Tips for Shooting in Black and White

[Lucinda Luvaas]

That would be great Jon, but only if you have the time.

Lucinda

[Jon Bickford]

sure, where do i send it to?

[Lucinda Luvaas]

Ash,

I was just thinking....are you familiar with Fritz Lang's films? he used stark contrasty black and white....as I just wrote to Jon, the footage looked like artwork it was so rich. I'm going to rerent some of those films from netflix and study them again, because that's pretty much the look I'm after. Another one that has the values I'm looking for was the Spiral Staircase. Have you seen any of these? they're old films.

Lucinda

[Ash Greyson]

I have seen Metropolis. That look will need to be gotten in post but you can help it along the way. I dont think the blacks are really crushed in that film, I think they are stretched which flattens the image a bit and the effect is almost like you are looking at a 2D drawing of a 3D object. If that is the look you are after I would stretch the blacks, set the knee to low and soften up the picture by turning down the sharpness. I would also mess with the master pedestal and set-up level, try both down, both up and a contrast with one down, one up... see what you like the best. Also you might want to use a filter, like a black diffuser, pro-mist, etc.


ash =o)

[Lucinda Luvaas]

Hi Ash,

Thanks for the tips. I'll try them this coming week. I was thinking of getting the pro mist filter and I'll try that as well.

Lucinda

[Jon Bickford]

if you get a promist filter get a 1/2 strength, 1, 2, and 3, are too heavy of an effect for video

[Lucinda Luvaas]

Thanks Jon, will do. What exactly does the pro mist filter do? does it soften the image and flatten out the details? I did look it up on the Tiffen site, but not 100% sure about the look...

[Jon Bickford]

did that clip i tried to send you about half a dozen times ever get to you?

about 2/3 of the way through there's a scene in a bar where the girl is pretty much glowing and the guys on either side are catching the ambient light off of her, the glowing effect is a 1/2 pro mist picking up the extreme highlights of a narrowed down 650 watt light right over her head.

pro mists are generally used to soften an image and give a sorta soft wedding portrait look, but they create a glowing effect on extreme highlights which makes them a lot of fun for backlights and such.

there are regular pro mists and there are black promists, the black promists are used to soften down blemishes and stuff without the cloudy effect that a regular promist uses, i shoot with a 1/8 black pro mist a lot. you can't really tell it's there but it just softens skin enough to make everyone look better.

some filters that are specific to black and white photography that i would reccomend are red, green and yellow filters. you can get all 3 for less than the price of one pro mist.

red filters were used a lot by the fritz lang generation, they increase the contrast quite a bit and do a great job of breaking stuff up into either black or white, yellow filters kinda flatten everything out and green brings up the mids.

a note about red light:
red light/red filters are very useful for black and white photography, it will smooth out a face better than any other filter without looking soft at all. with a filter the contrast is equal across the whole picture, by gelling certain lights with red you can isolate and really rock out with your contrasts.

-Jon

[Jon Bickford]

i guess the post/in camera argument is best settled by the question do you consider yourself a post production expert or a cinematographer? i pretty much always get my looks in camera because as a director of photography i hate the idea of handing that over to a computer nerd, if i'm not creating the look then what exactly AM i doing? i definetely think black and white is better shot in camera!

whereas, if i were more interested in computers than cameras i guess i would just point the camera at something and worry about it later.

[Lucinda Luvaas]

Jon,

Thanks for the info! I'll definitely get a red filter and try it out.

The problem is that the Xl2 doesn't have a black and white setting, so you just have to take the gain down for the respective colors and get black and white.

I'm really interested in both the shoot and post. I do animations on the computer from drawings because I'm a fine artist as well, so I use everything I can to make things interesting.

I'm torn between shooting in grayscale and full color......the advantage to using full color is that if I decide to make part of the film this way then I'll have the footage, whereas if I do b&w I box myself in.

I do want the Fritz Lang look for the b&w and I thank you very much for that tip.

I haven't received your emails at all! and I don't have spam protection on.

It's strange that they're not coming here.

Is there a site I could go to to see what you're describing?

Lucinda

[Jon Bickford]

you don't have to turn down each color channel to get black and white, just turn the overall color gain to 0 and then yes, you are indeed shooting a grayscale black and white image, just one slider, i'll try mailing that video one more time.

[Lucinda Luvaas]

Thanks Jon. I'll do that. I don't know why your file isn't coming here...strange.