Scenes like this one of a heavily backlit group show how important shooting
with the widest latitude and dynamic range is when shooting for black-and-white.Fooor tthhhhheeee mmmmooosstttt aaauuuuttthhhheeennnntticc lloooookk,,
yooou mmmmmmiigggghhttt ccoooonnnsssiddddeeeerr sssshhhoooottiinnngg
wiithh bbbblllaaacckkkk-aaaandddd---wwwwwhhhiiiittteee fifilmmm..
various Log and RAW formats gives
you a very clean digital negative,
which you can affect in hundreds of
ways to give you the exact look and
feel you’re going for.
The best part about this option is
that if you shoot in color and decide
later that a few scenes or even the
whole project just seems as if it will
work better in color, you still have that
option. Shooting black-and-white film
or with a digital black-and-white cam-
era doesn’t give you these options; once
you’ve shot the project, you’re married
to black and white forever.
Post-Production Processes To Obtain
Black-And-White Footage: There are
several ways to achieve a black-and-
white effect in post.
The easiest method is to apply a color
correction to a clip and desaturate the
image to monochrome. Depending
on the look you’re trying to achieve,
this may or may not suffice. Software
plug-ins like Red Giant’s Magic Bullet
have black-and-white presets that can
also be applied to clips, tweaked and
customized, then rendered out.
Personally, I like DaVinci Resolve:
It offers very sophisticated node-based
image manipulation with a lot of fine
control over many different curves. It’s
just about the perfect application tocreate your look for your project. Also,
be sure to try duotones and Sepia tones.
Keep in mind that gradations and
grayscale have a tremendous influence
on how the viewer will perceive your
black-and-white footage. Just as when
shooting film, applying color filtration
will have an effect on the tonality of
your black-and-white images. This is
a good time to shoot tests and have
some fun with colored filters. Each
application of a color gel or filter willaffect how the black-and-white con-
version looks in your final image. In
the days of shooting black-and-white
film stock, cinematographers would
often play with yellow, orange and red
filters to vary the contrast ratios withinthe grayscale between the black-and-
white points. There’s no wrong or
right answer here; this is your time to
play around and concoct an original
look for your black-and-white footage.Gooo Foooorrrtttthhh AAAAnndddd PPPllaaayyyy
One upside about the digital video
era we live in is that it’s so easy to play
with the looks of the footage you’re
shooting. So for your next project, go
forth and experiment. DPP digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 49