How do you fade from colour to black and white on the print in the same shot the old fashioned way?

Morgan Peline · August 10, 2009

Hi!

I'm embarassed...I should know this! But I don't! It's probably really simple! :-)

There's a scene in the original Solaris that goes from colour to black and white in th same shot (or the reverse...I can't remember). It's a shot of a driver's POV I think.

How do you achieve this photochemically like they did in the 'old days'?

Is it by changing printer lights or by changing print stock?

Thanks!

David Auner aac · August 10, 2009

How do you achieve this photochemically like they did in the 'old days'?
Is it by changing printer lights or by changing print stock?

I'd say it could be done by a dissolve from the color print to a B&W one... Not sure though.

Cheers, Dave

K Borowski · August 10, 2009

I seem to recall a thread where David Mullen very thoroughly explains how this was done, in that particular instance in Star Trek III (the flash-back at the beginning to ST II).

Look for that with the search feature.

To quickly summarize, it involved making a B&W dupe, and selectively double-exposing with more and more exposure given to one element and less and less given to the other to desaturate it on the finished print.

To go from color to B&W, you'd want to lessen the printer light on the color element and increase on the B&W.

Tricky part is keeping the color cast on the B&W element neutral.

John Holland · August 10, 2009

In ye oldy days to achive this oldy world effect , ye made a B+W dupe neg from ye new fangled colour neg of ye shot you wanted to turn to B+ W . The these were cut into A and B rolls and and then printed from a ye old Printer as a dissolve ! Ye simple Ye old fart John Holland

Hal Smith · August 10, 2009

The transition from B&W into color in the "Wizard of Oz" was done with Art Direction and shot in Technicolor. They painted the room sepia toned B&W matching the B&W portion of the film and had a DOROTHY stand-in dressed in sepia B&W open the door to Oz. If you're watching a good IB print and watching for it you can see the sepia tone change slightly from the preceeding shot.

Dominic Case · August 10, 2009

John and Karl have it.

It's all done on a step printer with pin registration. Usually an optical printer, but is better done using contact printing for better control of the contrast of the black and white part of the image.

From the original negative of the entire shot, you make a colour interpos (IP) and a black and white panchromatic fine grain pos, which must have the same gamma.

Then you print a dissolve from one to the other onto colour dupe neg stock. That is, you run the outgoing colour IP with the fader progressively closing, then rewind the camera, and run the incoming b/w pan fine grain with the fader progressively opening. You need an orange filter in the printer for the black and white part of the run, to balance it correctly for the colur dupe neg stock.

In the early days of duplicating stocks, they were very grainy, and it was common to shoot an optical of just the required frames, no more. On older films you can always pick any dissolve or any other effect just before it starts, as the image suddenly gets grainy and usually changes colour and contrast. Late when stocks got better, it was better to shoot the entire outgoing and incoming shots to avoid a mid-scene jump.

To address the other original suggestions: the only thing you can do by changing printer lights is make the entire scene lighter, darker, or change the overall colour balance more or less red, green or blue. (But reducing red, green and blue together doesn't reduce colour, it simply makes a lighter print).