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Black and White on a RED MX or Epic

R

Rich Cottrell

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i have recently watched a few older movies on DVD that were shot on Black and White 35mm or 16mm film [The Last Picture Show, Salesman, Titicut Follies] and i have been thinking about the world that Black and White film can paint. I was wondering if anyone has done a project in black and white on a RED camera, and what you thought of the final outcome?

I am not trying to compare Black and While film to video, but rather I am curious about the impact a 4K/5K image in B/W could have.
 
I think it's the same as for B&W photos.
If you do the 'color grading' or the 'color processing' correct, it can and will be fantastic.
I've done some testing with REDCine-X and the outcome was just 'Fine art'.
 
how and what you have to do to shot in black and white with EPIC?
stephen from Paris.
 
You can do it in camera desaturize it a bunch and then, you can do it in post for the balance. I don't know if there are setting coming out to just do black and white, but the best would be to go to a colorist when done with your film, they are masters in more than just coloring or making things black and white.
 
Salut Stephen - nice to "see" you here !

You can apply a desat in camera to get a quick black and white look in EVF / monitoring but the camera will of course still record Raw with all the color info. Then when time of grading has come (after the editing) you can get a much more subtle Black and White using a channel mixer where you can choose how much red/green/blue info should be used to create dramatic BW effects (darker sky...) as you would do using color filters on the lens with BW film...

I don't think redcine has a channel mixer but you can do test with photoshop from a tiff or directly on R3Ds using aftereffects.

Mikael
 
Here's a b&w project I worked on recently that was shot on the MX: http://vimeo.com/30577393. Mike Gioulakis from LA was the DP. I thought it was very convincing, the gaffer and I both remarked how good it looked on set. We used S4 lenses, Soft Fx and Low Con filter stack. But I think the real trick is all in the lighting :)
 
Satsuki Murashige said:
Here's a b&w project I worked on recently that was shot on the MX: http://vimeo.com/30577393. Mike Gioulakis from LA was the DP. I thought it was very convincing, the gaffer and I both remarked how good it looked on set. We used S4 lenses, Soft Fx and Low Con filter stack. But I think the real trick is all in the lighting :)
Click to expand...

agreed. the lighting is fantastic... that is super gorgeous looking B&W - for some silly fun... thanks for sharing!

who graded it?
 
jake blackstone said:
B/W is not the same as a desaturated image. In the days of B/W film photography, one had to use color filters to control the contrast. Today, there is a way to simulate that same process in post for dramatically better result.
Click to expand...
So, would you grade the color footage for a color release and then do the necessaries to convert it to black & white... or convert to b & w first and then "grade" the footage?
 
Elsie N said:
So, would you grade the color footage for a color release and then do the necessaries to convert it to black & white... or convert to b & w first and then "grade" the footage?
Click to expand...

If you "convert" to B/W first by desaturating the image, you will throw away all the information, that is necessary for a proper B/W grading.
Majority of B/W film was designed to be sensitive to a full visual spectrum-i.e panchromatic film. There is a reason for that. Same idea applies to a digital acquisition. That is unless you want that unusual look, like an infrared B/W film.
 
I just finished up on a film of mine that we shot on MX in black and white.

(see the attached still (taken from a dvd export. . . only thing I have lying around right now).

A few thoughts:

Using traditional b&w filtres is probably not the way to go (our tests confirmed this). The thing is, all you end up doing is cancelling out info on one or more of the RGB channels, therefore giving you less information/latitude in post.

However, its for sure not just a question of simply desaturating a 'colour' film. What I mean is this: As a DP you light differently for B&W than for colour. Our DP monitored in b&w on set, and lit with a much higher contrast ratio than he would have otherwise. The colour RAW R3d's looked kind of not-so-good - because they were lit for b&w, not for colour. Once we started to desaturate and work the clips, then we saw them as he saw them in his head when he was lighting. . .

As always, my best advice would be test, test, test.

Sanctuary Still.jpg
 
Andreas Mendritzki said:
Using traditional b&w filtres is probably not the way to go (our tests confirmed this). The thing is, all you end up doing is cancelling out info on one or more of the RGB channels, therefore giving you less information/latitude in post.
Click to expand...
Obviously, there is no need to use traditional B/W filters with modern cameras for obvious reasons. It is counterproductive and quite destructive. In the old days, they had no other choice, but to use the B/W filters and everything had to be done in camera, including the choice of B/W film. As I said, the use of B/W filters now can be simulated in post.
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
agreed. the lighting is fantastic... that is super gorgeous looking B&W - for some silly fun... thanks for sharing!

who graded it?
Click to expand...
Hi Tim,

I believe it was done in house by the production company, Strike Anywhere. I know they added the film scratches and other distressed effects but otherwise the grade is very close to what we saw on set. Desat in "Video" menu and added contrast, that's all.
 
When grading for B&W (and not just desat, which I have done a bit too after tweaking the channels) the red channel has a lot of nice info, which I have tended to prioritize in the grade.

The highlightglow in the example above is more a matter of taste.
 
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