Shooting color negative for black and white print

[oswald shonner]

Has anyone had experience with shooting color negative, say for example, 5279, going through a DI, doing a 100% desaturation at the DI stage, then outputting to 35mm?

 

Are colors rendered in greyscale the same way as if I was to, say, take a still shot of a color-chart and do the same thing in photoshop? I know that the results would not be the same as if shooting on true black and white neg - but are there any red-flags when going through the color negative route?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Oswald.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Has anyone had experience with shooting color negative, say for example, 5279, going through a DI, doing a 100% desaturation at the DI stage, then outputting to 35mm?

 

Are colors rendered in greyscale the same way as if I was to, say, take a still shot of a color-chart and do the same thing in photoshop?  I know that the results would not be the same as if shooting on true black and white neg - but are there any red-flags when going through the color negative route?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Oswald.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It certainly can be done. Roger Deakins did it photographically for "The Man Who Wasn't There":

 

http://www.cameraguild.com/interviews/chat...onversation.htm

 

DEAKINS: We shot side-by-side black and white, (Eastman) Double-X and (Eastman) Plus-X, and different color stocks. We found different ways of making black-and-white images from the color stock. We looked at them side by side to figure out which image quality we liked most. We actually liked the black-and-white images from the color original better than the original black-and-white. It was a number of things. It was the sharpness, the depth of blacks, and it had details in the highlights and shadows without losing this incredible sort of black and white feel to it. It was also a lot less grainy than the black and white stocks....DEAKINS: The first tests using this title stock looked very contrasty to my eye. Beverly lowered the contrast in development, and we got to an image that to my eye was far superior to the black-and-white film. It was crisper, sharper, less grainy, and the blacks were deeper with more details in the shadows; and the highlights never blew out. It was an amazing look. We also tested different negatives, and I decided to use (Kodak Vision 320T) 5277 film. It has a very tight grain structure, and it's quite low contrast?it was perfect in combination with the 69 title stock. I fell in love with that look, and then it was really up to Beverly to find a way to make it work. I believe they've done something like 100 prints on 69, and the rest has to go through an intermediate onto color release print stock.

 

Even in B&W, color negative grain will look "smoother" than a silver image negative.

[Dominic Case]

Are colors rendered in greyscale the same way as if I was to, say, take a still shot of a color-chart and do the same thing in photoshop?

There are different ways of doing the desaturation, which will produce different results in terms of colour balance. Try shooting a Macbeth card (or simply taking a set of of TV colour bars), going into Photoshop, then either using Grayscale, or Desaturate. Desaturate will render all fully-saturated colours as equal grays, while Grayscale will push the blues darker and the greens lighter - like a luminance signal, and more as we see them. I think b/w negative is designed to work a bit more this way too.

 

( I did this in PSP, not Photoshop, but I think the results are the same).

 

The difference are less obvious in real scenes, but may still be very important to your requirements, particularly in terms of different colours standing out from each other.

 

I am sure the results - regardless of the colour rendering - would be far better going through a DI than shooting B/W negative and printing it straight (or via a dupe) onto colour print film. B/W and colour systems simply don't interface very well in the photochemical world, there are always compromises.

[Serge Gregory]

As a variation on what Deakins did, has anyone originated in 7212 or 7245 and then blown up to 35mm and released on 5369? What interests me is originating in S16mm but achieving the finest grain 35mm b&w image possible (contrastiness is less of a concern).

[David Mullen ASC]

The cost of making direct optical printer blow-ups from Super-16 camera negative to 35mm prints is pretty high per print and requires that the negative be cut in a certain way. Since you'd more likely be blowing-up using an IP/IN stage, one of those can be on B&W fine-grain intermediate stock (probably the IN) and the prints can be normal 35mm b&w print stock.

 

I can't remember but wasn't "In The Soup" shot in Super-16 color but printed in 35mm b&w?

 

Of course, you can get finer-grained results if the blow-up is done digitally -- in that case it's relatively easy to turn the image b&w in post and you can optimize the transfer back to film so that you get a good b&w image on 35mm color internegative stock for printing on normal color print stock, saving you money over printing onto 5369. Remember, Deluxe did special processing on the 5369 in order to make the contrast more reasonable. It wasn't shot in Super-16, but the opening of "Van Helsing" was shot on color negative (5218) and converted to b&w digitally before being recorded back to film.

[Tim Tyler]

I can't remember but wasn't "In The Soup" shot in Super-16 color but printed in 35mm b&w?

 

I emailed Phil Parmet and he replied with:

 

In the Soup was shot in 35 mm. with Arri cameras and Zeiss lens using color negative stock. Although "In the Soup" was released in some markets in color, there never was any intention by the writer/director Alex Rockwell to release the film anywhere in color. The distributors did what they thought would sell the film. In retrospect just letting them know there was a color negative was mistake.

 

To get to black and white from the color neg. a IP was made on 5369 b/w intermediate stock, a stock originally intended for making titles. A few festival prints were struck on this exquisite stock, but because of expenses, release prints were printed from a color inter-negatives derived from the b/w IP. DuArt in New York did the processing.

 

If you really want to see what the film was intended to look like, check the carefully mastered new DVD release in widescreen black and white by "Fantoma Films." Subsequently a number of films have been made this way, but I believe this was the first time this process with the 5369 IP was used. It took us about four months of experimenting to get to a release print we really liked.

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

 

Fantoma's In The Soup DVD @ Amazon

[John Pytlak RIP]

EASTMAN High Contrast Panchromatic Film 5369 and EASTMAN High Contrast Panchromatic Film 2369, 3369 / ESTAR Base are high-contrast, panchromatic films. They have ultra-high resolving power, with excellent definition and sharpness. The films are approximately 2 camera stops faster than EASTMAN Fine Grain Release Positive Film 5302. The primary use of these films is for making silhouette mattes and traveling mattes for printer control.

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...1.4.6.6.8&lc=en

 

 

 

 

(Normally available only with "short pitch" perforations, unlike "long pitch" print films).