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Fading Up From Black and White to Color

post #1 of 4
11/10/08 at 5:09pm
Thread Starter 
I am putting the finishing touches on my latest film, and have this dolly shot at the beginning that I like, but am having trouble linking it the next shot in the film. My idea is since it is the beginning of the film, pulling a reverse "Lady Vengenace," with these 2 shots. I want to start the shot in grainy black and white, and slowly add color until it reaches the end of the dolly in full color. I'm using Premiere 6.5 and am wondering what I might do to acheive this. I tried draining the contrast from the video, but it looks more like a "Gates of Hell," haziness instead of standard black and white.
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post #2 of 4
11/10/08 at 11:48pm
Simple way: cut the tracking shot in half in your timeline. On the first half, the one you want in B&W, do a color correction filter, and desaturate the image. This will give you a solid staring point for B&W, then fiddle with contrast and levels of black to your liking. Then put a crossfade transition relinking the first half and the second half. As long as you didn't cut over any frames it'll seamlessly bring the color up.

Still simple, but a little more advanced: keyframe amount of desaturation from the beginning of the shot to the end.
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post #3 of 4
11/11/08 at 8:44am
I'd agree with the keyframe control over your saturation levels. It'd give, imho - the best result - without seeing the footage in question, of course.

For the best black and white - your shot needs to be lit fantastically to start with. The 'best' grain comes from low-light though. It's smarter to worry about lighting it well to start with and adding your own grain in post production.

Also, wouldn't draining the contrast have the opposite effect of what you're going for? Up brightness a touch, followed by the contrast and your footage should have harsher shadows and blacks, which under a layer of Final Cut "film grain" should look quite nice. Vivid black and white might not be the kind of look you're going for though.
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post #4 of 4
11/11/08 at 2:22pm
Thread Starter 
I ended up messing around with it for a bit, and went with using color pass on varying levels between the shots. It worked incredibly well, better than what I had wanted in the first place.
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