AaronMeister

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking about something like that, but at the same time we are finishing on film, so I don't know if that changes anything. I know that if you use color, you have to settle on a color to print with making a slight tint to it. I'll check out that film and discussion if it's still liingering around the forum. Thanks again, Aaron

Does anybody know of any good resources for Black and White cinematography, particularly when it comes to shooting it. I'm shooting a short at the end of January which the director wants to shoot in B&W. I've only shot some B&W stills, and I'm worried about shooting his project in it. We have to work with low light levels, and quick setups. It is being shot in an art museum where he can only afford to rent it out for an 8 hour day, and available light reads averages just below a 2.0 with nothing really getting to 2.8. The museum is really expensive to rent out, and it's sucking away money from equipment to battle this. I talked about shooting with high speed primes, and potentially just bringing up general levels, but at the same time I'd like to keep contrast and separation. The museum is also very strict when it comes to lights falling on the paintings, so it seems like a challenge to keep a lot of elements within range of each other without too much falling off. I'd like to maintain contrast, but I'm very worried on how to do so under these restrictions. Once I slap any sort of filters over the lens I'm really worried as to what I'll get. It seems very foriegn to me, B&W is such a mystery. I've talked to him about using a different location where we have more time, and the restrictions aren't as high, but he's pretty adament on the space. Just his rental costs alone are so high, I really don't want to mess things up, and I'd like to deliver some top notch cinematography. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Aaron Meister

I agree that using ND filters would be fine, and you can stay on the same stock if you want. I also wanted to mention that I have recentley shot a documentary using primarily kodak's new 7229 which is rated at a 500asa and is absolutely beautiful. There is great grain structure, and tons of lattitude. We shot in an available light situation at night with stops at about a 1.4. We used Zeiss primes that opened to 1.3 and I was amazed how great everything looked. There was a lot of range in background light (billboards, businesses, etc.) but it handled everything perfectly. We also used the same stock in daylight and interiors, and it was equally awesome. We also shot some of it on the last of kodaks 16mm 800asa film, and that film looked really crappy in comparison. I've shot a few other things with the new 7229 and I can't say anything bad about it. Maybe you might want to check it out.