Shooting Color Neg for B&W

Frank Poole · February 14

I've always heard shooting color neg and pulling out all the color simply doesn't do what shooting black and white does. I plan to shoot a test of my own to see what I find on my own, but I'm interested in people's insight into this claim?

This began with me trying to find as much Plus-X 7276 as I could for a short, because it's probably my favorite stuff full stop. but it's so old now that it's nearly impossible to find in large amounts, and like a lot of expired film, often comes without any guarantee of the quality of the storage. So I thought, why don't I just shoot 7203 with high contrast ratios and try to fake it? Do you think I'll even get in the same ballpark?

7276 is so shimmery and silky and punchy and grain free. Besides V3 color stocks being so low-con by design, are there any other reasons that make this not a great idea?

Thanks!

Simon Wyss · February 14

Are you planning to have projection positives made?

Robert Houllahan · February 15

B&W film stocks last exceptionally well, I used a roll of Plus-X Negative for a music video a few years ago that had expired in 1962!

Color turned to B&W never really matches the contrast of real B&W IMO.

There are a number of options for current B&W stocks and how to process them, 7266 runs nicely as a negative and I still really like 7222 processed properly, we have dome some overexpose and pull and some underexpose and push processing for various clients that worked well for their purposes.

Here is the MV with the Plus-X from 1962:

Don Cunningham · February 15

If you want Black and White, shoot black and white. I just completed a short that used an 85/15 mix of fresh and expired/dated film stocks. Testing the various dated stocks wasn't feasible, so I just loaded the Bolex and went..keeping like batches together. Some 7231 came out gorgeous just as if it was fresh! Then I had two rolls of 7222 that must have been stored in the worst way. In the end I made it work for the project.

Frank Poole · February 15

@Simon Wyss It's not my goal but I would love to have a print made eventually

@Robert Houllahan 1962 is absolutely insane. I shot some of the same Plus-x neg 7231 like that from 1990 and it looked essentially the same as yours

There's a 2000' lot of 7276 on Etsy of all places right now, but they are in the chrome cans, not the more modern grey ones so I assume they must be from the 80s are the earliest? they looked so old I was worried. Does reversal hold up as well as neg?

Frank Poole · February 15

@Don Cunningham I should have framed my entire question differently. I wanna know if anyone thinks I can achieve a B&W Reversal look with color neg with maybe the right lighting ratios and possibly filtration. I'm not interested in any other b&w neg because while I love grain, it isn't what I'm looking for for this project. 7222, 7266, even 7231 feel too pronounced

Mark Dunn · February 15

I was still using VNF in chrome cans in 1991.

Joerg Polzfusz · February 15

They’ve shot „The Artist“ on Vision3. The desaturation was done in post. The prints are in B&W (on color print stock):

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1655442/technical/?ref_=tt_spec_sm

David Mullen ASC · February 15

A number of movies have done that -- "Good Night and Good Luck" as well I believe. Shooting color and turning it b&w, whether digital or film, has been more common over the years. Truth is, if you want really clean b&w, shoot digital like "Ida" for example.

B&W reversal was mainly just a lot more high-contrast, sharper, and generally finer-grained (depending on the stock) than b&w negative, so you can increase contrast in post but contrasty lighting will also help.

Joerg Polzfusz · February 15

Here, you can find a few details about the used lenses etc.:

https://www.studiodaily.com/2012/02/the-artists-cinematographer-speaks/

Frank Poole · February 15

@Joerg Polzfusz @David Mullen ASC @Mark Dunn

Thanks all for your thoughtful responses!

Robert Houllahan · February 16

12 hours ago, Frank Poole said:

@Simon Wyss It's not my goal but I would love to have a print made eventually

@Robert Houllahan 1962 is absolutely insane. I shot some of the same Plus-x neg 7231 like that from 1990 and it looked essentially the same as yours

There's a 2000' lot of 7276 on Etsy of all places right now, but they are in the chrome cans, not the more modern grey ones so I assume they must be from the 80s are the earliest? they looked so old I was worried. Does reversal hold up as well as neg?

I would go for it, I think any B&W will hold up very well if it is in relatively ok storage conditions.

I personally got a few rolls of the 1962 Plus-X because they were just a little shrunk for the purpose someone had them for but they went through my Aaton XTRprod just fine.

Simon Wyss · February 16

18 hours ago, Frank Poole said:

I wanna know if anyone thinks I can achieve a B&W Reversal look with color neg with maybe the right lighting ratios and possibly filtration.

There is no single B&W Reversal look. Fomapan R looks different from the Kodak PXR-TXR-4XR family and Bauchet Super Panchro would have another character altogether, were it still around. To say nothing of Adox U 17, Fotopan R, and the many more once used.

You will have a negative-positive image character with a multilayer trichrome negative and a single-layer monochrome contact positive. Contrast can be enhanced with a black-and-white projection positive at a decent lab. Those who are not flexible at processing are not worthwhile dealing with. I had a film lab and delivered prints of every desired contrast. It’s not hard to do.