shooting b&w stock vs. shooting a V2 stock and

[DavidSloan]

Any thoughts on what the advantages/disadvantages are? I have some b&w projects coming up and I'm curious if it's even worth shooting on a b&w stock. Does do that anymore besides students?

[David Mullen ASC]

What format? Is this for 35mm print projection?

 

Shooting color neg for a b&w image can look too clean, plus you do get some unique halations around candles and car headlamps with real b&w film because the anti-halation backing is different. And silver grains look different than dye clouds.

 

I think it depends on how much grain you want in the image plus what sort of light levels you will be using, and how much depth of field you want. It would be easier to shoot on Vision-2 500T pushed one stop for a night exterior movie and the graininess would probably be similar to Double-X normally exposed.

 

It also depends on your post route. If this is a low-budget feature going to a 35mm print, it would probably be simpler to shoot in real 35mm b&w neg and just make a contact print. Plus you could use things like red filters outdoors to get really dark skies.

 

Test, test, test...

[F Bulgarelli]

Like David says, the main limitation with B&W stocks is the speed. I've pushed 7222 1 stop which added some grain but it worked for the look we wanted. Here is a couple of shots:

The close up of the girl is 7222 pushed 1 stop and the close up of the sax player is 7218 desaturated.

 

[F Bulgarelli]

Sorry, this is the other shot,

[DavidSloan]

Sorry Dave, it's a music video which will be telecined and then straight to TV, no prints/projections to occur. I plan on shooting this with deep focus and there will be plenty of night ext. The concept is a stylized, noirish look, about a woman who steals shadows. My lighting/camera budget is a mere 10k...project was originally set for 35MM now bumped down to S16mm since the budget went way over. It's looking like v2 500T.

 

Thanks for the input, as always.

Edited January 6, 2005 by DavidSloan

[Wendell_Greene]

This subject was discussed a few months ago on CML and I remember one comment about the level of control you'll have in the telecine bay especially if your using a Spirit with DaVinci and shooting on the '18. I had posed this same question to DP Claudio Miranda a while back and he told me that when working as a gaffer for Harris Savides on music videos, Savides suggested going the telecine route.

 

In addition to shooting a test, talk to your colorist and ask for examples of other work they've done in this manner.

[Mike Williamson]

It seems like there's sort of two schools of thought on shooting B&W for telecine: shoot B&W negative vs. shooting color negative and desaturating in telecine. Harris Savides seems to be a big fan of shooting color neg, the advantages being smoother images with a greater range of control in that you can map different colors to specific values in the grey scale. Mark Romanek (who funnily enough has worked often with Savides) is a proponent of shooting B&W neg, feeling that the actual silver grain structure feels more appropriate than the dye-cloud grain structure of color neg.

 

If you go to Anonymous Content's website, you can check out two really amazing videos that display the two different approaches. David Fincher's "Love Is Strong" was shot on color neg by Savides, Mark Romanek's "99 Problems" was shot on B&W neg (5222) by Joaquin Baca-Asay. Also check out markromanek.com, lots of amazing videos there.

[L K Keerthi Basu]

Any thoughts on what the advantages/disadvantages are?  I have some b&w projects coming up and I'm curious if it's even worth shooting on a b&w stock.  Does do that anymore besides students?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I know one special thing about B&W is better go shoot in colour neg, choose to shoot as like as for a color neg. Things we must be careful is about contrast and lighting. Develop the color neg as we develop for color. After having the neg we can convert the color into B&W in the print buy a special process which I know to work.

It is a simple process the only thing face in this process is graininess but we can control it , because Iam success with this method

[Wendell_Greene]

Personally, I'd love to shoot 35mm B&W negative for a music video. There's something about the grain structure and that look that I just love. Maybe it's due to my recent obsession with watching tons of older B&W movies from the 30's and 40's on TCM.

 

I had a great conversation last year with Pascal Lebegue (a great French DP who has worked with the legendary Henri Alekan as well as Director/Photographer Jean Baptiste Mondino) who shot two incredible 35mm B&W music videos for David Fincher ( Madonna's "Vogue" , Don Henley's "Boys of Summer")

 

Mr. Lebegue mentioned that on " Vogue " he tried out several labs [finally using one in Seattle, Alpha Cine, I believe ] and did extensive testing, trying various filters and other techniques to get the exact look Fincher wanted. He also said that it's becoming harder and harder to find a lab who is really skilled in processing 35mm B&W since most labs just don't have the work flow like in years past, so it's becoming a dying art.

 

IMO, there are two other factors that have contributed to the demise of shooting 35mm B&W negative. First, major record companies, don't palin don't care for B&W images [much like their counterparts at studios, most of whom, don't like movies, much less ones in B&W ] they don't feel it's commercial.

 

So unless you're a director in the league of Fincher, Romanek, Glazer or Gondry and working with an artist who is at the point in his or her career in terms of stature, sales and artistic merit to attract this caliber of directors, you can forget about it. [indies can't afford 35mm so they're more apt to you to let you shoot 16mm B&W. Most are happy if they get a video on shoot film and not video.]

 

Second, while production budgets for music videos have decreased significantly in recent years, the time contraints for production, production value required, and delivery committments ["we need this video yesterday!!! ] remain just as demanding, if not more so.

 

Directors for music videos and spots shoot thousands upon thousands of feet of film for what may be only a 3 or 4 minute video or a thirty or sixty second spot, and so even if the label signs off on the concept that mentions a B&W or monochromatic look, they'd still prefer you shoot on color negative and desaturate in telecine, since the cost of the same amount of stock in 35mm B&W combined with the cost of lab processing would cost them much more. And also they can always ask you to go back to telecine and add the color if they don't like the results.