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there's tons of videos on Youtube that are colorized versions of actual street footage from the early twentieth century. I watched a few of them and of course now Youtube constantly wants to show me more. It's funny seeing how people stared at the camera in those days like it just dropped down from Mars.
The best footage is from the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. The WWI documentary by Peter Jackson. He spent hundreds of hours fixing the frame speed so that the people were moving in real time and not at that weird accelerated pace. He also did color studies with authentic materials at the sites during the correct seasons and weather conditions to get the colorization just right.
also the voice acting! they somehow managed to figure out where the guys in the footage came from and got people from that area to dub over the images. it's such a good film and the change from black and white with the images surrounded by black corners to full screen color images with sound is just... cinema
Wow that's really awesome. It's nice seeing so much out into an old film.
I can't wait till someone has the resources to throw the latest AI tech at enhancing all old WW 1 WW 2 footage
also the voice acting! they somehow managed to figure out where the guys in the footage came from and got people from that area to dub over the images. it's such a good film and the change from black and white with the images surrounded by black corners to full screen color images with sound is just... cinema
So many have bad auto-colourising and some, fake audio.
This clip has bonus shitty upscaling.
It's funny seeing how people stared at the camera in those days
My theory has always been that they're staring because early motion picture cameras were noisy and hand-cranked, so the photographers must have looked pretty ridiculous out on the street.
Link?
Youtube.com
just put "colorized" in youtube and you'll quickly start to find old street footage.
Search on YouTube "Paris 1920's footage" you'll see tons of similar ones.
Moderator removed comment
1.9y
I always think when I see videos like that, they are ALL dead. Every single one of them.
Such things remind us that in next 100-120 years, we will be all dead as well. I mean, it's not about being morbid, it just gives a higher perspective, and liberating one.
I love thinking about the digital wasteland we'll leave behind.
Yeah, interesting thought. In a way, we are the first generation to be massively exposed forever - if our data will survive first decades after our death until data volume will become completely irrelevant (cheap to keep).
You have no idea how much has already been lost, aint nobody gonna be looking at your facebook in 100 years.
This. People don't even know how much data has been lost because they don't care. Forget 100 years, how many people go back to check forums from 2000s? And look at profiles of random strangers? The servers that hold these data could vanish tomorrow and most people would never notice
Yeah if you ask me this is going to be known as the informational dark ages long into the future. We're not preserving ANYTHING. Media from as little as 30 years ago, just gone.
What I think will be the main take away of this era by future observers: It’s like when cells first came together to make a colony, the successful cell colonies developed a mutual purpose and worked towards a goal, and made adaptions genetically to carry out these goals. I feel like the internet and humanity as a whole at the moment is a cell colony where all the cells are traveling in different directions. I think they will say “Humanity at this time period had no brain.”
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1.9y
Sadly, more like a spreading cancer.
Future people gone be like: "why so much porn?"
Data is continuously being produced at an increasing rate; so its not really a wasteland but a river flowing into the ocean... basically so much info no one will ever read it anyways when you are dead and gone
Unless it has specific relevance or cool enough to trend
Just made me realize we are not far from being in a world where nobody knows about pre-smartphone life.
"The fuck was wrong with these people"
And remember this, in a couple hundred years, no one will remember you or anyone else on this forum.
Even the children, all these people wandered out of frame and lived entire lives and died.
I always have the same though and yet here they still are. The amazing thing of film.
Definitely not inviting you to home movies night.
Is every single person in your home movies dead?! Are you Spider-Man?
And people in the year 2120 will be looking at old videos of you twerking and doing duck lips and wondering what the hell was wrong with people 100 years ago.
It’s going to be crazy in the future when everyone is watching all this content of dead people. We get little glimpses here and there when someone has early video tech out in public, but 100 years from now every piece of media made now and prior out there will be of dead people.
None of them are dead, theyre alive forever now.
As another comment said, you can find videos like this on YouTube. Rick88888888 is a channel with a lot of these video that was restored using AI. Can find other videos as well. Something I’ve enjoyed the past few years watching videos for the late 1800s / early 1900s. Something I’ve found  fascinating seeing into a window of time long gone.
some of the related ones Youtube has started showing me are interviews with really old people in the 1920's, and asking them about life growing up in the mid-1800's. There's one where they talked with a guy who rode in the pony express mail route. And many where they talk with people who were slaves and what that was like.
How did they get their hair so slick and shiny?
Brylcreem or petroleum based pomade, most likely.
is that essentially Vaseline at this point?
No. Murray's is much stiffer than Vaseline.
And Brylcreem is really not that greasy at all. I still use it and I use it BECAUSE it’s not greasy and doesn’t hold too firm.
..of course, I use an amount smaller than a dime; they’re likely using it much heavier.
I'm a Dapper Dan man, myself
I don't want no fop!
"Well ain't this place just a geographical oddity! Two weeks away from everywhere...I'll take the fop."
Brylcreem… a little dab’ll do ya… Brylcreem… you look so debonaire. Brylcreem… the girls’ll all pursue ya They’ll love to run their fingers through your hair.
Advertising 50s/60s style
And none of it is a lie. It’s the only thing my wife will let me use because she loves to be able to run her hands through my hair and she loves the scent. The scent is just so classic.
Yup I use the Bryl too. Still a good look.
And my Pomade is very water soluble. I have to make sure my hair and comb is dry before putting it on.
Any water and thwhip, it just slides ride off.
Murrays is the stuff that last forever because how little you need and how thick it is right? Someone said a small can could last years
Correct. I somehow missed the ladies with afros on the package and bought it for my white self. It really does last forever, and it holds like nothing else.
BRYLCREEM
CREATINE
AND A BAG OF CHARLIE SHEEN
I’m a Dapper Dan man damnit.
Well ain’t this place a geographical oddity!
Two weeks from everywhere!
Damn, we’re in a tight spot!
We thought you was a toad
I'm the damn paterfamilias!
Is you is, or is you ain't, my constitants?
Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?
I don't want fop goddamnit!
User deleted comment
1.9y
I don’t carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.
Get outta here!
We’re gonna R-U-N-N-O-F-T!
I’m the goddamn pater familias!
Pomade
Cheese and frog grease.
brava
Gore-Lah-Mee!
Don't shampoo, I'm not joking, I stopped shampooing and I can get my hair to look like that. Soap dries out your hair and scalp.
Curly girl method lol
I dated a girl with amazing curls and this is what she did. As soon as she washed her hair it became friztastic.
Less shampooing helps, but it gives a natural non-frizzy look. But one of those waiters' hair looks like a literal shiny plastic helmet, haha. And the man that walks in front of the camera right after we see the waiters-- it's so smooth and shiny it looks like his hair was spray-painted on.
Needless to say, that takes some product of some kind, a lot of product!
But one of those waiters' hair looks like a literal shiny plastic helmet
Part of that is the AI upscaling or whatever the algorithm it is they're using on the video to smooth it out.
Up to the point where my head then turns into a fake snow generator.
This is the recoloration software that gives this effect.
AI reconstruction software.
Yeah half those people looked like mechatronics
A fascinating glimpse back in time, capturing the spirit of the city.
I love that woman's hat and gloves and coat. That whole ensemble, from what I see.
she looks exactly like a Mondigliani painting
The way her eyeline lines up with her hat and her long thin nose ending in bold lips.
Art deco af
I was immediately struck by how incredibly on point her lipstick is. I can't manage that and I'm older than her with 21st century lipstick technology.
Check out Mo Welch or search for 1920's art deco paintings
Cloche hat. All the rage, don’t you know…
They all have the same noses.
There’s something strange about their faces. I wonder if it’s the film or the colorizing technique. Or they all just had that look!
I think maybe they used AI to enhance? The faces look cartoonish.
Probably not enough skin detail, so its oversmoothed. Looks like they are all wearing too much makeup.
It's probably the AI denoising. Denoising and upscaling can get these weird smooth artifacts.
No, no, everyone in 1920 Paris was made of wax
This is why I don’t really like AI enhancing of old video, at least in it’s current state - it just isn’t very realistic, and can give false impressions. For example, people’s faces being very smooth, or there being a lack of color in objects and buildings - both of which are just limitations of upscaling and colorizing technology.
It looks like they used something like Topaz VEAI with one of the Artemis AI models by the way the faces are distorted and with the loss of texture and the facial feature details 'smeared'.
1920 is 2 years after the end of the first world war. Plenty of "gueules-cassées" around.
I think it's called a Roman nose.
I thought so. I just admittedly don’t have a good sense of traditional French features. Seems like they have this too?
They are French, ever seen a profile of DeGaulle. Probably 1000s of years of breeding powerful noses 👃 lol
Dear god Parisians were cell shaded in the 20's.
The man in the grey suit with a stogey in his mouth has cauliflower ear! Wrestler or boxer? Guesses?
I noticed that right away also! I’d wager that he was involved in some sort of wrestling/grappling. The few pics of French wrestling champs from the 1920s I was able to find didn’t have any cauliflower ears so idk though
Could also be from the war that was just over
“Why are you wearing a tuxedo?”
“It’s after 7pm, Lemon. What am I, a farmer??”
Old men and very young men. They lost an entire generation of men in WWI
Yeah, was going to post you won’t find many dudes in their 20s or 30s in these videos.
I can read lips. They are saying "oui oui oui c'est tres magnifique oui oui"
“Yes that’s French they’re speaking, but no, these kids aren’t French, they’re American…”
Je suis la jeune fille!
That one waiter at the start with the folded arms looks like he’s totalling cynically about the camera to the other waiter lol
“Ah, it’ll never catch on!”
And here we are, a century later, watching him being wrong while sitting on the toilet.
Tbf the camera guy probably looked rediculous with a huge contraption and 3 men.
He looks so sketched out to me lol Like he’s worried the camera guy will steal his soul or something
Shooting in portrait mode long before it was annoying.
Normally I couldn’t care less, but in this case I’m mildly infuriated by the cropping. I want to see more than the narrow sliver we’re seeing here!
Edit: typo
So many layers. So much sweat.
Since polyester hadn’t been invented yet those suits were probably a lot more breathable than the ones we wear now
Yup. I was in 100 degree weather all week for work. Light merino wool sweaters and light weight wool pants were totally fine and anti-stink.
I found linen to be the ultimate summer fabric personally. In my mind, it's superior to anything else I've ever worn.
Absolutely worth the premium you pay.
I love wearing linen, but I hate ironing linen
I don't even bother. The wrinkles are part of the whole vibe, and they kinda sort themselves out through the day.
Drying on a hanger also helps. Let gravity deal with it.
Unless you want to make creases in your linen shorts/trousers for a sharper look, use a steamer. It takes barely any effort to ease out them wrinkles.
Have you ever tried linen sheets? Life-changing.
They're on the agenda. Pants and shirts are expensive, but bedding is on par with a small used car.
I'll treat.myself one day, and if the recent heatwave is anything to go by, it'll be sooner rather than later.
Always wool
It's almost like it evolved naturally to protect against the elements while being hygenic.
Might be 10 degrees C out 🤷♂️
looks like a cold day. people are in coats
Not really. I regularly wear a full suit even during the summer but it's made of natural materials that breathe.
There was a video on Reddit last week of a man dressed like this running beside a kid on a bicycle. Just please no, guy. And imagine no sneakers.
People were generally way less fat as well, which helps with the sweat
I don’t know how people did it tbh. I guess there were way fewer fat people but I can’t deal with being mildly warm let alone encased in wooly sweatsuits.
Linen was a thing, so was cotton.
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1.9y
Material can only go so far. I have to wear a suit 2-3ish days a week for work and almost all of mine are pretty nice natural materials. Anything high 70s or more is still pretty miserable, and I don't have nearly as many layers as these guys.
What kind of cut are you wearing? You'll want a more "baggy" cut with linen if you are trying to be as cool as possible. The bagginess keeps the sun's heat off of your skin and allows room for interior air flow. If you wear a more form fitting cut you have sun heated and wet cloth in direct contact with your skin, which defeats half of the purpose of a breathable material.
yeah I don't know what these people are talking about. I live in south Florida and once it's gets humid enough, even "breathable" tank tops get soaked with sweat.
Paris doesn’t get as humid as Florida though 🤷♀️
There's a reason Congress took summer recesses and it's because no one wanted to be in DC when it was hot. The invention of AC dramatically changed liveability in the South.
Every single one of those people give me this weird feeling. They look like the alien from Men In Black, the one where they press a button and the face opens and there's a little alien inside controlling them.
Maybe it’s upsampled using AI, which is kind of “filling in the blanks” giving an unnatural appearance.
It’s colorized for one thing
The original is grainy, so the algo smoothed that out. That's why they all look plastic.
yeah weird rubbery looking faces like they're under a mask.
It cause this is colored and upscaled by an algorythm, rubbery look is a side effect of that
Agreed. They look like they escaped from a madame Tussaud's exhibition.
Everybody in tuxedos just for their morning coffee love it hahaha
I'd love to hear what those two 'Captain of Industry' types were discussing at the end.
They're finishing up their 3 hour lunch break.
"First we take all the money then we blame it on the Jews"
"There's this young dude in Germany, real up and comer, got some nice ideas."
Serious Bakelite hair.
More than 100 years ago now…..i freekin love this!!
"did you hear about that Hitler guy?"
hE sAyS iT lIKe It Is
"I was...walking in Berlin the other day...greatest country in the world is in Berlin...annnnd I saw...some Jews....Juden they call them. And I heard so many people, and they're saying its their fault we lost the War. So many are saying it and its true. They hate this country and they're so Jewish and, frankly folks, I think we need a solution to the Jewish question."
"So many Jews. I walked in I said "Wow so many Jews.""
User deleted comment
1.9y
This is fascinating, but it's also two years after WW I ended, a devastating war that severely damaged France's economy and slaughtered nearly two million French people, out of a population of approximately 40 million at the time. It's rather astonishing to see a country recover so quickly and so comprehensively. I wonder what things looked like a little further off-camera.
Its crazy that most of the young men in this shot would more than likely have served during the war as well.
All you youngsters that are now used to olden-times footage looking this good: the AI to do this has not been around that long and these kinds of videos used to look like absolute dogshit. This stuff is amazing to me. It’s like a time machine.
The funny thing is that the original film would’ve looked far better than this does, when it was new, that is. Film has incredible detail. It’s the aging and improper care/storage that degrades the quality, unfortunately.
It’s also interesting to note that it was filmed in portrait resolution at the perfect aspect ratio for a smartphone and TikTok!
(I know it’s been cropped for social media. It’s annoying.)
I see Marylin Manson doesn't really age
How did everyone dress and look way better than we do 100 years later?
Everyone owned way fewer outfits. Clothing production was not quite as industrialized as it is now. So for those guys in suits, that’s like one of five total outfits that they own.
Also class and social structure was way more important. You wouldn’t want to dress casually like a laborer in public because you’d get treated like shit.
5 suits made you rich.
i highly prefer the freedom of going out with a simple tshirt over dress codes, that's what people thought as well when we all stopped wearing suits in our everyday life
Until we evolved into the Walmart crowd
There’s a middle ground. The pandemic shifted it closer to Wally World tho.
The pandemic shifted it closer to Wally World tho.
This. I've got a neighbor who now runs out to the store in ratty athletic shorts, an undershirt, Adidas flip flops, and a $50k watch... Its like across all demographics the line that used to exist between what you wear at home vs in public faded.
You can still dress this way if you please.
And then everyone at work will ask why you're so dressed up and if you have an interview later
I’d love to see the original version before it was cropped for TikTok
that lady at 10 seconds looks just like some minimalistic classic paintings of french women
The original video would be more interesting to me, but for some reason many people want to see the painted version that covers all the details.
Why is everyone being so snarky?
How are they being snarky? The waiter at the beginning looks like he is cynical of the camera but otherwise its just people at a cafe talking to each other, i really dont see what you mean
What is amazing is how little café culture has changed in Paris. When I visit I love sitting out on the sidewalk with a cup of coffee or glass of wine and just enjoying the ambiance of the city.
They’re all dead
Hmm, yes. This floor is made out of floor.
This is the first thought i always have watching old footage. Essentially its like watching ghosts. So eerie to me.
Then i wonder how all of their lives played out.
This is great! Really feels like a window to the past. Thanks for sharing!
The waiters don’t dress any different today.
Good lord the frame interpolation looks pretty bad ngl (still amazing footage)
All these “restored” (AI-upscaled) videos use 60fps, which makes no sense. Speed-adjusted but 24fps would be far more tasteful.
Bruh every time I see these videos and everyone wears a three piece suit, I just think if we all still dressed like this today I’d be fucking dead in this Florida weather, I’m soaked in a tank top and shorts in like 3 minutes. Kudos to the people back then
Luckily for the people in this video, Europe is much cooler than Florida. (If we compare the latitude of Europe and Northern America, Europe is much more northern. For example Paris would be almost at the latitude of the USA-Canada border and Miami would be at the latitude of the UAE.) The reason Europe isn't as cold as for example Canada is is because of the large inland seas and bays in the continent and the Gulf stream.
Incidentally not as many people lived in places like Florida back then. Way fewer people would tolerate it without AC.
Not that every stereotype is true… but all of these guys could smoke in the shower
Yo that's one quick cane
First guy had a monocle! So cool
That video ended about 3 hours too soon. Amazing