Man Of Steel had a lot of problems. One of them was how dark the coloring was. “Superman”‘s outfit is usually really dark, part of the attempt to turn Superman into Batman. A group called VideoLab decided to mess with that, taking a few scenes from the movie and giving them a much-needed recolor.
The video isn’t without controversy. Furious Fanboys writer Jeremy Conrad called them out, claiming they darkened the original footage. If they did and then posted frames that show if VideoLab did as he claims, it wasn’t by much. Limited sunlight and darker colors has been one of my complaints since the first images came out. If anything I think they lightened the behind-the-scenes footage to make the original costume appear to have brighter colors based on what we were shown. As for any other controversy, VideoLab addressed that after the video went viral.
Hi, everybody. We wanted to quickly thank everyone for their support of our video, as well as make a few important points regarding its reception.
When we watched the colorized shots from the film with Hans Zimmer’s powerful score, it gave us chills. Our intention was to share that love with maybe 10,000 like-minded Superman fans. Instead, the video went viral.
When a video goes viral, we tend to assume some maliciousness on part of the creator, as if it was a perfectly executed social networking master plan of self-promotion. The truth is that viral videos only happen one way — by accident. There’s no formula or everyone would do it. A perfect storm of 7-8 unlikely things propelled this video way beyond its intended sphere of influence.
“What if Man of Steel was in Color” is a comedy video. If the title didn’t give it away, the fact we stop our comparisons every 5 seconds for a dumb joke should have. It’s not a lesson on color grading. It’s not a hit piece against DC. It’s not, ‘Look at us, we ‘fixed’ the movie.” It’s not an insider expose on the inner workings of corporate filmmaking.
It’s a 3 minute youtube video intended to get a few laughs and maybe shed some light on the importance of color grading for those outside of film & video production.
We’re video editors and motion graphics designers, not professional film colorists. We stand by the editing and graphics as being pretty solid for something that largely came together in a couple days. However, we won’t defend the color grading because we know it isn’t good. You CAN’T put back color once it’s gone. It’s an approximation. Plus, a film isn’t just a collection of pretty shots, it’s is a 2-hour experience and decisions like tone & color grading should only be considered in that context.
Given the widespread distribution of the video, we have some regrets. Using the term “restoration” implies there was something wrong with the film, which is unfair. We also deeply regret if the video offended anyone involved in the production of these films because we love DC movies and will be first in line for every single one of their upcoming films.
The video received exponentially more attention than it probably deserved and was not designed to stand up to the level of scrutiny it is receiving. When you put a video on the internet, that is your choice. We both deserve and invite the criticism along with the goodwill. However, no one in their right mind would ever anticipate their fist youtube video getting a million views in one day.
Don’t mistake a goofy entertainment video for something more. It’s a silly and somewhat misleading opinion piece that’s being analyzed through a lens of legitimacy it does not deserve or warrant. The fact this video is so popular should serve as a testament to Man of Steel, not to us.
It’s a great time to be alive for comic fans. No one wants these movies to be great more than us and DC has some incredible things in store for us over the next few years.
Whatever the video was intended to be or what was done to what, I like their colors better. It felt more like a Superman movie. Now if they could fix the writing…..
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