Meet the Doctor Who fan colorizing some of the show’s early episodes

One Doctor Who superfan has been putting his amazing talents to good use online, and he’s even helped the BBC restore some of older Who content.

In an interview with io9, Rich Tipple spoke about his latest online project, which involves colorizing some of the old black-and-white footage from the classic run of Doctor Who. Tipple recently released two colorized versions of classic Who clips on his YouTube channel.

Both of the clips feature the Doctor’s age-old nemesis, the Daleks. Clocking in at less than two minutes each, they look absolutely stunning for something that was originally filmed in the 1960s. Watch them below:

Classic Doctor Who gets an update

So how does Tipple do it, and why? First, he’s been a Doctor Who fan since he was a child watching the classic series. But he noticed that some of the newer fans tend to skip right over the early classic stuff simply because it’s in black and white. “I kept meeting younger Doctor Who fans that wouldn’t give the ‘60s era a go,” Tipple said. “I found this difficult to process because for me it’s the golden age of the show. Some people just don’t connect with black and white—so I thought I’d do something about it.”

There’s a lot of skill and nuance involved in colorization. What some people might not know is that you have to take some artistic liberties when choosing the right colors for your restoration. If you don’t have a reference for an object’s original color, you have to make it up.

Also, because the older episodes were filmed in black and white, the colors they used out of necessity might have not represented the colors they would have used if they filmed in color. (Take, for instance, Vision being painted blue for WandaVision because it would look more like red on film.) “There’s an age-old debate about the TARDIS console too,” Tipple explained. “It was painted green so that it would appear white on a monochrome television set. So at this point do you go with the authentic color of the prop, or go with what the production team wanted to achieve? I don’t think there’s a wrong answer but I’ve definitely favored a subtle green coloring.”

Overall, Tipple’s work is awesome. And he’s truly doing a service to fans who may have seen the black-and-white look of the older episodes as a barrier to entry. And if there are Doctor Who fans out there that enjoyed the earlier works, I’m sure it’s just as exciting for them to see some of these scenes reimagined in color.

To keep up with Tipple and his work, you can follow him on Twitter!

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