Shooting black and white

J

jordini99

Active member
Hey all,

I'm going to be shooting a black and white film noir style short in a bit, and I was wondering what your thoughts were as to whether to shoot with the monotone setting in-camera or to shoot with colour and remove it in post. Any other black and white tips would be greatly appreciated as well!

Thanks!
Jordan
 
The advantage to shooting B&W in-camera is that you can better optimize your lighting and production design for B&W. Some techniques simply work better for B&W than color.

The famous example is Hitchcock's use of chocolate syrup as fake blood for the shower scene in Psycho.
 
That's true, however, I was planning to set the camera to monochrome anyway while setting up and lighting the shot, then flip back to colour when I actually record it (assuming I'm capturing in colour and then doing the B&W in post).
 
if time permits you to do that then I say definitely shoot it in color. It shouldn't use much processing in post if you plan to transcode your footage to something more efficient and you never know when you want to use that footage in a DP/Director's reel or something.

Good luck on the project!
 
jordini99 said:
That's true, however, I was planning to set the camera to monochrome anyway while setting up and lighting the shot, then flip back to colour when I actually record it (assuming I'm capturing in colour and then doing the B&W in post).
Click to expand...
That seems a little convoluted to me...
 
But I guess what I'm asking is whether or not there's any benefit to be had in post if I shot in colour. Would doing so give me any more latitude when grading the image and such?
 
From the small amount of footage I have shot in black and white, I think that doing it in-camera gives a little more latitude and just a nicer feel all around.

This is just a gut feeling though, I haven't done any technical testing.
 
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