Pleasantville: Basing a Film Around a Simple Effect

One of my favorite films is Pleasantville, which was made in 1997. Pleasantville centers around two teenagers from the present day who are transported back to a black and white world and slowly turn it back to color. The film experiments with black and white vs. color and bases the entire plot around this. In the film, certain things and people turn to color while others remain black and white.

I looked into how this effect was done and found this tutorial on how to do the "Pleasantville Effect." In this tutorial, the author uses Photoshop to create this effect and it is actually pretty easy to do. In another tutorial (below) Final Cut Pro is used to create the effect.

Learn How to create "Pleasantville Effect" in Final Cut Pro. For more Final Cut Studio How-To Videos & Articles, visit WonderHowTo.

It's interesting how such a simple effect was used as the basis for an entire movie. The result is an aesthetically beautiful film that is very entertaining. I've included the trailer below in case you haven't seen it.