Residence London, England Other names Babelcolour Website www.babelcolour.com Other name Babelcolour | Nationality English Years active 2005-present Notable work The Mind of Evil | |
Full Name Stuart John Humphryes Born 10 December 1969 (age 47) ( 1969-12-10 ) Basingstoke, Hampshire, England Occupation Colourisation Artist, Local Government Officer Profiles | ||
Doctor who the time war chronicles the beginning babelcolour
Stuart Humphryes (born 10 December 1969) is an English colourisation artist for print, film and television, chiefly known for his work colourising the British television series Doctor Who. He is more widely known by his alias "Babelcolour", a public persona which was created in 2006 with the launch of his YouTube channel.
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The Daleks' Master Plan
In 2005 Humphryes collaborated with James Russell (one of the founder members of the Doctor Who Restoration Team) to colourise the surviving 35mm film from the 1965 Doctor Who serial The Daleks' Master Plan. This colourisation was incorporated into "The Dalek Tapes" documentary on the 2006 DVD release of Genesis of the Daleks.
The Mind of Evil
In 2009 Humphryes and Russell reunited, this time to assess the viability of re-colourising a 1971 Doctor Who serial called The Mind of Evil which only existed in the BBC Archives as a monochrome film print. They worked together to produce a one-minute test sequence of colourised shots from the episode which eventually led to the Doctor Who Restoration Team commissioning Humphryes in 2011 to recolourise episode one of the serial. Between 2011-2013 Humphryes was the sole colourising artist working alongside the video restoration company SVS Resources to complete the commercial colourisation of The Mind of Evil for the BBC's subsidiary 2 Entertain
The newly colourised Mind of Evil was premiered at the British Film Institute on 10 March 2013. Humphryes was in attendance to answer questions on stage about the re-colourisation process The recolourised episodes also received a special screening, with a Q&A panel comprising members of the Doctor Who Restoration Team, at Birmingham's annual Flatpack Film Festival on Saturday 30 March 2013 and at the Belfast Film Festival on Thursday 18 April 2013
Clips and details of the serial's recolourisation were covered by a special feature on the BBC evening news on 12 June 2013
Following the release of The Mind of Evil DVD in June 2013 the re-colourised version has become the broadcast default, being subsequently televised in the US on Retro TV on 15 October 2014 and KBTC Public Television on Saturday 23 January 2016.
Terror of the Zygons
In 2008 a collection of long-lost film prints from the 1975 Doctor Who serial Terror of the Zygons were returned to the BBC from the estate of the story's film editor Ian McKendrick, consisting of a cutting copy and dub track in mixed colour and monochrome formats. Humphryes was consequently engaged by SVS Resources in February 2012 to recolourise the monochrome sections so that the entire missing scene could be incorporated into the Director's Cut of Terror of the Zygons for DVD release the following year. The work was performed on a tight deadline and consequently employed some shortcut techniques, including flat colour washes for certain elements such as as clothing, which would not normally be employed by Humphryes.
Colourisation process
Most commercial colourisation processes involve the use of either masks, layers or the segmentation method. The process used by Humphryes however, is unusual in that it does not employ these methods of separating colour to produce each key frame but instead each individual frame is colourised as a single completed image. A consequence of this means that although the finished product can achieve greater realism the work is very labour-intensive, with around 7000 fully colourised key frames required to produce 20 minutes of footage. This equates to an average of 1 in every 4 frames being fully colourised as key frames for PAL video. It consequently took Humphryes 18 months to recolourise key frames for 'The Mind of Evil' episode one
Print colourisation
In 2005 Humphryes colourised a series of Tele-snaps for issue 2 of "Nothing At The End of the Lane" - the magazine of Doctor Who Research and Restoration in which he was interviewed about his colourisation work. He was invited to return to this publication in 2008 to colourise the cover of their omnibus reprint of issues 1 and 2.
In 2015 Humphryes was commissioned to colourise the cover of Mark Iveson's biographical reference book "Cursed Horror Stars", published by Telos Publishing
Critical reception
His on-line colourisation and video work has received recommendations from BBC America SFX Magazine, The Guardian, the Official Doctor Who Magazine io9 and the Doctor Who Fan Club of Australia
His work on The Mind of Evil received commendations in reviews from the Radio Times, Starburst Magazine, Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who Online, DVD Talk, Nerdist and an array of on-line genre sites and blogs
SFX Magazine praised Humphryes work on the DVD restoration, stating "The results are seriously impressive", with Starburst Magazine considering his work "astonishing"
The DVD preview of 'Mnd of Evil' in Doctor Who Magazine issue 461 (July 2013) states "Stuart's work on the colours is exceptionally good, especially with difficult areas like skin and hair and this sets a new benchmark for the colourisation of film recordings"
His colourisation work was also recommended by the Doctor Who showrunner, head writer and producer Steven Moffat who cited Humphryes in 2015 as one of "the next generation of creatives"
YouTube
Humphryes established The Babelcolour Channel on YouTube on 10 August 2006. 74 videos are currently available. Fifteen of these have featured in the monthly recommendations of the official Doctor Who Magazine between February 2011 and February 2017. His channel has 18,400 subscribers and 6.82 million hits (as of January 2017)
His on-line video output has involved collaboration with the television voice artists John Guillor, Jonathon Carley and Peter Walsh and the video FX artists Mert Karaca and Andrew Orton. Other credited contributors include the writers and media historians David J. Howe and Richard Bignell.
Published works
In 2012 his essay 'Teatime and an Open Mind' was published in the Doctor Who non-fiction book "You and Who" by Miwk Publishing
Background information
Humphryes graduated from Suffolk College with a BA(Hons) degree in Design Communications. After 14 years with the British Red Cross he became a Local Government Officer for the London Borough of Merton
In 1996 he appeared as a contestant in two episodes of the UK Gold TV quiz series 'Goldmaster', presented by DJ Mike Read. His specialist subject was Doctor Who His role as fallback contestant for BBC1's 1999 prime-time evening game show 'Whatever you Want' was reported in Doctor Who Magazine issue 276, which ran with a photograph of Humphryes in costume alongside the other on-screen contestants.
Between 2006-2008 he produced work for the BabelFish Colourisation Website on kostamojen.com. In 2012 he established his own colourisation website at babelcolour.com
In 2014 Humphryes assisted researchers of the BBC2 documentary series ‘The Secret History of My Family’, which was broadcast on Thursday 10 March 2016. Episode one chronicled the family and descendants of his 4 x Great-Grandfather Robert Gadbury, tracing their lineage from 1830’s London to present-day Tasmania. Humphryes is second cousin (twice removed) to former Tasmanian premier Albert Ogilvie