Unbelievable. This image taken from the stern of a battleship during WWII is just as clear and sharp as some of the digital photos people are taking TODAY.

Here's the link: http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/us_navy/usstexas2

Thanks for this link; wonderful photos.

Hey, that's a great site! I've been writing a WWII screenplay for almost 5 years now. It's the longest project I've ever done...and it's going to take another few years I think. This site is great!

Thanks!

Cool, what is it about?

That's a great site, Nick -- thanks for sharing that link,

No problem. It got featured in USATODAY the other day. Didn't know how hot it would be until my host called and said it's time to pay up:)

Great pics. Reminds me of a series of films that were also shot in color during the war... very rare. We are so used to seeing black and white footage, we tend to 'remember' the war as being in black and white!


Of course the images are sharper than the current day digital images. Film still retains more resolution than digital images.

A bit of trivia... all of the existing film footage of the D-day invasion was shot by a single coast guard photographer. All of the other footage, fell overboard.

That is a terrific website, and coincidentally I have been looking for public domain war photos and films. Anybody know of other sites (aside from the Prelinger Archives)?

Getting back to your original comment, I actually think it should be the other way around! Today's digital cameras getting just about as sharp and clear as the 35mm film cameras (Leica, Zeiss, etc) available during WW II. :-)

Nick, you're the webmaster of that site? what's your interest in WWII? I have a major interested in it...and it seems like you've got a potential DVD for sale with public domain footage?

I'd love to get my hands on some liberation footage (ideally Paris 1944). Also, anything that could be used to project in a theater as a "news reel". You know those things they played at the beginning of the films in the WWII time period.

Hey Chris, this discussion has morphed into a topic that should probably be in the new forum. This is a "indie" film topic I'm dying to talk about!! Using photos and films in the public domain for an indie film production.

It's a topic which interests me as well. I also noticed the poll about the $50 DVD of public domain footage. Sign me up for one: I could use it right now :-)

Christopher: I assume you're aware of the Prelinger Archives? They have some newsreel type stuff there, and it's all free: http://www.archive.org/movies/movieslisting-browse.php?collection=prelinger&PHPSESSID=99101f892f42264c6e825293690cd9bf

<<<-- Originally posted by Christopher C. Murphy :

I'd love to get my hands on some liberation footage (ideally Paris 1944). Also, anything that could be used to project in a theater as a "news reel". You know those things they played at the beginning of the films in the WWII time period.
. -->>>

Chris,
I have a Liberation of Paris COLOR footage reel that I can dupe to MINIDV/DVD if you'd like. The quality and color is EXCELLENT. Hard to tell it was shot in the 1940s sometimes.

Thanks for your interest guys. I have over 10+ master copies of WWII footage ALL IN COLOR on MINIDV. The History Channel has used a few of them, but most of the footage was either too graphic OR violent for airing. Also, some of this footage was recently discovered just a year ago. I also have hundreds of Super Hi-Rez public doman WWII color photographs. On my website, you just see a selection. Not all of the images on my website are in the public domain, many are on loan. I am currently in the photo research stage and am trying to determine their PD status, but I do have some that are definitely in the PD.

With the explosive popularity of the site (as mentioned, it was picked up by USA TODAY and now Scholastic Books wants to re-print some photos), I am experiencing severe server outtages and will need to upgrade to a more capable server soon.

I am thinking of compiling the PD images and color footage reels onto a DVD/MiniDV/VHS (whatever you want) to help pay for the server costs. Each of the 10 full-screen color movies are crystal clear with vibrant colors and are about 20minutes each and I am thinking of putting 2 movies on one DVD that you can rip for your own productions. Remember, you can have copies made from professional stock houses like buyoutfootage.com, getty, etc but they will charge you over $300 for 1 movie!!

SOme of the PD images that I have in my gallery can also be found on the web (National Archives, etc), however, you will have to sift through over 70,000 images to find the color ones as the libraries do not categorize the photos that are in color.

A museum in France is currently sending me all of their PD photos that are in color. They show the London Blitz, D-Day, Normandy invasion and much more. Some of this stuff is absolutely stunning.

I will posting a gallery page of the movie clips shortly. Send me an email if you are interested in some of this stuff.

email: skunker@gmail.com

"I am thinking of compiling the PD images and color footage reels onto a DVD/MiniDV/VHS (whatever you want) to help pay for the server costs."

Nick, I recommend you pursue this. I can think of several people who would pay for that kind of thing.

Please post here when/if you decide to go forward & pricing &c.

Wow.... that's a really fascinating site. The German Military photos are especially interesting.

This picture sent shivers down my spine:

http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/germans/apa?full=1

I was there about 3 years ago, and to see the Brandenburg gate lined with Nazi flags and those giant swastika pillars....... it's just something else.

Geez, this thread is awesome! It's so cool to talk with others that have interest in the same topic - that encompasses film too!

Nick,
I am very, very interested in that footage!! However, I'd like to get it in the highest resolution possible - mini-dv is lossy. If I could get it uncompressed on DVD that would be ideal - and I don't mean burned via MPEG-2. I'm talking uncompressed data - in whatever high res format you can keep it at. In short, I want to use it in my movie. The current idea I have is to have it playing on a very tiny old television and the actor is looking at the screen and then we move the camera from behind the actor and follow him over to the window where he looks out and sees what's actually happening in the streets. I still need to research a lot of the details on that Paris liberation scene - like did they even have any television anywhere? I don't think they did at the time, so my other idea for the footage is to have it playing in a theater back in the US with other actors in the movie. Without knowing the story it's hard to explain, but trust me it's pretty cool.

Also, another thing I desperately looking for - film footage of anything that includes Hitler and the topic of his "art". I'm looking for anything regarding the plundering of art in Europe during WWII. The Hitler footage regarding his desire to steal all the art in Europe and make just one museum in Germany...anything about that. Also, if you have anything at all regarding he plundering of the art in Europe! There are two to three levels of my story that involve the plundering of art in WWII. It includes Paris as the base...the place where the art community is hiding art because the Nazi and Gestapo are trying to find certain things. They're also destroying entire eras of art because it was deemed useless or not something Hilter liked. (insane!) So, anyway...anything at all regarding the art of WWII. I could go on and on about this, but I'll just say that any WWII footage you got I'm interested in! Wait, before I forget...anything regarding the French Resistance and all of that type of stuff.

I know we're in our own current WWII experience right now in the world. But, I think WWII is absolutely amazing...for many reasons. It bums me out that the last of the Vets are dying right now. But, at least WWII was the start of film documentation...we have footage and photos. Also, the stories of many men and women are definately archived now.

Boyd,
I am aware of the Prelinger archive - it's awesome. I've download a lot of stuff, but at this time I'd be into seeing some more unique and specific footage of WWII. Thanks for the info!!

Brent,
Something about the Nazi party is awesome and I don't mean that like awesome cool. I mean large, grand and so calculated and sinister. It's truly a force of evil and definately something everyone should look at and study to some extent to see how humans can evolve into evil creatures. It didn't take much to spur the Nazi party - a few determinded men and a little time. The next thing you know it's a regime that almost took over the world. I know people think that the Nazi's weren't in the US, but they were planning on world domination. They almost did it...very, very close. The most interested part of the whole thing for me....propaganda via photos, film and print. If you look at that aspect alone it's truly amazing how they build so much based on the audio/visual elements available to them. Before the Nazi regime you could not build momentum like that with word of mouth and newspapers. The "Triumph of the Will" film was the start of something amazingly good and evil at the same time. The desemination of information on a large scale - it's truly shocking what happened because of the sheer hysteria that Hitler caused with his actions on film. He looked huge, sounded big and he acted like a God....all together it mesmorized most of the people who see him. Luckily, not every single person got sucked in...and maybe people saw it for what it really was. The scary thing was how many people got lost in his message!

About a week ago, there was a special on PBS, about some films that were 'discovered' recently. Most were shot by the local Amateur filmmakers club in Berlin. A lot of the footage concerned a big festival they were having. They screened the footage, and had some of the original 'youth' who were in the footage and parade watching it, and commenting on it. They too... were blown away seeing it in color.

Seeing forgotten images on film is always a shock. A couple of years ago, I got to review old 8mm footage of my childhood, that were captured by an uncle. (WE were too poor to ever afford a film camera.) I was astonished to see the color and clarity of these 8mm movies, shot... yes forty to fifty years ago.

My grandfather was ahead of his time...shot on film and then later on video. The film from the 60's - 80's looks amazing. Of course, when he bought a video camera because of the cost savings the quality of the image went way down. But, there was the added benefit of audio! So, it's a trade off..

Does anyone know how they recorded audio back in the WWII films? I have several that have fantastic audio and I am surprised at the bass level in some of them (the booms of the cannons, for example, sound great). Was this done in post-production?

Nick, the vast majority of WWII combat footage was shot silent... most all combat cameramen were using small, portable 35mm and 16mm cameras such as the spring-wound Bell & Howell DR70. It's always interesting to me when I see aerial combat footage from wing-mounted gunnery cameras, as all of those were silent. Yet whenever you see them today, they all seem to have audio, indicating a lot of postproduction.

Regarding your original topic, I think the reason this material looks so remarkable now is due to finally having access to near-first generation prints and film. So much of what we've seen from the '60's through the '80's has suffered through who knows how much generation loss, and we're only aware of that now as a result of finally seeing the original or very close to the original material. If I remember correctly there was a moratorium on a lot of the color footage and prints that prevented their public release until relatively recently... something about the government's perceived notion that this stuff was "too real" and had to be witheld from public view until a couple of generations after it was all over. After all, WWII was the single most significant event of the 20th century and it changed the course of global events forever. The Cold War, the question of nuclear arms, world politics, technology, just about every major issue on the planet has its roots in or was a direct result of WWII.

From the post-war era up until recent times, our collective perception of the WWII experience has been painted by the fuzziness of black and white images and the near-comic book quality of color images. Combined with the passage of time, that distorted and deliberately controlled release of WWII images has created a buffer between what was real and what is public perception. We've always been aware of WWII but it's never been very tangible, until now. Maybe I'm stretching the argument just a bit, but I think the previous "fuzz factor" that has enveloped the body of available WWII images in our recent past was orchestrated as a reaction to fear. World War Two was an incredibly fearful event on a global scale, immediately followed by a much more subtle but equally fearful event, the Cold War. Releasing only "fuzzy" images of WWII was part of the process of putting it behind us. Now that most of our WWII vets are (sadly) passing on, and now that the Cold War is over, it has been deemed "safe" to reveal the true clarity of those images. At least, that's my own take on it. Maybe I'm nuts, but that's the way I'm reading it.

Chris, what a fantastic response. Thanks.

"Unbelievable. This image taken from the stern of a battleship during WWII is just as clear and sharp as some of the digital photos people are taking TODAY."

I'm also surprised when I see some 'old' photos - sometimes flicks too - the quality is astonishing! Truth is, digital hasn't surpassed the film yet. Of course it will quite soon.

But it's nice to know that many sterling images survive.. we look at them and think: how could that moment have been captured more authentically? It couldn't have been, even with superior quality, because the camera was of the time too. Blah..

Heh, to nit pick, that's the bow of the ship, you can see the anchor chains. The stern, would be wider to accommodate a launcher for a Kingfisher seaplane and it's lifting crane.

If I remember correctly, Agfa was ahead of Kodak in color, but I'm not sure. Kodachrome came out in 1935, I believe that the rollfilm version was first and then 4x5 sheet film was available later. Kodak color negative film became available in 1941.

8x10 and 4x5 were the "professional" formats of choice and 35mm was considered "amateur". 120 was acceptable.

Some of the U.S. stuff, like the ship's bow may have been shot with a 4x5 Speed Graphic, so the image should be pretty sharp. The Speed graphic was the workhorse of the U.S. Army Signal Corps so a lot of stuff was shot on 4x5.

Combat photography was shot with 35mm rangefinder cameras as well as Graphlexes.

As Chris pointed out now that more than fifty years have passed a lot have of film and pictures have been de-classified, so we have access to original or prints within a generation or two of the original. Much of the color was considered "too emotional" to show to the public and was stored.

How about this: www.visuar.com/DVi/kristof.jpg

Look carefully in the back, yes, that's a re-enactment. The photo
was shot (and processed) by my good friend Kristof Indeherberge.

(photo has a copyright by Kristof Indeherberge, do not (re)distribute!)

Nick: I sent you an message at the gmail account you posted above: did you get it?

IF anyone is interested, I finally got this stuff organized, lol.

Please check out my link at: http://www.ww2incolor.com/chart.html

I too want to thank you for making this available. I have a couple of b/w fuzzy photos like Chris mentioned, of my father's Navy destroyer just after the conning tower was blown off by shore batteries off the coast of Okinawa.

Even in b/w, the images are still pretty graphic and what's more, is I have my father's narrative to go with them. I attended his ship reunion last May and it was a very emotional experience.

-gb-

Are these computer processed to enhance them?

Are these computer processed to enhance them?

No, they are straight from the government archives. I did, however, do a very slight color correction on the scanner so we know what color is accurate. The images have not been sharpened (this is so you the end user can have more control over the image).

Thanks.

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