matching Kodak '17 desaturated in post with '22 stock

[Michael Morlan]

Hello all,

 

A short film director for whom I am being considered as D.P. has written a nice 10-pager that starts in color, desaturates to black & white over one shot, and finishes in color again (with one shot B&W with a color blood splat.) We're shooting S-16.

 

I could, obviously, shoot the entire thing with a Kodak 7217 or 7218 depending on my desires for grain and size of instruments. Has anyone tried to match '17 with '22 in a similar situation? Have they suceeded with another pair of stocks? I wouldn't mind some slight variance in detail, grain, curves but want to get them as close as possible to avoid them being noticed.

 

I might shoot the color for best detail, desaturate in a digital HD post, and use the '22 for all the pure B&W shots. Then back to the '17 for the finish.

 

There's no budget for film tests so I'm seeking insight from those who may have preceeded me.

 

Thanks,

 

Michael

[David Mullen ASC]

Double-X is pretty grainy -- I'd almost guess '18 pushed one-stop to match. And maybe a 1/2 Classic Soft diffusion filter to match the sharpness and create a fake b&w halation around lights.

[Satsuki Murashige]

(It) starts in color, desaturates to black & white over one shot...

 

Does this mean that the footage goes from color to B&W during the shot? Obviously then you'll have to do it in telecine or go through an optical printer to get that effect. If you intercut a desaturated color shot (which the "dissolve to B&W" shot will have to be) with a B&W stock, they won't match, texture-wise. The "blood splat" shot will probably have to originate on color stock as well, unless you want to do it as an FX shot.

 

Also, how much footage needs to be B&W as opposed to color? If the amount needed of one or the other type is very small, then it might be more efficient to shoot only color stock - that way, you wouldn't be left with 300' of short ended color neg at the end of the shoot. And shooting only one stock will be cheaper to telecine since there will be fewer camera rolls.

 

I can email you some side-by-side comparisons of color neg (7212 100T) desaturated in telecine and B&W neg (7231 100D, 80T) that I shot. You can see that the B&W neg is a lot grainier, contrastier, and has less dynamic range than the color neg. 7222 will be grainer of course. The B&W really has it's own look and texture which is hard to duplicate in grading color neg. If matching the stocks is the overriding concern rather than an "authentic" B&W look, then you'll probably want to avoid shooting real B&W stock.

 

If I can figure out how to attach these pics in the body of the post, I'll do that instead. Each time I click the "add attachment" button, nothing happens. The "Help" FAQ is not helpful.

[Richardson Leao]

if you wanna try a less granier stock, orwo UN54 (iso 100) is quite fine and it has less contrast than 7231.

[Michael Morlan]

Thanks for the suggestions gents.

 

Satsuki: Yes, the shot fades from color to B&W. We'll be doing a digital post so everything gets scanned to HD files and we perform that effect there. Some sample frames emailed to me would be most welcome.