footage, chances are you conjure up grainy images of soldiers and jumpy footage of the trenches.

But a new 3D film by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is set to bring the conflict to life in a way never seen before.

The Oscar-winner has restored and colourised 100-year-old footage from the Imperial War Museum’s vast archive, and early photos suggest the results will be remarkable.

One comparison shot shows the dramatic transformation from poor quality black-and-white scenes to clear colour images, while another shows the radically sharpened faces of our troops.

Jackson said he hoped the film, which will premiere at the BFI London Film Festival before airing on BBC1 later this year, will help audiences better connect ‘with the events on screen’.

Explaining the painstaking process of restoring the footage, he said: ‘We started to do some experiments and I was honestly stunned by the results we were getting. We all know what First World War footage looks like.

‘It’s sped up, it’s fast, like Charlie Chaplin, grainy, jumpy, scratchy, and it immediately blocks you from actually connecting with the events on screen.

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