A prisoner awaits his fate in a Middle East prison
cell. I shot this in color but converted it to black
and white using Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 16.1.the visual story simply with black,
white and various gray tones. That
means contrast and contrast ratios
become much more significant in a
black-and-white film.
Wa rd r ob e : Yes, your wardrobe
choices can look dramatically different
in black and white. And that means
you’ll need to shoot wardrobe tests,
along with lighting, hair and makeup.
So, those powerful colors that you
might have relied on for a charac-
ter’s identity or personality go out the
window, which means you may need
to rethink some various aspects of
your project.
Hair And Makeup: A lot of what will
make hair and makeup a creative part
of the process on a color film will be
lost on a black-and-white film. You
just won’t be able to see the subtle
tones and gradations in hair color and
skin tones.
It’s why it’s imperative to shoot tests.
You don’t want your characters to
inadvertently end up looking like pale
extras from a gothic horror film—
unless you are, in fact, making a gothic
horror film.
One good thing about shooting
a monochrome movie these days:
Depending on how your black-and-
white project is shot and lit, you’ll
have a lot of latitude and dynamic
range—more than filmmakers
did a few decades ago with black-
and-white-film stocks. It’s smart
to exploit that latitude, if it suits
your story.Production Design: Sets and props
will look quite different in black and
white. Be sure to test these as well.
Make sure that your location or sets
look how you want them to look.
T hat mea ns you’ ll wa nt to work wit h
your production designer, art direc-
tor and props department to ensure
that they all buy in on the vision of
shooting in black and white and can
offer you choices that will work.Postproduction And Visual Effects :
Depending on how you decide to
end up in black and white, whether
that's shooting in black and white
or first using color but monitoring
in black and white and converting
the color images in post, your edito-
rial team and visual effects/motion
graphics team will need to work
with you to make sure that your end
result is what you and/or your cli-
ent expect.
Planning is key: You’ll need to
partner with your editor and visual
effects team to make sure that what-
ever process you’re using will give
you the desired look you’re going
for. There are a lot of subtleties and
nuances to shooting in a black-and-
white project, many different looks
and feels that you can experiment
with. It’s essential to plan all of this out
with your team, even if your team
is just you and an editor or you’re
producing, filming, directing and
editing yourself. digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 47