How Can You Improve the Rendition of Orthochromatic Film?
Orthochromatic films are sensitive to blue and yellow, but lack sensitivity to red. Thus when it comes to determining how you can improve the rendition of orthochromatic film, you’re going to have to understand the color spectrum and how various images are likely to appear based on the spectrum. Because orthochromatic films are made with silver halide crystals, they are naturally blue-sensitive but you’ll soon find that orthochromatic films are also rather insensitive to reds which causes some concern when shooting in certain environments.
What is Orthochromatic Film?
Introduced in 1873, orthochromatic films were widely used in the production of early photos and movies. These films were made with silver halide crystals which made them particularly sensitive to green, blue and violet lighting but not so much to red. Therefore, anything that was red could appear black when this film was used. Orthochromatic film would quickly become the less chosen options as technology and chemistry would evolve and Panchromatic films were introduced in 1906. Panchromatic films provided a much wider color spectrum making them the chosen option for recreating the tones that we see in everyday life.
Improving the Rendition of Orthochromatic Film
If you’re using orthochromatic film, you might be wondering, “How can you improve the rendition of orthochromatic film?”
If you’re shooting with orthochromatic film, you might notice that there’s less than vivid exposures. Particularly, skies can appear overexposed, reds are certain to appear black, and frankly depending on what you’re shooting it may or may not deliver the desired results that you’re looking for. So what can you do?
For starters, you can select filming locations and set elements that are going to be complemented by the orthochromatic film’s capabilities rather than struggling with the output. Since we know that orthochromatic films are sensitive to greens and blues and yellows but not to reds it’s really important for you to carefully consider who, and what, you’re filming, as well as where and when you’re filming, to ensure the best orthochromatic film outcomes.
Let’s consider some examples. If you were filming outside you could expect some amazing footage, just as long as you’re not capturing the warmer red tones. Because orthochromatic film is not sensitive to red lighting, or to red coloring, anything that appears to have red tones will come out dark, black and hard to see.
The Problem with Blue-Sensitive Film
While blue sensitive films, like orthochromatic film, were popular for several years, they were certainly not perfect. In fact there was a very distinct problem with blue-sensitive, orthochromatic film – anything blue would be rendered white during the days of black and white filmmaking and that meant important elements, like clouds could be lost.
Think about it. You’re filming a blue sky with white clouds. Blue-sensitive orthochromatic film sees the bright blue sky as white and the other elements of the landscape, such as the green trees and the brown tree trunks as grey and dark grey or black. Brown tree trunks would almost certainly show as black because of the red tones in the brown since orthochromatic film was insensitive to red. This meant that an image that had the bright blue sky with white clouds would just look – white.
Thus planning and making mental judgements on what may, or may not, appear when filming with orthochromatic film because a very important step in the process of improving the rendition of orthochromatic film footage. If the filmmaker wanted to emphasize clouds in the sky they needed either to film on a less than sunny day when the sky was already more of a gray, dull color with clouds, or they needed to filter out the blue sky so that the clouds could appear. The sky must be darkened, or the blue filtered out, in order for the clouds and the sky to be separated.
Planning Key to Orthochromatic Film Success
If you’re wondering how you can improve your images, you’re going to want to choose WHO you film wisely. Actors with warm skin tones are going to appear dark and dull, whereas those with cooler skin tones are going to appear vibrant and crisp. The same goes for filming outside. Orthochromatic films can enhance the green shades that are prominent in many landscapes and environments that include a lot of healthy vegetation.
Makeup could be used to further improve the rendition of orthochromatic film. Filmmakers in early production sets that were working with talent that had warm skin tone would use greasepaint and powder to reduce the appearance of red tones, at least until technology would improve and the close up became popular.
Ultimately, when we look at steps to improving the rendition of orthochromatic film the focus was all on how the blue sensitive film would portray the various colors involved in the set and within the talent. Certain colors would be avoided as much as possible (particularly red, which would show up completely black) while others were favored. Scenes were set based on how the filmmaker perceived the outcome would be based on the type of film being used and improving the rendition of the orthochromatic film which was popular in the very early stages of filmmaking and was still readily available up until 2004 was really all a matter of planning.
So, how can you improve the rendition of orthochromatic film? Planning is essential in order to achieve the correct rendition of tonal relationships that are made when filming with orthochromatic films. Anything less, is bound to result in a less than satisfying shot.
