Getting the look of old black-and-white movies

[StS]

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We all know the movies with Cagney, Bogart, Robinson,...

 

I just wondered, what to take, to re-create the look of these films. Tri-X would probably my first try, in some old-fashioned developer.

 

My first try at the lens would be either the '54 collapsible Summicron 50 or, maybe even better, the pre-Asph Summilux 35...

 

Nice, sunny day today, despite a volcano dust cloud grounding all flights. Not too inspiring....

 

Well, I would be interested in your views. How would you create this look?

 

Stefan

[andybarton]

I think you will need older film than Tri-X. One of the Czech formula films would be a better start I reckon.

 

I like the idea of the collapsible lens though.

[wattsy]

The look of old black and white films has much more to do with the lighting than it is to do with the emulsion.

[Jaws]

Very true.

 

I would however recommend trying Efke 100. It seems to have a very classical look to me. Definitely old world. Bergger 200 might be even better if still available since Forte went down the pan (they made it I believe).

[giordano]

The look of old black and white films has much more to do with the lighting than it is to do with the emulsion.

 

In particular, total control of the lighting almost all the time. Even on location they used lights and reflectors and scrims and so on.

 

This could be a starting point: Misconceptions in Lighting | Music Video Wire - MVWire.com

[FiZZ]

Read John Alton's Painting with Light. It was a standard on film noir lighting. Then if you're developing film, try to develop it roughly. If you want digital copies, put transparent tape on your prints and then scan them in.

[tgray]

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The look of old black and white films has much more to do with the lighting than it is to do with the emulsion.

 

word.

 

In other news, some of those old Kodak emulsions that were used in cinema are still available. Well, cine Plus-X as just discontinued, but you can still probably get some. Double-X is still around. For the most part, those films are similar to when they were introduced in the mid to late 1950's.

 

Grab a roll of traditional B&W film like Plus-X, Tri-X, FP4+, etc, and an older lens. And then work on the lighting.

[StS]

Thank you, gentlemen, this was most illuminating. The link above was highly instructive and I'm ordering the book of John Alton.

 

So, we are talking cutting edge technology of the 40s. The collapsible Summicron with the single layer anti-reflection coating should be just right. The Summilux with its 1960 calculation and late 80s modern multi-layer coating is out.

 

Looking at the old movies, I do not see any grain. I have the suspicion, we are talking about 10 or maybe 25 ISO here. The Efke 25 could be close to the material used back then.

 

Now things are getting interesting, since we are trying to follow an industry, which was already well out of it's infancy in the 40s and the people knew very well, what they were doing. Since we are in the 40s, we do not play around but stay with the three-point-lighting rule explained in the link above. We would need a studio then and rent a floodlight from the Empire State Building for the key light and two airfield lights with diffusor for fill- and backlight to get 25 ISO exposed. Since we are staging anyhow, we can just as well hire some actors.

 

Well, here's another nice mess I've gotten me into...

 

Or, I skip the studio and stick with the humble still photographer's approach to try to find the right moment with the right lighting...

 

There are some wizards like Azzo, who have brought this to perfection...

 

Thank you all very much for your insights.

 

Stefan

[giordano]

The fact you're worried about grain's makes me wonder whether you want to get the look of the actual movies or of the production stills.

 

Remember that the movie camera frame then was half the size of the Leica negative, and the speed/contrast/grain trade-off wasn't as good even as it was in the 1960s or 70s.

 

On the other hand if you want to make pictures resembling old B&W stills, you're probably competing with sheet film.

[MPerson]

There is a group of us shooting Double-X (5222) and using various developers and kit. Link in my sig.

 

Here's a chronology of Eastman Kodak MP film with some details on asa.

 

John Alton's book is an interesting read. Another one is "Masters of Light" Denis Schafer and Larry Salvato. There is also a very good DVD called "Visions of Light - The Art of Cinematography" Arnold Glassman.

 

Unfortunately, Kodak discontinued Plus-X MP film in negative and reversal for 16mm and 35mm at the begining of this month.

 

Fortunately, Orwo also still make old style MP film in 100 asa and 400 asa. Waiting on a batch at the moment.

[StS]

The fact you're worried about grain's makes me wonder whether you want to get the look of the actual movies or of the production stills.

 

Remember that the movie camera frame then was half the size of the Leica negative, and the speed/contrast/grain trade-off wasn't as good even as it was in the 1960s or 70s.

 

On the other hand if you want to make pictures resembling old B&W stills, you're probably competing with sheet film.

 

Sorry, this might be a misunderstanding – I’m not planning to make a motion picture, I have neither the knowledge nor the equipment for it. I’m an amateur still photographer, having no studio experience (as you will have guessed now), typically the only two ways for me to control lighting are by choice of time of the day and position. Or simply by living with the light I find.

 

I do some black-and-white development myself and wondered, whether it is possible to do a still photography having the same look as a “Film noir” but understand now this look is produced by very good light control rather than by choice of material.

 

Talking about grain - if the old films would be grainy as hell, I would try to look for a way to make them look grainy as hell in the same way, but they don’t seem to be. This might well be due to the eye averaging grain out at 24 frames per second or even due to post processing for a DVD.

 

But nevertheless, by means of this thread I discovered I should look deeper into the lighting aspect, it might improve my still photography.

 

By the way - the whole idea started with this thread:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/people/122652-right-who-nicked-me-tool-kit.html

 

Thanks a lot you for your insights

 

Stefan

[StS]

There is a group of us shooting Double-X (5222) and using various developers and kit. Link in my sig.

 

Here's a chronology of Eastman Kodak MP film with some details on asa.

 

John Alton's book is an interesting read. Another one is "Masters of Light" Denis Schafer and Larry Salvato. There is also a very good DVD called "Visions of Light - The Art of Cinematography" Arnold Glassman.

 

Unfortunately, Kodak discontinued Plus-X MP film in negative and reversal for 16mm and 35mm at the begining of this month.

 

Fortunately, Orwo also still make old style MP film in 100 asa and 400 asa. Waiting on a batch at the moment.

 

Thank you for the material, this would help to narrow it down further.

 

I had to smile about this sentence in Kodak's discontinuity notice:

Small stock may remain and will be supplied until depleted.

I guess what is seen as small stock for motion pictures can keep a still photographer running for quite a while....

 

Stefan

[Gentleman Villain]

HI Stefan,

 

you're on the right track about lighting. The only thing I'd like to add is that many of the great black and white noir type of movies were shot using continuous sources that focused to create hard edged sun-like shadows. So if you really like that old hollywood type of lighting then it might be worth your time to study up and experiment with light sources like Fresnels that can produce single hard edged shadows.

 

Lighting is almost it's own discipline. In the movie industry, there are cameramen, sound guys, lighting guys etc. Each person is hopefully an expert for his particular discipline within the film making process. Lighting should be viewed as almost it's own little separate discipline within still photography. That's how I see it anyway. I used to light still sets for other photographers, they handled the camera and directed but I would be the guy handling the lights. There is a lot of that going on in the industry that amateurs/hobbyists etc aren't necessarily always aware of...

[Xmas]

Hi

 

The mono cinema films has several things you may find difficult to copy.

 

I've a fridge with cine film e.g. double-x (5222) [little food], easy to get, nice film.

 

The lighting, as much as needed, whatever type, careful metering, reflectors etc... the scenic material expensive..., the actors and actresses real pros, the camera person real pro. Pro camera, pro prmary lenses, pro lens hood, french flags...

 

Two examples

 

- the projection increases the scale from bright to dark, much more than a glazed silver gelatin print, - the grain was never a problem with cine, they used dev like D76 cause the optical sound tracks hissed too much otherwise, (before Dolby). The projection on pro screen material, the projector and lens not cheap, the theatre real dark.

 

You can try to mono reversal processing with a clear base film but that is not how cine was done, see next...

 

- my next door neighbour's (in '71) little daughter demonstrated a foot of cine positive print film (18x24mm) and said my Daddy is a better photographer than you..., it was cut from a rush... so I looked at it, and said this is just amazingly good, the affronted answer 'I just told you so'. She was a little madam, took after daddy a lot...

 

Jeff Seaholme

 

Have you tried playing football volleys like George Best, or cricket like Don Bradman, good to aspire, but... both are still unequaled today? For your interest George was on the same campus at high school...

 

Noel

[giordano]

Sorry, this might be a misunderstanding – I’m not planning to make a motion picture, I have neither the knowledge nor the equipment for it.

 

No, I never thought you were going into the movie business, but there is a difference between the look of films from that erea and their publicity stills - and a bigger difference between a still and an enlargement from a single frame. (Partly grain, partly motion blur from the 1/50sec exposure at 24fps, partly - I think - that with a moving picture one's visual system tends not to notice missing shadow detail.)

 

Talking about grain - if the old films would be grainy as hell, I would try to look for a way to make them look grainy as hell in the same way, but they don’t seem to be. This might well be due to the eye averaging grain out at 24 frames per second or even due to post processing for a DVD.

It's both those things, but also one's attention is automatically drawn to the action, which means that mostly one simply doesn't notice the fine details of IQ the way one does with a photograph. Yet another complication is that different emulsions were used in the camera and for the final print: the latter had to be fine-grained to miminise noise on the optical sound track (which was never recorded in the camera) but it could have a very low ISO.

[rob_x2004]

Probably the biggest effect is the number of times something was duped. Ok not as much as for the positives, but ..... Were you looking at a copy of a copy of a copy or a copy of the copy?

[Xmas]

No, I never thought you were going into the movie business, but there is a difference between the look of films from that erea and their publicity stills - and a bigger difference between a still and an enlargement from a single frame. (Partly grain, partly motion blur from the 1/50sec exposure at 24fps, partly - I think - that with a moving picture one's visual system tends not to notice missing shadow detail.)

 

It's both those things, but also one's attention is automatically drawn to the action, which means that mostly one simply doesn't notice the fine details of IQ the way one does with a photograph. Yet another complication is that different emulsions were used in the camera and for the final print: the latter had to be fine-grained to miminise noise on the optical sound track (which was never recorded in the camera) but it could have a very low ISO.

 

The cinema film was projected, the (i.e. more) shadow detail was there, you need a mono transparency in a 2x2 mount, good projector on a proper screen, or back projection, to match this.

 

The stills were shot for glazed glossy silver gelatin and had much lower contrast.

 

The pro cameras have variable angle shutters to allow choice of aperture for depth of field control.

 

Noel

[tgray]

DVD resolution is also small enough that you'd have a hard time seeing grain in most cases. It's 720 x 480 (720 x 576 for PAL). I can show you pictures shot on P3200TMZ at that size that have no apparent grain.

 

The motion nature of it will also mask grain.

[StS]

This is a strong point - if I scan grainy negatives like Tmax3200 @3200, I get huge files when finally converting to JPEG. Even, if the original film is grainy, it makes sense to filter this grain out for DVD processing to make the best use of the limited data storage space.

 

I'm getting more and more the feeling motion picture and still imaging are quite different approaches, sharing mainly the recording material.

 

Nevertheless - I have ordered two black-and-white DVDs together with John Alton's "Painting with Light" for study purposes . I'm quite interested to read deeper into this matter, maybe, it even helps to improve my photography.

 

Stefan

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[tgray]

This is a strong point - if I scan grainy negatives like Tmax3200 @3200, I get huge files when finally converting to JPEG. Even, if the original film is grainy, it makes sense to filter this grain out for DVD processing to make the best use of the limited data storage space.

 

That's not what I meant. I meant that the grain will be hugely minimized just by the downsizing of a 4000x6000 scan to 720x480. No 'processing' or noise reduction going on.

 

In other words, DVDs just don't have the resolution to resolve 35mm (motion or still) grain to any real extent.