shooting + lighting in black and white

[Stelios Roukounas]

Hello,

 

Me and some buddies are shooting a short inside a cabin, in a pretty isolated area, the director wants to shoot it in BW. He has a scarlet and asked me to shoot it for him. I'm just staring out so I;ve never shot anything in BW so here it goes:

 

1) Do I shoot in color and lower the contrast on the DP4 to give me an indication on how to light?

 

2) The cabin is really small, so we need flexibility with space. Any recommendation on what type of lights to use? We wont have a genie, so they need to be battery powered. Something like this? http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/876210-REG/Bescor_LED500K_LED_500K_2_Light_Studio.html

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[Toby Orzano]

It would be saturation you would want to dial down on the monitor in order get an idea of how the image will look in black and white. Remember that you will have some more control in post because you can tweak the levels of individual colors so that they read as different grey values when you desaturate. Also remember that production design is very important when shooting black and white. The colors of your sets, costumes, props, etc will play a large part in determining the contrast of the black and white image, i.e. a certain shade of blue next to a certain shade of red has good separation in color, but may read as the same grey in B&W. I think there are a lot of threads on here about shooting color to be converted to B&W.

 

Can I assume from the information you've given that there is no power in the cabin whatsoever? If so, LEDs are probably going to be your only viable option for battery power. 1x1 LitePanels with the v-mount or Anton Bauer battery adapter, or Roscoe LightPads seem to be the production standard in my experience. There are some really bad LED products out there, in terms of quality of construction and quality of light, though color is less important in your case so you may be able to go with some cheaper models. Before you purchase any gear, at least get a quote from a rental house. If you're only shooting for a few days you will likely have access to better gear for less money, unless you were planning to make the investment of purchasing gear anyways.

 

The other option that comes to mind is using reflector boards or 8x8 frames with bounce material outside the cabin in order to redirect some of the natural sunlight in through the windows. The downside is that you will have to keep adjusting the angle of the reflectors throughout the day as the sun moved, and you may lose the sun completely, or never have it at all. You can still get a decent amount of bounce on an overcast day with the hard side of a reflector board or a lamé rag on a frame.

[Toby Orzano]

And an afterthought: if battery-powered LEDs are your only light sources, you will need either a LOT of batteries or some way to charge them during the day. Perhaps an inverter in a vehicle, which you can run in between setups.

[Stelios Roukounas]

Thanks a lot Toby! Appreciate the input!

[dan green]

It was sort of a last minute decision to purchase Camtree 500 LED light for a low budget. We had very little money to rent a larger light kit for the days we needed so I figured I'd just purchase this light myself as well as for the production. Quality is fantastic. And I am very happy with my purchase.

http://www.flycamshoppe.com/fc/CAMTREE-1pc.-500-LED-Light.html

[andrew ward]

Shill

[Mark Kenfield]

You can rent a little 3.5kw inverter generator for like $50-60/day, it'll allow you to run a few lights and charge camera/light batteries whilst you're out in the woods - I'd highly recommend that option.