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Color vs. B&W
- Thread starter SDBenassi
- Start date
My hat goes off to any cinematographer who can shoot well in B/W. Ideally, one needs to be able to "see" in B/W in order to shoot it properly. Lighting, costume, makeup, set design, etc. should all be executed strictly in accordance with tonal quality; it's a very specific discipline.
That said, I think the easier route technically would be to shoot in color and convert to B/W in post. There are two advantages to this. First, if you change your mind later you aren't stuck with it. Second, my experience is most labs only occasionally develop B/W film. Since the chemistry is different they often will wait until they have a sufficient batch of work to make it worth their while. (Admittedly, though, there could be a lab somewhere that specializes in it.)
On the other hand, B/W negative cinematography, if done well, has such a splendid contrast range that can't really be duplicated in color. Color film converted to B/W seems to often have a slightly muddy look to it, though you might be able to correct a lot of that these days with FCP.
That said, I think the easier route technically would be to shoot in color and convert to B/W in post. There are two advantages to this. First, if you change your mind later you aren't stuck with it. Second, my experience is most labs only occasionally develop B/W film. Since the chemistry is different they often will wait until they have a sufficient batch of work to make it worth their while. (Admittedly, though, there could be a lab somewhere that specializes in it.)
On the other hand, B/W negative cinematography, if done well, has such a splendid contrast range that can't really be duplicated in color. Color film converted to B/W seems to often have a slightly muddy look to it, though you might be able to correct a lot of that these days with FCP.
Shoot it in Black & White. If you shoot color and then desaturate it, it just won't look like true black and white footage.
Actually, shooting black and white on film won't give you black & white in the viewfinder either. 
Thanks for the feedback. I figured that I might as well shoot in BW if the final result will be BW. It does have a quality which is unique. What viewfinder are you guys referring to? The one on the camera? That's just a piece of glass, or in the case of my camera (Bell and Howell 16mm), hard platstic, which doesn't change the color at all. But yeah, I'm thinking Kodak Plus X on negative, good lattitude plus a fine grain.
I think knightly may have missed the fact that you're shooting film rather than video. If you were shooting video then generally the viewfinder on the camera would show color if you were shooting in color, but that's not always the case. Some only display black and white, and some allow you to choose to have black & white in the viewfinder (which would be a good option, since it is generally easier to focus)
If you KNOW the final outcome will be B&W then shoot it B&W. Remember, B&W is all about contrast, and you can actually control what you want to stand out. Check this out: http://www.gdargaud.net/Photo/BlackWhite.html
With a Red or Yellow filter, your actors will stand out more and skies will darken (this is because there is yellow and red in the skin and so when you put on the filter it lets that color through more, and the other colors less).
You can also do this with color photography, by taking the red, green, and blue channels in post and raising or lowering them.
But since you know you want to end up with B&W, shoot B&W and save the money.
Very specifically missed that point... sorry, my confusion.