On October 20th, Disney+ will be releasing a full color version of its Marvel Studios special “Werewolf By Night” which was originally released a year ago in black-and-white (but with the odd dash of color).
In the case of the new version here, it is much more than simply going back to the original filmed elements before they were black and white.
The film’s director Michael Giacchino recently sat down with Marvel.com to discuss the special’s re-release in the new colorized version and says the creative team wanted to achieve the right balance across the special.
As a result, the entire special underwent a new color timing pass with specific colors boosted and contrast adjusted on a scene-by-scene basis:
“You’re always thinking about, what are we accentuating here? You can boost every color, but that’s not really the answer. It’s about boosting certain colors, and it’s really a scene-by-scene choice that you have to make.
It’s not just a global thing that you can put a filter on and go, OK, it’s done. You must go in almost shot by shot. We spent a lot of time in a dark room at Disney looking at every single shot, one by one, and going, you know what? That’s great, but maybe a little more contrast and push the red a little bit.”
He says the process was “a lot more intensive than I thought it would be”. As the special was shot on film, they had to scan it back in and adjust it without losing the look of the film which “was very important to me”.
He’s happy with the results: “We were able to match it in a way that really surpassed anything I had hoped for. I was happy with it.” He adds he’d love to release it in cinemas in 3D at some point.
