Black and White QUESTION

W

wmiller@csulb.edu

Well-known member
I am going to be shooting with a red filter on my DVX anticipating converting to black and white in post.

What is the best way to do this?
 
I'm no expert, but depending on your NLE app, you should have something like a Hue & Saturation filter. Just take the saturation all the way down and you'll have true B&W.

Cheers,
Alden
 
In Final Cut, I use a Sepia filter instead of desaturating, and then set the sepia color tone to dark grey. With the three-way color corrector, this makes a really cool looking black and white effect, really film-like, not like a security camera
 
I wouldn't recommend that.

Just film it regularly, get the best, low contrast image you can. Then in post you will be able to up the REDS or what have you; this will also be helpful in the likely event of one of the actors having a blemish or whatnot - in such a case you'd raise the RED. Or if someone's shirt is this or that, or not enough contrast.

Then you convert it to black & white and up the contrast. Pretty much every black & white film these days is shot on low contrast color, then printed onto a high contrast black & white film stock.
 
*Reds and DV don't mix*
I remember a few years back someone on this board tried to take the technique you're thinking about and used a primary red filter on their DVX and realized much to their chagrin when the captured the footage that it was all really blocky because of 4:1:1 compression. Take a cue from ngraha3 and do it in post. It's your best bet for DV.
Peace,

-Harry
 
But why would the red be a problem if the chroma values are going to be thrown out in the end?
 
You're artificially throwing out the chroma. The raw digital information you're shooting with will have reds in the example above. So if the reds create blockiness or whatever, then such will exist in the raw footage. Removing the red after the fact won't remove that issue because the issue is red + DV, which you will have shot/created in the first place.

cheers.
 
ngraha3 said:
I wouldn't recommend that.

Just film it regularly, get the best, low contrast image you can. Then in post you will be able to up the REDS or what have you; this will also be helpful in the likely event of one of the actors having a blemish or whatnot - in such a case you'd raise the RED. Or if someone's shirt is this or that, or not enough contrast.

Then you convert it to black & white and up the contrast. Pretty much every black & white film these days is shot on low contrast color, then printed onto a high contrast black & white film stock.
Click to expand...
Why do they film on low contrast color? Does that boost the contrast even more when they convert it to the black & white?

What would be the FCP equivalent of, say, a Y2 or R2 filter? The arithmetic filter with the color of the filter added to the RGB channels? Would that be worth doing, or can I just as easily get the same results adjusting the levels in the CC-3 way?
 
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