color film stock for b&w/ b&w printing on a color stock

[Michal Grabowski]

i'm gonna be shooting a black and white film in a not distant future, looking for advice, what advantages can be expected from shooting on color stock except for less grain and greater contrast control in DI. Some Ideas? Furthermore looking for tips in controling b&w footage on a color print, any methods or tricks to avoid any green, magenta, sepialike accents on a print?

[GeorgeSelinsky]

Let me just start by saying - shooting on color stock for black and white, BLAH! My opinion of course.

 

In talks with lab techs the only thing that will truly prevent your B&W from being tinted on a color print is an intermediate stage (IP/IN). Either that or you nail the exposure perfectly each time and keep the same lights for the whole thing.

[Dominic Case]

the only thing that will truly prevent your B&W from being tinted on a color print is an intermediate stage (IP/IN).

It is nigh on impossible to print a black and white image on colour stock and have it entirely neutral throughout the tonal range, using conventional film printing (with or without intermediate stages). You are using black and white stocks and colour stocks together, and unfortunatley they aren't really desinged to mix. Firstly, the contrasts and gammas aren't matched bwtween the b/w and the colour systems, and secondly, the spectral sensitivities and dye colours inthe colour printing system are fine-tuned with the use of integra masking in the colour negative. IF you print from a b/w negative, or if you use a b/w dupe stage from a coour negative, you have one step of printing without that mask - and that tends to introduce a slight colour cross-over, typically pink highlights and green shadows, which can't be graded out.

 

The only sure way to get true neutral colours and correct contrast is to go via the DI process, in which the entire image throughout the pathway is balanced to work properly.