Shooting Black and White

[Jordan Buck]

Hey Everyone, So tonight I start a 3 day short film set in an old railway station - all shot at night and we have decided to shoot black and white.


I have been rushed off my feet lately and not really had time to think about this job and it has come around really quickly.
I have a few questions - I am thinking to make some really distinct lighting decisions between light and dark areas to really play with the scale in black and white and I have a feeling I can go a little more dramatic with my lighting that I would with colour for a similar scene.


I haven't had time to test so forgive me if this is a really stupid question - will colour gels have much of an affect on the lights? Im thinking this because like with black and white photography coloured filters change the contrast etc. Is there anything I should really be worried/conscious of shooting black and white?


The scene takes place in one location between nighttime to sunrise - will I see the affect of sunrise on the lighting, I mean I know it will change the lighting obviously but will it be effective enough on its own to show the change of time of day or am I going to have to supplement it? Also from a camera point of view - Should I dial black and white into the RED monitor or just my reference monitors, Ill have a small TV logic and a 17inch panasonic on set.


Any advice welcome - First time shooting black and white on my Epic.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Color contrast filters can affect contrast by the way they filter some wavelengths, for example, a red filter will make blue skies go darker, faces go paler (since they have red in them) and shadows go darker (since they have blue in them). But for interior scenes (or night exterior scenes), contrast can be controlled by the lighting ratios so there is no reason to use colored gels or colored camera filters to alter the contrast, unless you have unusual color situations like someone wearing a red & blue Superman costume and you need to shift the relative gray tones of the red and blue.

 

[Jordan Buck]

Thank you very much David, Clothing has been specifically chosen to help with the scene and shooting in black and white.

My biggest question at the moment is how to process the RAW red image - Should I be shooting a fully colour profile in camera, then looking at a desaturated image on a reference monitor so that when I grade I start with all the colour information?

 

[Ignacio Aguilar]

Since it's a RAW image, it doesn't really matter if you set your camera to make it black and white, or if you turn off the saturation of your monitor. I did it once on camera and everything went fine (plus the editor and director will watch direct B&W dailies).

 

[Marc Wielage]

Do camera tests. But unfortunately if you're asking now, that might not be possible. Finding an acceptable exposure range and which key-to-fill ratios work best for your purposes is something you won't know until you dive in.

Get somebody who knows Resolve or a similar color-correction program well, and see what they can do in B&W, particularly with the RGB controls. There are lots of interesting variations you can get in B&W that have a huge change on how you perceive grayscale.

 

[scott devitte]

Check out "Ida".

 

[Jordan Buck]

Thank you all for your advice - Day one went well - I think...

I didnt change my picture style too much on the Epic but monitored in black and white to my two reference monitors - then in red cine pulled the sats down... They are a little darker than what I was looking at on set - but nothing a little push in post wont fix, also I dont mind a little grain in B&W.
Photobucket Butchers quality - but here is a few grabs... any advice again appreciated as I have two more days of this!

Lighting set up was a Jem ball rigged into the roof - A diva on a tracks below them - and a 2.5K Hmi 20M away as a "Moonlight" then things where pushed in as we moved in.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Looks good, has that softer-lit 60's b&w of the French New Wave than older-school b&w, i.e. it still has a naturalistic look.

I would say that you shouldn't be afraid of being a bit more "theatrical" with the lighting, more spots, some hot highlights, etc.