Black and White 16mm

[Matthew Phillips]

Hey Everyone,

 

This is my first time posting on this site so I apologize if this question has been asked before. With that out of the way...

 

I am going to be shooting a short film in the next month and the director wanted to shoot Black and white reversal and some color negative film. We are going to project it on 35mm color. I was wondering if I could use a Red 25A filter to get more contrast out of the black and white (still photography trick)? Also I was wondering if they print the black and white to color stock for project will it have a slight blues hue to it? I heard that it may, If so how can I be sure to correct in camera.

 

Thank for you help

 

Matt

[GeorgeSelinsky]

the director wanted to shoot Black and white reversal and some color negative film. We are going to project it on 35mm color...(snip)...Also I was wondering if they print the black and white to color stock for project will it have a slight blues hue to it?

The problem here is that reversal and negative are of a different polarity.

 

If you are blowing up from color negative 16mm (I assume you are blowing up), you are going to have to go from the negative, to a 35mm (or sometimes 16mm to save money) interpositive, to a 35mm internegative, to a 35mm positive print. To go from the black and white reversal you will go directly to an internegative and from that onto a print. You need to keep this in mind when planning everything with the lab.

 

If you need to have an IP of your entire movie, not just an IN (which is really only the case with feature films that need to be delivered as IP's to the distributor), then you need to make an extra step with your black and white images, in other words, make an internegative off the B&W reversal, then from that to an interpositive, and you combine that interpositive with the interpositive generated from the color negative footage you shot to make a master IP. Confused yet? :blink:

 

Concerning the color shift that happens when black and white film is printed onto color printstock, this can be corrected in one stage. When you go from the intermediate stage to a print (from the internegative to the print, or from the internegative to the interpositive) you can time this color cast out entirely.

 

My knowlege here is not practical (I have never mixed B&W and color with anything but direct reversal projects or straight to tape stuff) but based on discussions with lab personell when I was anticipating a project of this nature.

 

What concerns the 25A, it's a nice filter for black skies but skintones aren't too great. Also eats over a stop of light I think.

 

- G.

[David Mullen ASC]

It's hard to get a neutral grey when printing b&w on color stock. The color prints of "Man Who Wasn't There" had a faint purple bias.

 

Be sure to put the b&w material on a separate printing roll because the printer light adjustments can be quite extreme, unless you blow it up to a 35mm color internegative and intercut that with the rest of the 35mm color internegative.

 

A heavy red filter cancels blue, so outdoors there is more contrast because blue skies a and blue shadows get darker while red faces get lighter.

 

Indoors, it will still make red faces lighter but the contrast increase won't be as dramatic. You might want to switch to something less heavy indoors, like a yellow or orange. You can light for more contrast or push-develop the stock to increase the gamma.

 

Watch out for lips going white-ish when using a red filter -- they might need some darker brown lipstick.

[Richard Hackney]

Interesting

[Jan Weis]

I dont want to seem like a dumbass here but, isnt the contrast provided by reversal b&w enough? I mean negative film has less contrast and there fore ''needs'' to be compensated with different kinds of coloured filters but when it comes to reversal the amount of contrast is high enough. What I mean is I've never heard of anyone using a coloured filter such as red or orange on b&w reversal still photography.

 

//Jan

[Tim Carroll]

I dont want to seem like a dumbass here but, isnt the contrast provided by reversal b&w enough? I mean negative film has less contrast and there fore ''needs'' to be compensated with different kinds of coloured filters but when it comes to reversal the amount of contrast is high enough. What I mean is I've never heard of anyone using a coloured filter such as red or orange on b&w reversal still photography.

 

//Jan

 

In all my years of doing still photography, I can't remember ever shooting black & white reversal stock. Off hand, I can't even think of anyone who made it. Shot tons of PlusX negative and AGFA Pan. Used a red #25 filter on a number of occasions to increase the dramatic sky effect or to punch up foliage.

 

Have used a red #25 with PlusX reversal motion picture film when I was going for a very dramatic sunset over the Oregon coast. Really punched up the sky and clouds. Pretty "over dramatic", but that was the look I was going for. So I could definitely see using a red #25 with reversal stock to really exaggerate contrast.

 

-Tim

[John Pytlak RIP]

For B&W negative film, the lab can also vary the time/temperature of the developer to change contrast:

 

 

Using a color filter in B&W photography doesn't really change the contrast, as much as it does the tonal renderings of the colors in the scene. So a red filter makes cyans and blues darker, and can be used to enhance the appearance of white clouds against a cyan sky:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/students...&lc=en#filtersf

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/...iltration.shtml