Black-and-white is a number of
monochrome forms in
visual
arts. Most forms of visual technology start out in black and
white, then slowly evolve into color as technology
progresses.
Black-and-white as a description is also something of a
misnomer, for in addition to black and white most of these media
included varying
shades of gray. Further,
many prints, especially those produced earlier in the development
of photography, were in
sepia (mainly to
provide archival stability), which gave a richer, more subtle
shading than reproductions in plain black-and-white, although less
so than color.
Media
Some popular black-and-white media of the past include:
- Movies and animated cartoons. While some color film processes (including
hand coloring) were experimented with and in limited use from the
earliest days of the motion picture, the switch from most films
being in black-and-white to most being in color was gradual, taking
place from the 1930s to the 1960s. Even when most studios had the
capability to make color films, they were not heavily utilized as
tinting techniques and the Technicolor
process were expensive and difficult. For years color films were
not capable of rendering realistic hues, thus mostly historical
films or musicals were made in color and many directors preferred
to use black and white stock. For the years 1940–1966 a separate
Academy Award for
Best Art Direction was given for black and white movies, along
with one for color.
- Photography was black-and-white or
shades of sepia. Color photography
was originally rare and expensive, and again often less than true
to life. Color photography became more common in the middle of the
20th century, and has become even more common since.
Black-and-white remains a niche market for photographers who use
the medium for artistic purposes. This can take the form of black
and white film or digital conversion to grayscale, with optional
image manipulation to enhance
the results. For amateur use, certain companies such as Kodak manufacture black-and-white disposable cameras. Also, certain films
are produced today which give black and white images using the
ubiquitous C41 color
process.
- Television programming was first
broadcast in black-and-white. Some
color broadcasts in the USA began in the 1950s, with color becoming
common in western industrialized nations by the late 1960s and then
standard during the 1970s. In the United States
, the Federal Communications
Commission settled on a color NTSC standard
in 1953, and the NBC network began broadcasting
a limited color television schedule
in January, 1954. Color television became more widespread in
the U.S. between 1964 and 1967, when the CBS and
ABC networks joined
NBC in broadcasting full color schedules. Canada
began airing
color television in 1966 while the United Kingdom
established an entirely color system in November
1969. New
Zealand
began color broadcasting in 1973, and Australia kept airing black-and-white broadcasts
until 1975. While no longer used much professionally, many
consumer camcorders have the ability to
record in black-and-white.
- Most newspapers were black-and-white until the late 1970s;
The New York Times and
The Washington Post
remained in black-and-white until the 1990s. Some claim that
USA Today was the major impetus
for the change to color. In the UK, color was only slowly
introduced from the mid 1980s. Even today, many newspapers restrict
color photographs to the front and other prominent pages since mass
producing photographs in black-and-white is considerably less
expensive than color.
- Manga (Japanese or Japanese-influenced
comics) are typically published in black-and-white.
- Jet magazine was either
all or mostly black-and-white until the end of the 20th century,
when it became all-color.
- School yearbook have (historically)
been printed either entirely or mostly in black-and-white.
All-color school yearbooks are still rare, but more common than
before.
Today black-and-white
media often has a "nostalgic", historic, or
anachronistic feel to it. For example,
the 1998
Woody Allen film
Celebrity was shot entirely in
black-and-white, and Allen has often made use of the practice since
Manhattan in 1979. Other
films, such as
American History
X and
Pleasantville play with the
concept of the black-and-white anachronism, using it to selectively
portray scenes and characters who are either more outdated or dull
than the characters and scenes shot in full-colour. This
manipulation of colour appears in the film
Sin City and the occasional
television commercial.
Wim Wenders'
1987 film
Wings of Desire uses
sepia-tone black-and-white for the scenes shot from the angels'
perspective. When Damiel, the angel (the film's main character),
becomes a human, the film changes to colour emphasising his new
"real life" view of the world.
Since the late 1960s, few mainstream films have been shot entirely
in black-and-white. The reasons are frequently commercial, as it is
difficult to sell a film for television broadcasting if the film is
not in color. Monochrome
film stock is
rarely used at the time of shooting, even if the films are intended
to be presented theatrically in black-and-white. Movies such as
John Boorman's
The General and
Joel Coen's
The Man Who Wasn't There were
obliged to be filmed in color by their respective crews, despite
being presented in black-and-white for artistic reasons.
Clerks is one of the few well-known
recent films shot in black-and-white for no artistic purpose;
because of the extremely low
out-of-pocket budget, the production
team could not afford the added costs of shooting in color (though
the difference in film stock price would be slight, the store's
fluorescent lights could not be used to light for color; by
shooting in black and white, the film-makers did not have to rent
lighting equipment).
Some modern
film directors will
occasionally shoot movies in black and white as an artistic choice,
though it is much less common for a major Hollywood production.
This is also true of black-and-white
photography, where many photographers choose to
shoot in solely black and white since the stark contrasts enhance
the subject matter.
Computing
Most
computers had
monochrome (black-and-white, black and green, or
black and
amber)
screens until the late 1980s; however, some
home computers could be connected to television screens to
eliminate the extra cost of a monitor. These took advantage of
NTSC or
PAL encoding to
offer a range of colors from as low as 4 (IBM
CGA) to 128 (
Atari 800) to 4096
(
Commodore Amiga). Early videogame consoles such as the
Atari Video Computer
System/VCS/2600 supported both black-and-white and color modes
via a switch, as did some of the early home computers; this was to
accommodate black-and-white TV sets which would display a color
signal poorly. (Typically a different shading scheme would be used
for the display in the black-and-white mode.)
In
computing terminology,
black-and-white is sometimes used to refer to a
binary image consisting solely of pure black
pixels and pure white pixels; what would
normally be called a black-and-white image, that is, an image
containing shades of gray, is referred to in this context as
grayscale.
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