Vancouver’s Rumble Dog Pictures has just colourized four minutes of Kevin Smith‘s seminal 1994 feature “Clerks.”

I get it; we have the technology so why not “update” black and white footage into colour? I can think of three good reasons.

First, especially for analogue movies, the filmmaker chose to shoot black and white stock for a reason. Most probably for money: colour film stock and developing costs a lot more. To colourize an old movie is a decision that should be left to the original director.

Second, the choice of black and white may be very deliberate. In this short film, I made an aesthetic choice to mimic German Expressionism.This was actually shot in colour but finished as a black and white film.

Third, colour demands more attention to art direction, wardrobe, etc. If you’re shooting a short film in a day, you can make your life much easier if you decide it’s going to be in black and white. Plus, it makes it stand out from all the other films shot that day!

For these reasons, I think black and white films should be left as is. Unless the director is part of the project.

My take: Hey Rumble Dog, what colour is Rosebud?