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psymunn t1_j1xwqoa wrote

Reply to comment by Ground2ChairMissile in In Return to Oz (1985) the nightmare fueled sequel to the Wizard of Oz, why do so many of the characters look completely different from the first film? by ilovemychickens

It's a great movie to showcase color too. While the book doesn't explicitly have Kansas be black and white, they make a lot of mention of how grey everything is, and all the lands Dorothy visits are very focused on color; the Emerald city especially. They didn't call it out as explicitly in the movie but it's definitely a great inspiration

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luuummoooxdadwarf t1_j1yy3jv wrote

Fun fact, and as a Kansan I can confirm, back then the film was all filmed in color, in Oz and in Kansas, but the state just sucked the color out of everyone that entered.

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TheJonnieP t1_j21627x wrote

As someone who grew up in Kansas I can concur...

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bigdipper80 t1_j217nhc wrote

Wichita is pretty great. I've always enjoyed my time there.

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TheJonnieP t1_j21hski wrote

My kids like to go to Wichita to the zoo and science center.

I grew up in the SE corner in a small town called Mulberry. It was a nice place to grow up back in the 70's and 80's.

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Corno4825 t1_j1zngko wrote

That means that Kansas in the black hole of the US, which means that the Rocky and Appalachian Mountain ranges are the butt bones of America.

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Awdayshus t1_j1yzs2w wrote

In the original movie, when Dorothy first opens the door and sees everything in color, the whole shot is done on color film. They painted everything inside the house to match how it looked on black and white film so the camera can slowly move through the doorway and reveal the colors.

Even Dorothy transitions to color in this scene. Her double crosses in front of the camera in a black and white gingham dress, and then Judy Garland steps out of the house in her iconic blue dress.

Edit: could be Judy in sepia and her double stepping out in color. The point is that they filmed it that way. It's not a trick they did in post-production.

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VT_Squire t1_j21salz wrote

I don't know if it's written in stone anywhere, but a quick review of the scene looks like it's the inverse of what you're saying.

To me, it looks as follows:

Shot 1: Judy was in Sepia. Part of her face was showing in that shot (albeit with a creative use of bad lighting), her double in color stepped out, but as a view from behind, obscuring her face.

Shot 2: A head-shot of Judy as Dorothy from the reverse angle was spliced in to show that it was her. But... oh look, her hands moved. Clearly, this was a distinct shot. I would expect a multiple-camera setup for a shot like this to preserve continuity, which begs the question of why a whole separate take with continuity errors was leaned on in order to accomplish the effect if that was actually Judy who stepped out in color.

Shot 3: A continuation of shot 1 (the hand placement and camera position are exactly where you'd project them to be with approx 1/2 second of missing film in between) but the face of the "color" version of Dorothy is again obscured. There is a creative use of foreground and a long-drawn out take (misdirection) until Judy's double is sufficiently far from the lens so as to be obscured via good old-fashioned limitations of focal length.

Shot 4: As before, definitely not from a continuous take, begging the same question as before.

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Awdayshus t1_j21tch1 wrote

I am talking about the single shot from 0:50-1:01 in this clip: https://youtu.be/YWFHeDcVNiw

Everything before that is shot in black and white/sepia. At 0:50, it's in color, but the inside of the house is painted sepia. Her extra opens the door dressed in sepia and leaves the frame. Then Garland walks through the door in color. The camera doesn't cut until the reverse angle at 1:01.

Edit: Now I realize you're just saying Judy opens the door and her double steps out. That could be. My point is that the very first shot with color out the door was shot practically. It's not two shots spliced together or color added or subtracted in post-production. They made the transition from sepia to color with some tricks while they were filming.

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VT_Squire t1_j23bzwi wrote

Holy crud... Her body double is still alive at 103 yrs old.

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BitchStewie_ t1_j207lns wrote

Can confirm, I've driven through Kansas and it gets black and white as soon as you hit the border. It was a weird transition driving west, you get color in Missouri, black and white in Kansas, then back to color once you hit OK or CO.

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DavefromKS t1_j20qemn wrote

Also can confirm. As a Kansan i am rendered in black and white.

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Witetrashman t1_j1zxga1 wrote

The book actually does describe Kansas as a grey place. Here’s an interesting article exploring the use of color in the book: “Within the first chapter of the novel, the reader is exposed to the very dull and gray depiction of Kansas. On one page alone, the author describes the gray prairies of Kansas and the gray house where Dorothy resides. He continues on to state that even the sky and grass, which are universally known to be colorful symbols of life, are gray in Kansas.”

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psymunn t1_j203qp3 wrote

Yep. Also when she returns at the end of the book, things are imbued with color

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