Why Shoot Modern Movies In Black & White?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 июл 2024
- The first 1000 people to use this link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/indepthcine01211
In this video I’ll look at some contemporary films shot in black and white with the hope to uncover some of the reasons that the directors and DPs advocated for deciding to shoot in monochrome.
MERCH: www.indepthcine.store/
MUSIC I USE: bit.ly/3qCRt7u
EDITING SOFTWARE I USE: bit.ly/2LZ60Lo
STOCK FOOTAGE: bit.ly/3jZHBC0
PATREON: / indepthcine
WEBSITE: www.graykotze.com/
INSTAGRAM: / indepthcine
DISCORD: / discord
Source: www.creativeplanetnetwork.com...
Source: britishcinematographer.co.uk/...
Source: www.indiewire.com/2018/12/rom...
Source: collider.com/mank-cinematogra...
List Of Films Featured:
The Kid (1921)
The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Breathless (1960)
Jules And Jim (1962)
The Godfather (1972)
Jaws (1975)
Frances Ha (2012)
Cold War (2018)
Roma (2018)
The Farewell (2019)
Raised By Wolves ‘S01 E01’ (2020)
Mank (2020)
0:00 Introduction
0:53 Brief History Of Colour
3:55 Reasons For Shooting Black & White
11:26 Conclusion
Music Courtesy Of Artlist: artlist.io/artlist-70446/?art...
Music:
Beneath The Mountain - ‘As The Sky Turns Grey’
David James Terry - ‘Washed Away’
Ian Post - ‘Delicate Frost’
Dear Gravity - ‘Lucid Dreaming’
Michael Vignola - ‘Transforming’
Borrtex - ‘Reflections’ 
Кино
That thing about the ND contact lenses on Mank is crazy.
I think "Lighthouse" looked amazing as well.
I was disappointed The Lighthouse wasn’t discussed in this video, it was my favorite film of 2019.
@Franq It was my favourite of the whole decade.
“The Lighthouse”*
It's a masterpiece, shooted on Kodak 5222 and with old lenses. The result was amazing. Trying to emulate the "film look" is an illusion, i'm sorry for Cold war.
He’s already made a whole video talking about The Lighthouse, so it would just be him repeating the same thing...
There are a couple of great reasons for shooting black and white. Number 1 is it's cheaper because any old lights will do, no expensive high CRi lights required. Number 2 you no longer have the headache of having to worry about white balance. Matching the lighting temps of shots which are sometimes days apart is time consuming and difficult if you don't know what you're doing. Do you want or need the learning curve or do you want to tell stories and make movies. Also colour can make stuff look very video if you don't have a certain skill level. Black and White just lends itself to narrative storytelling in a very simplistic but effective way. Learn to tell stories in black and white and when you've nailed that, 'then' start working with people that have the skills to deliver a colour project at your budget level and let them worry about it.
... Black and white is perfectly fine when producing, until the director wants a color version of the same film :)
@@route909 I'm talking more along the lines of someone who is making a film for a festival not a corporate shoot. If I was making anything for a paying customer I would always shoot full colour for exactly that reason. But for myself if I was doing everything from the script to the grade, and couldn't afford to pay anyone to do it for me, B&W all the way.
@@JWS1968 I know :) I was talking about the exact same thing. I shot a B&W student film i Poland a few years ago, which was meant to be produced in B&W and ended up in B&W. But along the lines, before it was released to the world, there were discussions about it being released in color to appease a larger audience. We did all costume tests in B&W and so fourth. We shot it on a shoddy Panavision-modified RED Dragon with some strange green tint. And a Sony A7SII for a few shots. It only really worked in B&W anyway as everything was tailored towards B&W. It's made it's rounds through festival world and even ended up winning some awards, even up till this year. It's been broadcast on Polish TV. Love B&W where applicable. ruclips.net/video/vq0lK4j4rKg/видео.html
@@route909 So you picked B&W friendly colours for contrast? Excellent stuff.
@@route909 Just watched the film fucking great movie, so impressed. Looks great sounds great and an amazing short. Which festivals did it play in. Here's one of mine not really a short film I made this to showcase a mates acting showreel. I make films on the weekend as a hobby. ruclips.net/video/cqfH5TMjGN8/видео.html
I love that black and white is making a comeback atm it's such a nice format
As a lover of monochromatic films, I’m genuinely grateful for this video
Can't believe how quickly this channel has grown, and it's 100% deserved. Another great video! I look forward to them every week.
I agree with you .. and it deserves it
Love B&W. Dead Man, Raging Bull, Stranger Than Paradise, Stardust Memories, Ed Wood...some of my modern favorites.
Ida is one of my favourite film cinematically and it shows you how well you can light a scene when everything is just shades of gray
I would love to see a breakdown of films by Satyajit Ray. Btw love your videos, keep up the good work
I really appreciate that you always use examples from all around the world! Very rare among film video essayists.
I just shot a film that will be in B&W. The reason being, we wanted it to feel like classic Film Noir. Also, the set colors (the house we filmed in) looked generic. B&W allows the viewer to focus more on the story rather than the set design and color pallette.
The Man Who Wasn’t There is a great modern black and white film. Roger Deakins🙏🏻
B&W says “The story is more important than the experience of watching it.” and for those stories that ARE, quite worth watching.
I made a short film in colors, but then decided on the last minute to convert to black and white
It solved the lighting issue and enhanced the atmosphere
Where can i see your short film??
@@sameerahmed-gx8js m.ruclips.net/video/cAAPVGphK34/видео.html
Many first time feature directors also do this when they know it will be hard to keep color consistent for budgetary reasons. Great way to showcase your potential and have the audience just focus on the story.
For me the main reason is that It makes sure the spectator doesn't get distracted. I figured this out when I set my phone to be monochromatic for reasons that don't matter for this comment, but what how pay attention to when you have colour is much more disperse. In BW you pay more attention to expressions and the figures on the screen because that's the only thing that you can pay attention to. There's no "aesthetic" making you go "oh this is so pretty OMG I love It", there's the scene and the sound. And that's the second thing I noticed, dialogue becomes much more prominent. Again, it's easier to Focus on It .
I love black and white.
I can think of two movies that used black and white for practical reasons: 1) Memento: To distinguish between forwards and backwards scenes 2) American History X: To show how the racist main character sees the world as black and white.
I always considered B&W films as tonalist motion pictures.
In the world of painting, tonalist pictures can be as beautiful as those “in color”. A film like “The Lighthouse” is a masterpiece of use of values (and of course the actors are incredibly great).
And painters know that value is far more important than hue.
Black and white is awesome. It leaves more of the feel up to the imagination of the viewer. Plus its way easier to grade. I think it has plenty of practical use today.
I shot on black and white film (16mm) back in the 90's, mainly because in those days it was half the cost of color film, but I also really do like the look of it. It's also easier to light and has a dreamlike quality. Certain types of movies work well in black and white, even when made today, like some horror and thrillers.
I don´t really like clean, digital, widescreen B&W because i enjoy color so much, but i did enjoy The Lighthouse, the B&W aspect just blended perfectly and i kida just forgot about it
Radha Blank's "40 year old version" of 2020 was shot in B&W. Pretty refreshing
The high I get from watching these videos are stunning. Thank you for this channel. The amount of growth I've had transitioning from videography to filmmaking wouldn't be the same without how in-depth you get with films. Much appreciated!
B&W just looks beautiful. I have one of the picture settings of my TV set to B&W and ever so often I switch to that setting to see how modern films look in B&W. Quite frequently they actually look better. Shadows are much more noticeably and there is a clear distinction between light and dark areas, something which many colour movies simply don't achieve.
I found that the better color films are made by people who started making black and white films: Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Jean Luc Godard, Andrei Tarkovsky, etc. They've already worked without color and know that if you can perfectly tell a story without it, the only reason to film in color is if the color plays a significant role in the storytelling.
Most modern filmmakers always work in color and take it for granted and make very dull and uninteresting color pallets.
@@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747 there are modern movies that have exceptional colour. Hero and Grand Budapest Hotel come to mind. But as you said, colour is the standard, so most of it is just there but nothing special.
@@iododendron3416 I was actually going to mention Wes Anderson above as his debut short film was made in B&W, but I was worried there could be a snobbier response.
But yeah, I'm not saying there aren't good color anymore, but I found a lot of modern movies to be incredible uninteresting from a visual standpoint and they could be better if they were just B&W.
pi (1998) really nailed the black and white look.
Through recommendation, I decided to turn the colour on my TV off whilst watching the film, Nightcrawler (2014). Highly recommended! It really adds to its Neo Nior aesthetics.
If you shoot digital but with a sensor with the color filter array removed, the sharpness could be incredible, especially the 6 and 8k sensors.
Can you do a video on Robert Eggers? I'm also curious what you thought about Piercing, on top of a great story, the way they told it only using about 3 real settings gave a great feel to it.
Thank you for making this video; I have many friends that don't seem to understand why a movie would be shot in B&W. My brother is one of the worst offenders, he'll acknowledge historical/ period films and say that's valid, but anything else he just writes off as "not making sense"; for example, he won't watch the first Clerks movie because it's in B&W, even though he likes Clerks 2, Mallrats, and many other Kevin Smith movies. I tried to explain to him that it's a stylistic choice (tbh I didn't even think about it being budget-friendly), I told him a number of different reasons for this choice that he still seemed dead-set on saying "iT sHoUlD'vE bEeN iN cOlOr."
great video! thank you for making it :) just wanted to add that as far as I know another reason for Alfonso Cuarón to shoot in color and desaturate in post was because of the amount of visual effects he used (for set extensions and such) cause he wanted to recreate that part of the city exactly as it was when he grew up there.
It does work well for the story. My only complaint for using digital cameras lies in the way the actors move while in frame, which has a different look to film.
Such a well made video, even upping the production quality by demonstrating selective adjustments in DaVinci resolve to visualise a quote better 👍👍 thanks for the effort, loving your content since 40k subs
Thank you so much for your videos! I really like your style and constantly learn new things about cinematographers and the art of cinema!
The Captain was one of the most incredible, captivating films I've seen over the last couple of years. Highly recommend.
Wonderful content you have and wonderful video presentation of the use of Black and White. And so you know, Frances Ha is one of my favorite films. Great job!
Lovely video ! Love that it didn't use that somewhat aggravating deeper-than-thou nerdwriter style of narration haha. Your humble, almost giddily excited, style made the information fun to digest and ponder ☺️
I'll shoot a movie in black and white just because it's on the to do list of a great director.
Scorsese - Raging Bull
Lynch - Eraserhead
Spielberg - Schindler's list
Alphonso Cuaron - Roma
Kubrick - Dr. Strange love
Coen Brothers - The man who wasn't there.
Steven Soderburgh - The good German
Nebraska*
David Fincher - Mank
Almost every great director tries to add 1 black and white film to their collection ...
Ps: add anyone's I may have forgotten
The Lighthouse and Schindler’s List!
I'd be interested to hear your take of the small trend of films (Nabraska, Logan, Fury Road, Parasite off the top of my head) releasing a colour and black and white version, either due to preferance or studio pressure.
love ur content! really keeps me motivated to continue shooting films :)
I think all these movies have great cinematography and shooting in black and white is just another tool. Would love to see a breakdown of Lukasz Zal, Ida and Cold War have some of the best cinematography of the last decade if you ask me.
I was thinking of doing a breakdown of Ida soon. Everything about the cinematography in that film is just incredible.
@@InDepthCine it would be really cool if you did a breakdown of Tenet
@@addistesfu2424 He's already done a breakdown on Hoyte van Hoytema, the cinematographer on Tenet and Christopher Nolan's main cinematographer. Check out that video.
@@visualsforyou7120 i meant it in the way he did a breakdown for "The Dark Knight"
@@InDepthCine Man, this is 2022. Where is that video? Hahaha. Do the video plz!!!! Ida or Cold War. Or you can teach us how to shoot in B&W, if that’s possible.🙊🙊🙊
Great video! So many resources
Peter Ustinov is said to have wanted his film _Billy Budd_ (1962) to be made in black and white because it is _more_ realistic. I think he is right. Colour, especially modern colour, is not more _realistic,_ it is merely more _naturalistic._ Naturalism does not (standardly) _add_ something worthwhile to the look of the cinematic image but subtracts from it. I feel that B&W should be the default and that colour should be used only when it does genuinely add something worthwhile.
How did you manage to not mention Lighthouse even once? :D
dude! your channel is amazing, thank you so much! Cheers from Portugal!
Thanks for watching!
Interesting video about the use of black & white. I think that for the french new wave there was the idea of getting out of studio sets and the be free with a hand held
cameras. (this new way of filming was coming directly from WWII, if i’m not mistaken). And yes for french cinema it was more economical to film on b&w stock than
on colour film. (Thanks for the mention of «Cold War», i’ll have a look at it. It’s black & white seems beautiful). I saw «Mank» and I didn’t liked it, story wise. Technically
it could have used the 1:33 ratio instead of scope. Back in the days Orson Welles (and cinematographer G.Toland) dig up old arc lamps use in the silent era to have
very contrasty images. Although the b&w of «Mank» was done with a monochromatic camera there was a few flaws here and there. For exemple I found that the dinner
scene at Hearst was «grey» and it needed more contrast. And the images looked too much «perfect» because there was so much CGI involved. The mono sound and
the «scratches» on film was just a gimmick to me. I think that you need the «grainy» look (for b&w and colour) because with all the recent 4K, 8K and any digital
enhancement you are stepping to much into «reality». I’m not immersed in a film seeing Gandalf the white... i’m seeing Ian Mackellen in costume.
The best reason for shooting in black and white is that you can put yellow subtitles onto the film
Fantastic video IDC - I learned alot from watcing this, and its probably my number 100 video on just this. Very informative - cheers
Been wanting to shoot a short in an alleyway in downtown, looks like a New York alleyway. I feel like it would really benefit the story to have it be in black and white especially with the contrast and shadows.
this is actually really cool to see, I have been planning a film recently that I wanted to shoot in B&W, but I was worried people would write it off as pretentious, but now I'm gonna go through with it. Thnx
Have you managed to shoot your film yet? I'm planning a dark interrogation scene short film and am considering b&w, possibly also for economical reasons.
Fantastic video as always dude! Would be great to hear some anecdotes of working on Raised by Wolves and what Ridley Scott is like on set.
Very well done!
What a coincidence! I just watched Roma this afternoon and came across this video. Perfect timing.
Loved the background music :)
If you shoot black and white you dont need color correction. Also you can use very aggressive lieght from one or two lieght source. Black and white low budget friendly.
Would love to hear about your experience as a crew member on that TV show!=) Amazing video!
Whether still or motion photography, tell a great story. If color helps the story, use it. If color detracts from the story, then get rid of it. The story and the performance is everything. Color or lack of color, by itself, is not important.
Always been a fan of black and white both in film and photo. The lack of color can bring a completely different emotion to the viewer. In a way it allows the audience to focus on the characters more. Not mentioned in the video but think about the movie Clerks, I'd still consider it modern and while the choice was due to budget.. Would we still have the same connections to the characters if it were color?
I’ve been watching Raised by Wolves just now and loving it!
Great video. I would have liked to hear your take on another Netflix film that was shot in B/W with its camera choice being 'film' as opposed to digital; The Forty-Year-Old Version
Super cool video!
Zack Snyder's Justice League: Justice is Grey is an amazing looking version of a Hollywood blockbuster in black and white and it looked amazing. I highly recommend that version.
You worked in Raised by Wolves?? That's sooo cooool
Any indian show that i watched 'Kota Factory' (its on youtube and really great) is also rendered in b&w and is great in its message with that
Outside if my Geek channel I make a living as a filmmaker here in Doha, Qatar. Much of my work is in Black & White because I want am athlete, rapper, singer or dancer to be the focus. The last action sports video I did in color was a parkour video in Kuwait. Everyone talked about the color grade, gorgeous sunset shots and the architecture and plantlife of the apartment complex we shot in. I was like "What about the fuckin parkour dude"? Lol so since then I tend to use B&W.
It still amazes me that studios don’t believe that what best serves the story is what they should do.
Studios mostly care about money.
This is so cool man :) me and my friend did that shoot I mentioned a week ago. We shot it on an iPhone 12 and 10 to make it 3D, and we decided to make it b&w to hide the auto HDR color shifting, we’re also doing it as a silent movie haha. Would you like to see it when we’re done editing? :)
Thorough as usual, excellent! Perhaps something about your video making process would be interesting, whatcha think?
Great video. When we shot my second feature film, White Light, digitally in BW I disabled the colour, so the masters are in BW. Sometimes I regret the decision but that’s why I made the decision to disable colour in the first place. C
Thank you so much for your video's
Love your videos! Please cover Linus Sandgren in a Cinematography Style vid
One thing he does not mention, is the fact that restoring colort to a faded/shredded/tarnished technicolor is easier to do, compared to an Eastman color print, because if one of the three technicolor film strips is tarnished, the missing visual data can mostly accurately be ascertained, from the color information available, from the two remaining color film strips.
When an Eastman color-print fades. ...it is an educated guess at how saturated the colors were, and what their hue was.
Interesting and learningful video! We are planning on a monochrome short film i 4:3 format coming up. 😉🎬
Do foreign cinematographers style like kazuo miyagawa - rashomon ,yojimbo/ santhosh sivan - iruvar dilse kaalapani
Yeah, Kazuo Miyagawa would be great.
This is a super great video - you made some great points about B/W that I had never considered. I was wondering what film is at 12:08 - 12:10?
Roma (2018)
such good content here and people are just going to the same-pattern camera and lens review videos
Love it
You should make a video about the use of black and white in some scenes. For example Memento, Casino Royale or Murder on the Orient Express
Wow really love your content this is awesome . What is your preferred editing software you use for filmmaking, I'd love to have a conversation and maybe even collaborate on different ways in telling stories through video !
For an excellent B&W modern film check out Escape from Tommorow!
Your videos are amazing! Could you make an analysis on Jeff Cronenweth? Please 🙏🙏
The colour...the colour es opium for the people.
Congrats on getting on Raosed by Wolves!
Whaaaat you worked on Raised By Wolves?! Soooo Gooood! All hail Campion >:)
It may also hide the fact you don't have a professional production designer for 1st time filmmakers.
Very nicht 👏 thx für sharing this Video, it's great 💪👍
Kind regards from austria ✌️🫶
Can you do a Robby Müller breakdown!
I love black and white imagery.
It needs better lighting I have heard from David Lynch and his Eraserhead. Black and white is a great stylistic thing I think.
Why did you remove your latest Q&A video involving color grading? That was a good video.
No Lighthouse clip!
I have always felt a longing to silent films and black and white films.
Enjoyed the pilot of Raised by Wolves
This video barely missed C’Mon, C’Mon by less than a year.
I like B&W for a number of reasons. The look adds mystery, you don't need to do color correction, and you can focus on the story. Bad color grading is a distraction. Converting from color to B&W requires skill. Film is better unless you need to post something immediately like breaking news.
Love from India . Please discuss about some Indian films too.
Could anyone tell me where that footage of Coltrane is from? 11:31
The opening description stems from mainstream media that has modelled passive film viewers to believe black and white film is no longer socially or artistically relevant. In my view this nonsense stems from the influence of North American popular culture on the rest of the world. Put simply, Hollywood executives would need to see massive returns on black and white film to give their (monetary) approval to film-makers to make them. The fuller explanation is that US popular culture from the twentieth century onwards has suggested to the world that it does novelty and excellence in all things best of all. (And nothing is more novel that digital colour grading.) The result is that conservative individuals in media outlets the world over propagate the tale that grass roots, uncomplicated and genial ideas in cinema are to be cherished; whereas philosophically and emotionally challenging ideas in cinema (ideas most associated with black and white European and Asian film-making), are elitist, high-minded and therefore unpopular.
Zzzzzzzzz.
no one else on youtube is merging camera tech and production experience with film theory. Congratulations. Post a reply if you have another recommendation.
Wolfcrow. Check out his channel.
what's the name of the movie at 1:46, please?
I truly dislike modern movies filmed in black and white if creator is trying to set mood for older era. Makes absolute no sense