I want to experiment with film colourisation techniques inspired by the early hand colourised film La Voyage Dans La Lune. The early analog "technology" and thatrical style gives the film a truly bizarre and surreal quality, the colours being especially vibrant, even garish. I thought there could potentially be an interesting parallel between the artificial colourisation of film, and Fanny Cradocks artificial "colourisation" of herself, or her character. Anthother entertaining link is Fanny's infamous use of food colourings in food such as mashed potatoes for no apparent reason other than an "attractive pale green colour" (image below from her recipe magazine partwork: The Fanny and Johnnie Cradock Cookery Programme)
If I had access to school facilities I may have even been able to experiment with colourisation of physical film reels, perhaps using food colouring in place of inks or watercolours to replicate traditional processes. The aesthetic style of film colourising is often different to the style of colourisation editing I have previously researched in food photography, often retouching an already true colour image (See image below). The overlay of coloured washes onto black and white photos or film has an "antique" look that is associated more with victorian/ Edwardian Photography- something that is not entirely relevant to my research, but could still provide intriguing results.
the colourisation or re-mastering of footage is also made significant by the loss of most of Fanny's television archive, including most of
the programmes she recorded in colour (such as "colourful cookery" which only exists as a black and white recipe/ guide booklet) In colouring an existing recording, I can imagine and exaggerate what these lost colour recordings could have looked like. I may return to the episode "Fanny Cradock invites you to a cheese and wine party" for this process due to my interest in its stylised intro animation, and the elaborate setting which may allow for an even more intense, garish look. Colourisation is also implicated in honesty and deception within film and photography. As Fanny Cradock was said to be a dishonest and inconsistent persona, an overblown rendition of her colour TV image seems appropriate.
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