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I've always had a fascination for the look of black & white movies, especially between the 40s-60s, lit by masters of lighting with such precision and scope. That, and the chosen camera angles just suck you into the movie from the very first seconds. One of my favorite is "Two for the seesaw" with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine from 1962. DP was Ted McCord, known also for shooting Sound of Music. Besides being impeccably lit and shot, it's a great movie if you care to watch it. It's also one of the first movies to show a little bit of the New York beatnik scene in 60s. It's written by adults for adults, it's not a 350 million Sunday morning cartoon.

These blurry youtube captures don't do it justice, on the DVD you can see just how sharp and "wet" everything looks, as if the whole set was just given a fresh coat of black & white paint. Beautiful stuff...

What are some of your favorite cinematography moments?

hi Mihai
I have often wondered what would give a black and white render in Maxwell.
(with desaturated materials for example) A black & white camera could be fun.
But its stupid, just need to desaturate in photoshop ^^

I have a soft spot for Barry Lyndon and the nasa camera for the candle light atmosphere:

Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979)


B&W rendering... hmm.. in theory, shouldn't the noise clear faster?

lebulb wrote: I have a soft spot for Barry Lyndon and the nasa camera for the candle light atmosphere:

Oh yes, one of my favorites too Amazing atmosphere, and looking at the amount of candles it's amazing most things didn't burn down in the 18th century. There's some very interesting trivia about this movie on IMDB.

dk2079 wrote:Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979)
B&W rendering... hmm.. in theory, shouldn't the noise clear faster?

Will have to watch this...

Yeah, B&W should clear faster as we're only rendering greylevels, right?

That's a tough question as I think it depends what story you are trying to convey. Here's some of my favorites:

Gone with the Wind



Pleasantville



Edward Scissorhands



Grand Budapest Hotel



.... absolutely can't stand movies like Transformers and all that crap that relies heavily on CG

dk2079 wrote:B&W rendering... hmm.. in theory, shouldn't the noise clear faster?

You're right! x3 faster! lol
I did not think about it

rusteberg, were is your avatar I remember one that was funny.
Edward Scissorhands , cool movie, like the other Burton.

The Fall 2006 (Tarsem)

Enter the Void

Aniki wrote:The Fall 2006 (Tarsem)

Enter the Void

Weirdo.

sad but all the movie industry today is just (insult) .

Comic book supermans and other blockbusters (what a name) .., I have no been in a movie theater for 10 years.. pointless. these places all look like Disneyland commercial alleys..
That "Industry" is completely in the hands of some Investment Funds, bankers... etc.. so today we end up with the shittiest movies ever produced.

Who would find the budget for a Barry Lyndon today.. impossible

CG ruined everything What used to be B and C movies with a crappy script and crappy effects in the 50s and 60s, are now mainstream with even crappier scripts but brilliant VFX.

Even one that isn't total shit, take Gravity for example, is it really a movie that deserves 7 Oscars? The effects are great but the movie itself was......eh, and I was mostly distracted by Sandra Bullocks plastic surgery.

The 1976 Oscar nominees for best picture:
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Dog Day Afternoon
Barry Lyndon
Jaws
Nashville

What could be a hopeful development now is that you begin to have more ways as a film maker to find backing, one route are the VOD services like Netflix. They're now betting more and more on creating their own exclusive content and they have cash...what will always be true I guess is that when the primary obsession becomes making money (for any activity), everything turns to shit.

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Mihai wrote:.....eh, and I was mostly distracted by Sandra Bullocks plastic surgery.

lebulb wrote:I have often wondered what would give a black and white render in Maxwell.
(with desaturated materials for example) A black & white camera could be fun.
But its stupid, just need to desaturate in photoshop ^^

Under Maxwell Camera settings you will find a few B&W camera responses

You're right !
I had never used this Response option ^^