how to make a colour negative b&W

[Guest ariel]

Hi dear friends,

I have a 16 m"m colour negative which I want to print in b&w, is it possible?

(not in telecine ofcourse, in film, 16 or 35)

thanks,

Ariel Glikson.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Hi dear friends,

I have a 16 m"m colour negative which I want to print in b&w, is it possible?

(not in telecine ofcourse, in film, 16 or 35)

thanks,

Ariel Glikson.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yes, you can print the color negative onto a panchromatic B&W intermediate film like 2238 or high contrast stock like 5369. Your lab can work with you to adjust the contrast, as was done by Deluxe Labs for Roger Deakins' "The Man Who Wasn't There":

 

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

 

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

 

http://lightingdimensions.com/mag/lighting_balancing_act/

[Dominic Case]

I have a 16 m"m colour negative which I want to print in b&w

Be sure not to print directly onto B/W print stock 7302. It is only blue-sensitive, so your image will come out with blues very light and reds, yellows, greens, far too dark. Also the contrast (gamma) is really too low for colour neg.

 

As John suggests, 5369 is panchromatic so it is your best bet - but may be a little TOO contrasty.

 

No promises as to what would happen to a soundtrack if you needed one.

 

The other alternative is a bit costly - it involves making b/w panchromatic intermediate positive on 2238 or (35mm only) then a b/w dupe negative from that, and finally a print.

 

Or, (though I doubt your budget would stretch to it) going via digital intermediate, when you can have black and white, pink and green, or any other combination you choose!

[Guest ariel]

Hi, I didn't mention that only part of the movie need to be black & white (flashbacks) the rest of the movie is color, which that makes a different?

What is the process to do that?

[Dominic Case]

Hi, I didn't mention that only part of the movie need to be black & white (flashbacks) the rest of the movie is color, which that makes a different?

Certainly does make a difference.

 

Unless you assemble your final print from b/w and colour sections (not really very practical, and certainly an issue for soundtracks) you will need to print it entirely on colour stock. In which case you will need a dupe negative of the b/w shots with the colour removed.

 

Best plan is to make a b/w pan fine grain (i.e. a b/w IP) on 2238, and then a colour dupe neg on 5242 (it will be a b/w image of course). Cut that in with the colour material and you have what you wanted.

[Dirk DeJonghe]

Since the original is 16mm and the final print also, some of the solutions proposed use stocks only available in 35mm.

 

My suggestion is to do a 2K scan from 16mm and a digital recording to 16mm. Would come close to the 16mm to 35 blow up Pan IP and reduction to 16mm 7242 DupNeg. For about one minute we usually try to match the price of our optical printer work since it is much easier to do and doesn't tie up the optical printers for several days doing blow-up and reduction. I have a S16 gate for my film recorder and it comes in real handy for these jobs.