Printing down

F Bulgarelli · August 3, 2004

Hello everyone.

Here is the scenario:

35mm anamorphic B&W.

Plus-X stock. A bit of smoke.

Dark room. A judge and a convict.

Very directional, shafty light from above. Little fill. Noir.

I want to stick to the Plus-X.

I'm thinking to shoot at a T4. Overexpose the faces by 1 or 1 1/2 stops or so.

I want to be able to print it down so that it looks dark and contrasty with those shafts of light taking over the room.

I'm choosing T4 because of being anamorphic and with that stock it'll be pretty bright. I want to make sure I can make it look dark by printing it down.

From you experience, how far can you go printing down?

I would appreciate any suggestions,

Thanks,

Francisco

David Mullen ASC · August 3, 2004

Well, there's a difference between what set of printer lights you want to be using and how hot you want your key light to be.

You may want to print at 25 or 35, whatever you like best, but on top of that, you will be overexposing the faces above that to render them a lighter shade of gray.

Black & White does not benefit from overall overexposing (I'm not talking about hot key lights) as much as color negative does. Rather than decrease graininess, it tends to increase it. You do get better black on the print from a little extra density and printing "down" but there's no advantage to rating the stock a LOT slower. You'd be better off push-processing it instead if what you want is more contrast.

Plus-X pushes nicely by one stop, getting you a more contrasty look without a big increase in graininess.

The question is why you want to use smoke with a lot of overexposed spot lights shining through it and then print down heavily to darken the scene. Why not light and expose more for the darker look you want?

I think testing will be crucial to determine the best printing light. Find THAT and then expose the scene so that it prints at that number and still looks the way you want it to.

You may find that it prints best for your criteria by rating it a 50 ASA in tungsten light (let's say) or maybe at 100 ASA with a one stop push. So with your meter rated to that ASA, you'd first shoot a gray scale in flat lighting at that rating, and then you'd expose scene, making the key lights as bright as needed to create the shade of gray you wanted. That may mean, for example, having the key be one-stop overexposed to make the face look a lighter gray than normal.

F Bulgarelli · August 4, 2004

To answer your question, I'm a bit concerned that with such a slow stock it's going to be difficult to get the mood I want shooting a T4 with 64ASA stock. This scene should probably be shot with a 400asa stock at a T2.8. My hope is to get a similar result by printing down. Like you said it's a matter of testing and finfing your printer lights.

I don't want to push the optical quality of the anamorphics, it's better if I can stop them down to a T4, at least.

I'd imagine, in the past, 1930's and 40's. With such slow stocks then, printing down was common practice, would you agree with that. I'm thinking Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, etc...

Thanks David

Francisco

David Mullen ASC · August 4, 2004

Actually "Citizen Kane" was shot on Super-XX, which was the same speed as current Double-X. And some of it was push-processed.

Again, overexposure and printing down is not as common in b&w as it is in color negative. You really should do your own tests; the b&w print stocks may not need high printer lights to achieve a good black.

Old movies controlled contrast through development, which varied from studio to studio (MGM, for example, tended to overexpose and underdevelop their b&w stocks, compared to Warner Brothers which tended to underexpose and overdevelop.)

I would consider shooting on Plus-X pushed one stop if I were you. A nice contrasty image without too much grain.

You could also consider doing what Roger Deakins did -- shoot on low-contrast color negative and then print on 5369 (I believe) which is a high-contrast panchromatic stock intended for making mattes. Deluxe developed it to a lower gamma. Other people have used 2374 I think, which is a high-contrast panchromatic b&w stock used for making optical soundtrack negatives. In your case, I'd probably shoot the lower-con 500 ASA Expression stock 5229, maybe overexposed and pull-processed to further lower contrast, and then print on one of these panchromatic hi-con b&w stocks (but please test this with your lab to see if they can modify the gamma of the b&w stock to get a more normal contrast in the print.)