MovieChat Forums > Much Ado About Nothing (2013) Discussion > The Black and White looks questionable

The Black and White looks questionable

posted 12 years ago by SpaceMonkey-Mafioso
22 replies | jump to latest

Based on seeing the preview on the big screen, I am unimpressed with the use of black and white. It looks muddy and to be honest- cheap. The black and white in The Artist looked fantastic- even though it was shot in color and later converted to B/W. The BIG difference here:
Artist was shot on film while this was shot with the digital red system. Some pretty awesome films have been shot digitally, but they still haven't mastered the BW look. It's also the same with still photography: it's pretty easy easy for even a semi-trained eye to tell if a BW pic was shot on film or not. Something about the tonal qualities.
Someone should have told this to Whedon before he shot. If he wanted B/W, he should have shot on film. If he wanted to shoot fast and cheap, he should have shot with the Red system- in color! I'm not even sure what was his motivation to shoot it in B/W. Nothing about Shakespeare screams Black and White to me.

"Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?"

[–] illyrianX 10 years ago

It WAS cheap. It was a quick, cheapie film done for fun by a group of friends at the director's house on their time off from real work. And, since I adore both "Much Ado About Nothing" and the Jossverse gang, I loved it. Unlike some of his other films, this wasn't made to be visually impressive so I wasn't paying any attention to how it looked. The performances were fun and entertaining, from a group of people I always enjoy watching together, and it's a great play that's always nice to see performed.

I don't know how it was marketed, but it seems like some people went into this with the wrong expectations. Firefly was a work of art. "Much Ado" is just a personal project not meant to make people laugh at a bunch of friends having a good time doing a backyard Shakespeare show. That's really all it was, and it wasn't meant to be more.