Shooting B&W Film in Extreme Brightness-Range Conditions, like Central-Australian Deserts

COLOUR VERSES BLACK & WHITE:

At first, I was somewhat surprised that the director wanted to use black and white film material for a high-quality, film production designed for general cinema release. However, the more I thought about it, the more I could see an inherent wisdom in the decision. There are compelling technical considerations that harmonise with the ideological and aesthetic reasons.

Perhaps the biggest single problem I would face with the cinematography in this project, is how to record an exceptionally wide brightness range on film. The light in the central Australian desert, especially direct sun light, is extremely harsh. In film terms, this can result in overly contrasty images. Imagine the shadow side of the face of a dark-skinned Aborigine against a bright desert background, or even open sky. This clearly places a big demand on the performance of the film material.

The most obvious solution to this problem is to use a film emulsion capable of recording a very wide brightness range, or in other words, a film material with very wide-exposure latitude. I think we would need an exposure latitude of at least 9 stops in some situations, and unfortunately, such a film emulsion does not exist today. Not even with the state of the art 'T grain' colour emulsions which are presently around 7 stops.

The latest colour materials can handle a brightness range of about 128 to 1. This means the brightest thing in the image can reflect 128 times more light than the darkest thing, and yet the emulsion can still record reasonable detail in both the highlight and shadow areas. However, I estimate we would often encounter a brightness range more like 500 to 1, or even 1000 to 1, and therefore we would ideally need an emulsion of 9 or even 10 stops exposure latitude. This exceeds the latitude of even the best film emulsions available today.

The other approach to such a problem is to endeavour to fill the shadow areas with artificial light, or by using reflected sunlight. Even this can be difficult when you consider that many Aborigines are so darked skinned as to be photographically almost black. Its clear that a lot of controllable light would be needed. Even where this is a solution, it will tend to work better for close-ups and medium shots, less well for wide shots, and impossible for panoramas. However, the reality of this sort of production will probably make this sort of approach mostly impossible. The production can only carry a very limited quantity and variety of lighting equipment, the necessary power requirements will often be unavailable, and there simply will not be enough crew members to set up and operate lights and reflectors. Another solution has to be found. Let us turn to an investigation of the chemical manipulation of film emulsions.

Colour negative film materials are clearly the pinnacle of present-day emulsion technology. All the most recent advances are focused in the colour arena. By contrast, Kodak black & white motion picture negative materials, like Plus-X, double-X and four-X have not changed significantly since the 1950's! So modern colour stocks have many advantages in terms of granularity verses sensitivity, and exposure latitude (as I mentioned, overall about 7 stops). There is also the ability to give a purer, uniform rendition of black. But all colour films are designed in such a way as to allow little variation in the processing chemistry, in fact, many fine tolerances must be met in order for the process to work in an acceptable way. Yes, you can push or retard the development a little to compensate for a little under or over exposure, but that is about it. You can not, for example, manipulate the contrast in processing. In fact, the lab has little control over this factor, apart from the choice of print stock. (The cinematographer has some measure of control during shooting by employing optical factors e.g. the use of various types of filters, and the controlled use of lens flare etc.).

All black and white negative emulsions, on the other hand, allow for a much wider range of chemical manipulation through longer or shorter development times. This progressively effects its apparent, if not real, sensitivity (emulsion speed) in a fixed relationship to contrast. It means that you can exploit a relationship between exposure and development time, to control image contrast. In the harshly lit desert situation, we now have a controllable system that can be used both practically and aesthetically. We don't have as wide a latitude as colour film, but we do have the big advantage of being able to control the contrast within that narrower exposure latitude.

The consequence of not being able to employ a film material of sufficiently wide exposure latitude gives two generally undesirable photographic results. Firstly we end up with a too contrasty image and, secondly, we suffer a loss of either, or both, highlight and shadow detail. This means the highlights burn out and/or the shadows block up. The ability to soften that 'too high' contrast to a more pleasing rendition is therefore very attractive. Of course, we still must accept loss of highlight and/or shadow detail, even more so than with colour emulsions, but there is the potential to exploit this to our own artistic advantage. Unlike the chemistry of colour emulsions, we now have the ability to manipulate our black & white images to various levels of abstraction in a controlled and repeatable manner. In this way, we would have a special black & white paintbox with which to compose our images. I find this approach very interesting and exciting.

We would be now delving into a photographic domain normally only accessible to stills photographers with their own darkrooms. The techniques are as old as photography itself, but are rarely seen in motion-picture cinematography. We can put very old skills to use in very new artistic endeavours. From my point of view as a cinematographer, that is one of the greatest appeals of the concept to shoot black & white. Moreover, it fits with the vision of the directors. They have their own clear ideological and aesthetic reasons for choosing black & white, and I consider it is an important part of my job to find the necessary technical solutions to help them realise their vision.

To go down this road will require a lot of carefully controlled prior testing in conjunction with the lab we will be using. By necessity, the testing will be extensive. Generally speaking, I see 9 broad areas, each producing a unique result. For any one emulsion of a given sensitivity, we can give it normal exposure, underexposure or overexposure. For each of these, we can give normal development, overdevelopment or underdevelopment. This will give 9 distinct ways of rendering the contrast, only one of which, is considered 'normal'. But it is a tricky and complicated business, because there are many variables in the process. As well as the contrast, the highlight and shadow detail will be effected, and also the rendition of the 'blacks'.

The 'blacks' are very difficult to control in black & white cinematography, usually more so than with colour film. Too much, or too little, exposure in the shadow areas can send the final rendition to grey, instead of the aesthetically more desirable black. Contrast is largely an illusion in black and white cinematography, created by having a very dark reference, preferably black, and/or a bright reference in the image. It is extremely hard to shoot a truly black & white film, as you tend to get an aesthetically far less pleasing 'grey and white' film. It might be necessary to accurately expose for the 'blacks' in black & white photography (depending on the emulsion used), instead of just going for the extreme underexposure typical in colour photography. For a high-quality, art documentary such as this one, it will be very important to maintain a good control over the all illusive rendition of black in the image.

THE FORMAT:

For a high-quality, art documentary of the type envisaged, nothing less than 35mm quality would give a satisfactory result. Of course, life would be much easier for the cinematographer using 16 m.m., but I feel the final result would be unacceptably compromised. Its clear to me that the presentation is integral to the concept, and it is one of the ways that will make the film significantly different from other documentaries about life in central Australia. It is a 'work of art' for the big screen, with high-fidelity, stereo sound. It is not a 'rough and ready' style documentary, nor is it primarily intended for television. If it was, then some other approach might be appropriate.

It barely needs repeating that 35mm is the only truly international standard for theatrical distribution. 35mm prints can be shown easily anywhere in the world (including film festivals), and are easily converted to any television system. The only possible alternative is super 16, a slightly improved 16 m.m. system requiring the final prints for distribution to be struck in 35mm. It is usually considered for reasons of portability of equipment, and cost saving in the budget. The camera equipment is indeed more portable but, in practice, it is very difficult to realize those wonderful savings. The cost of the final blow-up to 35mm is so expensive as to cancel out most of the savings made during the production and post-production stages. The savings only tend to be significant where the shooting ratio is exceptionally high. For this particular project, it may well be 'penny wise and pound foolish' when you consider the real 'cost' is a significant loss of image quality. This may only be compensated for by a small percentage saving in the overall budget.

The argument can be taken further, when placed in its proper historical context. Digital, or computer technology, is quickly dictating higher technical standards. This is interesting in itself, but it is the resulting marketing implications that we must keep in mind. We are on the eve of the wider introduction of high-definition television (HDTV). We already feel its presence as a powerful, post-production tool for many recent 35mm feature films in both America and Europe. HDTV is a system that has similar quality to 35mm. Sony already has an experimental camera that has greater sensitivity than Kodak's fastest film material while giving an image structure as good as Kodak's finest grained stock (in film terms, the best of both worlds). I say HDTV is similar to 35mm, because while I would agree it has comparable quality in terms of image structure, it clearly has much less exposure latitude (brightness range recording capability) resulting in a sometimes ugly rendition of image contrast and loss of highlight and shadow detail. This means it is still not as good as film but the gap is closing. HDTV is a wide screen format (1:1.77) and one must not forget the sound side of the medium; it is not only digital (so called, 'CD quality') but it is also stereo. 16mm pales to insignificance by comparison, not to mention all our existing television systems.

I anticipate a new market springing up sometime before the wider introduction of HDTV to a general public. This includes satellite fed HDTV cinemas which are likely to becomes as numerous as present day video rental stores. Those who will be able to take advantage of the new market will be those producers with suitable product; namely, 35mm quality, wide screen format with digital, stereo sound. I understand that this documentary will meet these requirements and hence is potentially eligible for this booming new market. For this reason, I would choose a screen aspect ratio to suit HDTV.

In fact, any of the three current, non-anamorphic systems are likely to be suitable, namely the American standard 1:1.85, the British standard 1:1.75 or the European standard 1:1.66. It is even possible to obtain a specially made gate for the camera with the precise HDTV aspect ratio of 1:1.77 or 9 high by 16 wide. This was done, for example, by a local rental house for the Peter Greenaway feature, Prospero's Books, produced by the Amsterdam based company, Allarts. I have to do a little more research into the most suitable wide screen aspect ratio for this production seeing it is designed for truly international distribution. The problem is that not all European cinemas, for example, are properly equipped to show all three wide-screen standards. Often, 1:1.85 films are screened through the 1.66 system which is a combination of projector gate plus supplementary lens. This would mean that the image will now fail to cover the whole cinema screen from top to bottom and hence will be unmasked by the upper and lower, black, screen boarders. It works, but it is not desirable. A European 1:1.66 film in America may well be cropped top and bottom if the cinema is not properly equipped with the 1.66 system, and they resort to screening it with the standard 1:1.85 system. This is more serious as it upsets the camera operator's framing and composition. Therefore, you can make an argument that it is safest to compromise and use the middle system 1:1.75, or that of HDTV, which is virtually the same. This would then give a second reason for choosing the HDTV aspect ratio.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:

I see the possibility to use a wide range of interesting lenses on such a documentary from very wide angle to very long telephoto and including macro lenses. The beauty and splendour of the Australian desert is revealed in its sweeping panoramas, just as it is hidden in its minute detail.

Camera movement is very important. Of course the situation may rule out the use of dollys, jibs and cranes, therefore, the ability to hand-hold the camera, both on and off the shoulder, will be important. Also to be innovative in finding other sorts of suitable moving and stationary camera platforms in the field.

Also, there are many types of filters that can be employed in addition to the normal red, orange and yellow filters to hold back excessive blue light from the highlight areas in the image. These include, hard and soft-edged, graduated, neutral density filters, polarising filters, filters to influence contrast and sharpness, sparkle filters etc.

IN CONCLUSION:

This is by no means an exhaustive evaluation. As I say, it is my initial thoughts on some of the cinematic problems to be solved for such a project together with some glimpses into its artistic potential. I must say, I see great scope for this film from the point of view of the cinematography. I feel confident that we can make a visually interesting document to artistically underline the unique approach to the subject matter.

Copyright © Peter Gray (1992)

Peter Gray
(near Los Angeles)
P.O. Box 5132
Pine Mountain Club, CA 93222
United States of America
telephone: +1(661) 242-1234

dp@petergray.org