Black & White or Colour?

mr-modern-life

mr-modern-life

Okay a quick debate. I have had one hell of a debate with my sales partners in the US about our next film 'Ten Dead Men'.

We are making teh film in balck& white (with Sin City esq colour splashes) but they have thrown a shit fit saying that the film will never sell.

There was a time I was told DV would never sell yet we haev locked down 15 + countries with Left For Dead so...

So is there REALLy still a stigma to B&W or are the sales guys just stuck in the past?



(See the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4w7n3RLKlw to see the effect we are going for)
 
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looks fine to me. I think the sales guys are trying to sell. if black and white is really just one color, color is 3 and 3 is more than one...follow the logic, then apply a cream. Make the movie you want and be enthusiastic about it. Yours was an artistic choice...you shot in color and applied a post processing technique to focus attention and heighten the experience.
 
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mr-modern-life said:
they have thrown a shit fit saying that the film will never sell.
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Yes, this is very true. I was attacked for considering a TITLE SEQUENCE in black & white for Horrors of War. Buyers have said that no oen wants tos ee a black & white movie. Even the COEN BROTHERS had to release THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE to Asian territories in full color.

It's a hard sell with no name stars. SIN CITY made it on the full cast, not to mention Jessica Alba gyrating.
 
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I hear it all the time from distributors. It's tempting to assume they don't know what they're talking about, that we filmmakers know better, but there seems to be plenty of evidence to support the distributors claims. As Peter pointed out, the Coen brothers were on an upward swing with their three films previous to "The Man Who Wasn't There". Check out the numbers:

Intolerable Cruelty $35,327,628
The Man Who Wasn't There $7,494,849
O Brother, Where Art Thou $45,506,619
The Big Lebowski $17,498,804
Fargo $24,567,751
The Hudsucker Proxy $2,816,518

It's hard to to think that black and white had at least something to do with such low numbers. I've tried finding very low budget ($80,000 to $250,000) DTV features released in B&W and have found almost none. Maybe it's because the distributors are right? I have no answer - I prefer to shoot in B&W but just can't.
 
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I know people who won't see Sin City because it's in B&W. These are the same people who'll rent a movie based on DVD design, which is what you shooting for in the DTV market, am I right?

Poke
 
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Another alternative is the highly desaturated look. Emulating the bleach bypass look can be a compromise with distributors. Near-black & white, but with some colors and then tell them it's "color" but make it damn close to black & white.
 
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Loud Orange Cat said:
Don't compromise your artistic integrity.
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This option isn't always viable. It doesn't always make sense to put artistic integrity above business. Sometimes that whining producer is just trying to earn back the money they raised. If that whining producer makes a profit the writers and directors might get the chance to make another movie. Hard as it is to believe, sometimes the artists don't have the right answer when it comes to the business side of a movie production.
 
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So true. We figaured as this is the last movie we will make on our own with our own money to take a risk... if it works we will break new ground, if it doesnt we can always go back and redo it!
 
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Is giving the color guys a color version and the rest of the world a black and white version an option? Just going from the point made that the Coen brothers had to give a color version of "man who wasn't there" to Asia.

Is that really true? Did the Coen Brothers really do that? Seems hard for me to think that the Coen brothers would compromise something like that, but maybe they did. I know color, or lack there of, is a big deal for the Coen bros. Why should they have to compromise anything for anyone?
 
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Business is compromise. If the guys who control the gateway to $$$ say color, they want color. The only way to get around that is to have a proven track record that you can hold up and say...see, I've been successful in the past, I know what I'm doing! Find someone who can talk anyone into anything, that always works for me ;)
 
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dylan61 said:
Is giving the color guys a color version and the rest of the world a black and white version an option? Just going from the point made that the Coen brothers had to give a color version of "man who wasn't there" to Asia.

Is that really true? Did the Coen Brothers really do that? Seems hard for me to think that the Coen brothers would compromise something like that, but maybe they did. I know color, or lack there of, is a big deal for the Coen bros. Why should they have to compromise anything for anyone?
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from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243133/trivia

# The movie was filmed in color, then printed in black and white by special processing. However, at least one print was released with the first reel in normal color due to an error at the lab.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243133/alternateversions

# Though released in a black and white version, the picture was originally shot on color film. Allegedly because of a mixup at a developing lab, some prints released in Canada had the first reel in color by mistake, while the rest of the film was in black and white.

# Because of a contractual agreement, the distributor (USA Films) is allegedly releasing a color version in Europe

# Limited edition DVD released in Korea allegedly contains both original theatrical B/W version and Color version on two separate disks.

# In some European countries (among which Belgium, France and the Netherlands), the rental version is available only in color. Strangely enough, the version available in the stores both has the original black & white version as well as the version in colour.

# In Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, one DVD version sold in stores consists of 2 discs, one containing the black and white version and the other having the film in color. However, there is also a single disc color only DVD available.

# The color version has been released on DVD in Thailand, with a Thai language track.
 
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Wow, and I love "man who wasn't there" and I've only ever seen it in black and white.

I think black and white is a great artistic choice as long as it serves some kind of purpose. There has to be a strong reason for using black and white over color. It's hard to convince an audience that's looking for higher and higher quality images to watch on their HD televisions that black and white can be just as beautiful as color. We had a short film in our festival last year, "Listening Dead", that was not only black and white, but silent as well and it won best short at our festival.

I have a friend who is sure that 1080p, HD video looks better than film on a 1080p HD TV. I told him I just think it looks like really, really good video. I don't think the general public looks for the artistic value of a film these days and maybe your distributors are right in that sense. The movie probably will appeal to a larger audience if its color. But film festivals and the audiences that they attract will be more likely to accept and appreciate a black and white film.
 
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dylan61 said:
I don't think the general public looks for the artistic value of a film these days .
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Was there ever a time when the general public looked for the artistic value of a film? I don't know that the general movie going public ever looks for the artistic value. I'm not saying they don't appreciate the artistic, just that the artistic value isn't in the top five reasons the general public chooses what movie to pay to see. And not just these days.

As filmmakers we need to balance the business with the artistic. Many times the distributors know much better what will sell than we do. Phil - I hope your B&W release is a huge success. I still can't find any sub $50,000 movies with no name stars on the DTV market at all. If your does great business it might open up the options for the rest of us.
 
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