black and white clip in "Alice in Wonderland"

[GCFyouthcamper]

In "Alice in Wonderland," everything loses color for about two seconds exactly when the Mad Hatter smashes the "mad" watch. Why? I've always wondered about this. Even in remastered editions, it is still there. Does anybody know why?

 

[Dr.Pepper]

Oh yeah, same here. I remember I had it on recorded video when I was younger and I thought it was just something wrong with the tape, until I got it on DVD that is...

 

[DarthGonzo]

In "Alice in Wonderland," everything loses color for about two seconds exactly when the Mad Hatter smashes the "mad" watch. Why? I've always wondered about this. Even in remastered editions, it is still there. Does anybody know why?

Dramatic effect.

 

[Mini Garbonzo]

Dramatic effect.

That's what I thought too, but I noticed how almost right after it turns to black and white, it goes back to color. There's something a bit off timing there in the dramatic effect, but I guess that's probably what it was intended for.

 

[GCFyouthcamper]

Dramatic effect.

That's it? I guess after pondering this for years, I was hoping for more. If that is the case, it should have stayed black and white a little longer. It was really fast. Either way, I can accept that.

 

[EJLD4Ever]

Here's one theory---the film was released about a year before Eastman colour negative existed. The Technicolor process, used theretofore, used a B&W negative to record the values of red, green and blue, separately, which was later used to make dye-transfer colour prints.

When the Eastman process was introduced, the original 3-colour successive-exposure negative was transferred to Eastman stock in order to keep the 3 colour records in proper allignment, which would otherwise be lost as the successive-exposure negatives naturally expand and contract with age. This labour-intensive process involved making a positive print of the SE neg, and triple-exposing every frame of the raw Eastman stock on an optical printer---once through a red filter, then again through a green filter, and finally through a blue filter.

The B&W segment comes from error, as the printer operators probably forgot to put the filters in front of the lens of the "camera" half of the printer.

Just a theory!

 

[JerryvonKramer]

I always wondered about this too. It was the same on my old VHS copy.