A2 Media Coursework
BLACK AND WHITE
I tried to look at lots of different black and white photography to start to be able to pick up the different brightness’s and shadows. I also looked at black and white photography next to its colour original so I could begin to learn to convert the colours into a grey scale. I needed to keep in mind that completely different colours could be very similar greys in black and white.
I needed to get a really good contrast of shadow and highlights to bring up the detail in the picture, this could be best produced by a really strong black and keylight. To get good detail I also needed a good range of mid greys, as this would help create depth. This would be especially important in faces.
We wanted to use grey scale in our bath scene where the girl has black in running over here. We thing this could be really effective as the contrast between the pale skin and the black of the ink would be striking. The reflection of water, with the right lighting could be very aesthetically appealing. We are going to have to test some shots before we do the final thing for the best results.
It’s good to turn down the gain and ISO as low as it can go to. These stop so much noise and make sure what you want to focus on stands out. You should choose a perfect mid tone and then set the image around this. We will probably set the image around the skin of our actor and then make the rest of the picture darker or brighter accordingly using the shutter speed and f-stop.
After we’ve filmed we need to turn it black and white in post-production. One of the ways to do this is to remove the saturation. Then we’d still use colour correction to make the dark and light more contrasting. On the other hand we could just use the direct black and white pre-setting, but this would give us less control over the image.
We liked the stylistic choice of using black and white cinematography in the scene with her in the bath having a breakdown. Black and white is often used to isolate characters and scenes. It gives a sense of loneliness and loss to the scene. The absence of colour makes it seem as if there is something missing and makes it very cold. There are no warm tones as there isn’t any colour. We wanted the girl in the bath to feel exactly the same way, lonely and isolated, unhappy and cold. By having the cinematography mirror this we enable the audience to easily empathise with our character and grasp the mood of the scene straight away. This was important for us especially because we wanted to add an emphasis on visual storytelling. We want to audience to understand the story from what they see and not what they hear in the narrative.
Another reason the black and white works really well is that it keeps brings the scene a bit more back to calm. Everything else in the scene is going to be crazy and overwhelming. The sound is going to be heaving rock and the cuts are going to be quick with a lot of movement. Having full overwhelming colour would be too extreme and ruin the impact. The mood conveyed by the black and white reminds the audience of the other side of it. The isolation and sadness that goes with the crazy, breakdown purge she is having.