Black and White

Hey all,

Elementary question here. I'm about to shoot a short on DV. I'm hoping to have it Black and White.

Should I set it black and white on my camera or should I do that later on Final Cut? Any tips on shooting in black and white?


Thanks!

OH GOD NO!!!!, what if for some reason you want to go back to color one day???

Shoot colour and then make it black and white later in FCP. That gives you much more flexibility -- for example, you can desaturate *almost* to the point of black and white, or tint it. The Desaturate and Color Corrector filters can both turn footage black and white.

What they said, although when shooting, lighting for B&W is much different than lighting for color. Proper contrast is crucial, and when f-stopping down, you don't want the blacks full of artifacts. Think about having a good B&W monitor solution on set during shoot to make sure you're getting the photographic look you want.

Clay

Also, you can use a RGB mixer plugin to make your black and white from a combo of R, G and B, to your choosing, and this can make for superb tweaking and looks.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

<<<a RGB mixer plugin to make your black and white from a combo of R, G and B, to your choosing>>>

See: Ansel Adams.

A lot of his black and white work wasn't straight black and white. It was black and white film exposed through red (Wratten 25) and yellow (Wratten 9, 12, 15) filters to distort the color pallet to gain special effects.

[masters-of-photography.com]

It is said that you could expose color film/video and get the same effects in post (Darkroom/Mac).

Koz

Graeme, could you go into a little detail about using the RGB mixer plugin for BW? I've often heard about this technique, but am not really aware of how you specifically apply it to your clips. Do you desaturate first and then apply the RGB plugin?

Andy

[www.nattress.com] is the plugin I use for this. You don't desaturate first, as the plugin needs the RGB info to work.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

You can also use the FCP color corrector filters to control levels and control saturation. I usually use that for BW work.



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