MovieChat Forums > Much Ado About Nothing (2013) Discussion > Why was the film shown in black and whit...

Why was the film shown in black and white


I was just curious why is that the film was shown only in the black and white format rather than the traditional color.

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Saves time and money. They only had 12 days to film.

Straightedge means I'm better than you.

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Because you can't spell pretentious without J-o-s-s W-h-e-d-o-n?

Because they didn't have color film in Shakespeare's day?


It wasn't a matter of cost. Being filmed digitally, "filming" in color merely means flicking a switch.




Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos

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It's not as easy as flicking a switch. Even digitally, sets, actors, and props need to be filmed properly. Or sets need to be re-dressed, moved, or recolored, if the colors clash or are glaringly awful. This all takes time and therefore costs money.

Straightedge means I'm better than you.

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Except that lighting for black and white is more difficult and time-consuming, so it doesn't.

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It does when you save time and money on having to dress or recolor sets and props. Several scenes take place in an entirely pink room. Black and white saves the time and money of having to repaint or find a new room.

Can't stop the signal.

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Not necessarily. Shooting black and white you have the benefit of being able to shoot straight through a full day without needing to worry about the changing colour temperature of the light. Also, as other posters have pointed out, black and white saves a ton of money on set decoration.

Having shot black and white many times myself, I can promise you that it's much, much easier to shoot quickly and achieve good looking results than it is with colour. That applies to both digital and film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FE9SLJ2Xoc

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plus, black and white makes if feel more like we are back in Shakespeare's time

:)


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The "light set" used for this film, as Whedon put it, "rose in the east and set in the west."

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It was partly cost - because they had no light set, only natural light, and light and shadow is more easily worked with black and white.

Oh, right. So, she secretly trained a flock of sandflies.

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Because color correcting a film and lighting a set still takes more thought and time than filming something in black and white.

I also like it because it showed the color in the language.

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Partly because of the cost and partly because Whedon wanted a noir feel for the film.

___
Sorry, sometimes my wife forgets that she is not an alien from outer space.

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Black and white film once wasn't all that subtle, and was uniformly judged "inferior". (The very first black and white film didn't even register reds properly! One of the first improvements, called "achromatic", fixed that.) But B&W films have continued to improve, until nowadays they are sometimes a legitimate aesthetic choice. There are for example bits of black and white in Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel".

Or see the current "Ida" or the recent "Nebraska" (which was nominated for a Cinematography Academy Award), or going back a little further "The Turin Horse". (And while not really black-and-white, Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" was so desaturated it half-qualifies.)

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Why not?

I find Oscar Bait infinitely more interesting than ticket bait

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The use of black and white; a gimmick by a bunch of weenies,
in an effort to mimick the style of Fellini.

An obsequious attempt to bring Shakespeare to the screen
The title was apt,
This was much ado about nothing.



~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.

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So you think Fellini was the only one to shoot in black and white?

Can't stop the signal.

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Because they wanted to ?

---
A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.

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