A multi-coloured history

Like most people who saw the green-tinged version of Casablanca in the 1980s, I've always treated colourised versions of old films with extreme caution, and have been happy enough with the glorious tones of pure black and white.

But colorising technology has come so far - they can actually look at a lot of old film, and find information for the proper color encoded in the actual film stock (I don't really understand it, it sounds like magic to me - I read a whole article in Doctor Who Magazine about it, and it all sailed right over my head). And new tech can also mess with the timing of the filmed sequences, smoothing it out and getting rid of the herky-jerky motions of old film, so it can look like it was filmed yesterday.

And I just can't get enough of all the colorised films that you can see now. And not just the World War 2 stuff, where nearly every piece of footage ever shot has been given that kaleidoscopic treatment for new series, but footage from the First World War, and even earlier into the Victorian era, where camera technology was still being figured out.

Looking back at this newly enhanced footage, at people going about their business a century ago, can be absolutely captivating. It's not the same as a recent obsession with looking at old photos of places where I grew up, because this is all about the people in the images, and the lives they once lived.

This footage may look like it was shot yesterday, but these subjects are all long gone. And yet, they're still there on film, looking as real and alive as the people you pass on the street every day.