“Pleasantville” might be one of the most unique movies of the 90s, but giving it its fascinating look was no small task. This fantastic video goes behind the scenes of making the film.
If you have not seen “Pleasantville” before, I will not ruin it for you, but the basic premise is that a modern brother and sister are magically transported into the black and white world of an overly idealistic 1950s television show, where different people and objects begin to turn full color as they discover, grapple with, and embrace the realities of actual life. It is one of the rare and impressive uses of selective color in film. As such, the majority of the movie is partially in black and white, partially in color, and as you might imagine, it was a tremendously tedious task to desaturate only parts of the frame across the film (which totaled approximately 163,000 frames), particularly in 1998, when computers were far less powerful than they were today (in fact, they only worked on the film in 2K). Still, the results seem to have been worth it, as the film holds an 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is generally regarded quite highly. Check out the video above to go behind the scenes (and give the film a watch if you haven’t seen it)!