Lighting for a black and white movie

S

shorty15

Well-known member
So a couple of questions. I am working on a black and white short film and I am looking for information on the ideal lights to be used. The film will be shot on a 5D. I am a big fan of the Steven Soderbergh look, especially the blown out, overexposed look of the Informant. I am also looking into lighting using available light, like his most recent film, The Girlfriend Experience.

I am also a big fan of film noir and want to use bright overexpose for the daytime and super contrasty film noir lighting for the night. I have been reading about the colors of different lights like LED's, tungsten and HMI's. I was wondering if anyone had any information on how these lights are rendered in black and white. In my mind, black and white means that there is no need to color correct the lights for indoor or daytime, light is light. Any thoughts on lighting for a black and white movie?
 
Black and white lighting is almost a dead art form. Black and white is about tonality and is hard for a lot of folks to grasp. The thing to remember is that a lot of colors, in sets, costumes and make up may render in b&w as the same tone and not look like they do to the eye. The only thing to do is TEST, TEST, and TEST. Test all of you production design elements (Costumes, sets, make up and props) in b&w to see how they look.
You are right as far as light is concerned, yeah light is light. What you need to be concerned with is the quantity of light and the quality of the light, i.e, the level of softness or hardness of the light. Because b&w see tones instead of color, you are going to need to TEST you lighting design to see if it meets your needs. The use of available light is possible, but again, test and test. Remember it is b&w photography that spawned 3 point lighting, because of the need to use light, instead of color to give photos, and films, a 3 dimensionality, and depth. Study the lighting of some significant b&w films and see how they are lit.
 
I guess a good question will be how the color of light translates to black and white. I want to use shop lights (halogen to be precise), but that light is very yellow in nature compared to fluorescent which is white. Will the yellow halogen bulbs not look as good and not come off as super bright white in b&w? could custom white balance settings be used to get rid of the yellow? Anyone have experience white balancing with halogen work lights?
 
shorty15 said:
I guess a good question will be how the color of light translates to black and white.
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I don't think the color temperature of different lighting sources translates at all. Contrast is something completely different than color temperature. Didn't Kevin Smith shoot black and white for Clerks because the lights in his main store location were fluorescents?
 
Finnegan said:
I don't think the color temperature of different lighting sources translates at all. Contrast is something completely different than color temperature. Didn't Kevin Smith shoot black and white for Clerks because the lights in his main store location were fluorescents?
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It does. Open up a color photo in photoshop and look at the r, g, and b channels. If what you said is true, then they should all look the same, but they don't.

Also, at the OP, is your camera CCD based or cmos? If it's cmos, you will probably see less noise if you light with cooler balanced lights, as opposed to halogen, which are very red. Maybe noise/grain is what you want though??
 
The camera is CMOS based ( 5d), not looking for grain but rather a lot of contrast between the blacks and whites (not alot of grey but rather alot of overblown whites during the day and a contrast of super dark shadows with bright white reveal and mood lighting at night). I am not sure how to approach the interior lighting . And I fear that using available light will give me alot greys. Back to the halogen floods, if I were to use cool white balance cards, could I get the light temperature closer to white, which should result in more contrast in black and white?
 
Color temperature does make some difference in black and white... but yes, Kevin Smith and fellows did go B&W on Clerks because they could not afford to balance the daylight from the windows, florescent from the ceiling and tungsten lamps.

The different color temperature lights will cast a *slight* difference in tones, but in black and white it will just appear as shades, so you don't have to care about it nearly as much as if you were shooting color. In color, color temperature differences scream out. In black and white, you just get some different but not noticeable tonality differences. No one is going to look at a black and white film and say, "oh wow... look at that tone on that mans face! It looks like a blueish daylight hue but in black and white."

The secret to successful black and white shooting is usually tonal separation. You must light a bit more contrasty, because shades of light and shadow must now carry all the contrast, as color is absent. A really good method would be lighting in layers... have foreground elements against backgrounds with the opposite tonality or shade. For instance a lit man against a dark background, or vice versa. It makes the image pop, not only creating contrast to direct the viewers attention, but also creates a sense of heightened depth within the frame.

For instance:
http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/15909/1253732336.jpg

Hard lighting is sometimes preferred, only because it can offer greater contrast. Play around with actors wardrobe, makeup, and set design. Feel free to test color combination and then fudge them. Some times ridiculous colors of lipstick or wardrobe look great in b&w.

I never got to the third part of my black & white article series which talks about all these way's of cheating an image for black and white, but perhaps the second article will have tidbits of interest. It's mainly a bit technical and is about formats, but it might help in some way. www.RyanPatrickOHara.com/Download/blackandwhitep2.pdf
 
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Thanks Ryan, I found both articles to be very useful. Within the last couple of weeks, I have been watching as many B&W films as possible, namely Rumble Fish, The Good German, The man Who Wasn't There, Raging Bull, The Third Man, Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil ect, in an effort to study the lighting of the masters (Another good foreign example are films of Bela Tarr). I initially decided to shoot in black and white because I love the look but I was also told that it would make lighting easier as I could mix and match light sources without correcting or gelling them to match each other but then I was told that they still needed to be gelled so I was confused. Thanks to everyone for the input.

I have also decided to shoot using Schneider diffusion filters in order to make the bright whites pop even more with a tiny bit of over exposure (i mean slight just to create a little bit of blow out in bright sun and in any bright value. I think that with a little bit of overexpose and diffusion, i can increase the contrast in black and white. I am using the most recent version of final cut pro and the color correction options in color seen like they would help to tweak certain portions of the image to get that layering effect that Ryan described and make it pop even more.

I now need to work on getting that cool film noir look without using lighting that is obviously fake to the audience. That is why my set selection will be super important. I will be looking for locations that with natural light, can produce super bright areas and super dark shadows. Any other advice on getting the film noir look without is looking fake? Alot of the online tutorials on film noir show examples of lighting that would never happen in real life.
 
Yeah color and color temperature of lights will effect the black and white tones, but by no means does it have to be corrected, especially for the same reasons they do in color. If you can't do it... you can't do it.
 
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