The 1959 Black & White Film That Hollywood Still Shoots Movies With: Eastman Double-X

INTRODUCTION

Usually in the world of film gear things tend to move pretty quickly. Every year there’s a new camera, lens set or piece of lighting kit which is released that DPs flock to try out. Movie technology always advances forward.

That’s why it’s strange that there’s one piece of filmmaking tech which has remained completely unchanged since the late 1950s and still continues to be used on productions to this day. That technology is Kodak, formerly Eastman Kodak’s Double-X 5222 black and white negative film stock.

Let’s take a deeper look at this film stock by unpacking what black and white film does, looking at two different types of black and white film, identifying Double-X’s characteristics and in doing so look at some examples of modern movies shot on the stock.

HOW IS BLACK & WHITE DIFFERENT FROM COLOUR NEGATIVE

“Black and white negative just looks different than colour negative too. It just has its own physical presence. It’s chunks of silver, you know, embedded in an emulsion.” - Jarin Blaschke, Cinematographer

Film is created by taking a cellulose triacetate base - basically plastic - and adding layers of chemicals to it so that when it is exposed to light and then developed it produces an image. 

Colour negative film is coated in at least three different layers of colour sensitive dyes, mainly: red, green and blue. These three layers when combined represent a full spectrum of colour. When this film is developed and processed it creates a negative - where the inverse of each colour is reflected. This can later be scanned and turned back to a positive.

Black and white film on the other hand usually contains one layer of silver halide crystals. Rather than being sensitive to a particular colour spectrum of light, black and white film is affected by luminance only. So negative film renders dark shadows as white and bright highlights as black. Like colour negative film, this is then scanned and inverted to produce an image in black, white and shades of grey for exposure values in between. 

This means that cinematographer’s don’t need to worry about the colour temperatures of lights when shooting black and white film and can instead focus purely on contrast or how bright or dark each area of the image is. 

Black and white film also requires a different development process to colour negative or colour reversal film. 

PANCHROMATIC VS ORTHOCHROMATIC FILM

When black and white film was initially developed it was only sensitive to blue and green light rays on the colour spectrum. This is called orthochromatic film. 

Because orthochromatic film wasn’t sensitive to red tones in an image, and there tends to be a lot of red in skin tones, this meant that skin tones captured on this film appeared darker and that blemishes, shadows and lines on faces were accentuated.

On the other hand, orthochromatic film is much more sensitive to areas in the image with lots of blue, such as skies - which is why they would read very bright and overexposed.

A great example of orthochromatic film can be seen in the photographic portraits taken by Yusuf Karsh. His subjects often would be photographed with orthochromatic film that made their skin appear darkened, textured and more weathered.

Eastman Double-X is different. It was created in 1959 as a panchromatic film. This means that instead of capturing blue and green tones it responded to all colours depending on their level of brightness. This allowed redder skin tones to be captured and meant that faces were less harshly represented.

Since the introduction of panchromatic film, black and white orthochromatic stocks ceased to be widely manufactured. 

Interestingly, on The Lighthouse, cinematographer Jarin Blaschke wanted to recreate the weathered, old look of orthochromatic film, even though panchromatic film was the only choice available, by shooting with a custom filter.

“We came up with a filter also to emphasise texture. It’s a cyan filter that Schneider made for us. It replicates very early emulsions that were insensitive to red. It tends to heighten local contrast too, especially on skin tones which are mostly red of course. So any little variation of red is further amplified. So any blemishes, pores, you know, if you’re hungover and your cheeks are red, you know it all gets amplified.” - Jarin Blaschke, Cinematographer

EASTMAN DOUBLE-X CHARACTERISTICS

“I think this stock was created in the end of 50s early 60s so this is the same stock they shot those movies on. If we’re paying kind of an homage to a certain 60s Hollywood style. So using this exact stock was a good decision I guess.” - Marcell Rév, Cinematographer

Eastman Double-X comes in two different gauges: 16mm and 35mm. The 16mm version is called 7222 and can be purchased in 100 or 400 foot rolls. The 35mm variant, 5222, comes in 400 or 1000 foot rolls. 

The stock has a very specific look. It contains large amounts of thick, dancing grain which is especially noticeable in the grey mid tones and makes footage look unapologetically old fashioned.

5222 produces different pockets of contrast. So skin tones, which may be rendered in a similar contrast range by other stocks or cameras, contain more difference between shadows and highlights on Double-X. This emphasises textures and makes images feel slightly more dimensional and less flat.

Because it’s so old, 5222 doesn’t have a big dynamic range. It has a steep gamma curve which means it reacts a bit more like slide film even though it's a negative film. This limited latitude means that cinematographers need to be careful when exposing it. Overexposure will quickly blow out the highlights to white, while underexposure will muddy up the blacks so that they aren’t pure and crisp.

It also has relatively low sharpness compared to more modern stocks at 100 lines per mm in perfect conditions. However, that slight softness can actually be nice for capturing people and skin tones as it provides a more gentle roll off that subtly smooths out how skin is rendered.

Kodak presents two different exposure indexes for different lighting conditions, like an iso on a digital camera.

If you’re shooting the film under tungsten light sources then it is recommended to expose at 200 EI. If instead the shot is lit by a source with a daylight colour temperature then it can be shot at 250 EI.

The reason for this difference can be found in the film’s spectral sensitivity data curve. Basically this shows how the film is more sensitive to light at cooler colour temperatures - such as HMIs or daylight - and less sensitive to light at warm colour temperatures such as tungsten sources. Hence the reason for their different sensitivity rating.

Back when this stock was first released it was considered a highly sensitive stock for lower lighting conditions - since it was around in an era when shooting on 50ASA stocks was the norm.

However, in the modern era, where shooting with an EI of at least 800 on digital cinema cameras has become the norm, this is no longer the case.

“We were shooting on film. The Double-X black and white stock so we were around 250. I underexposed it a little bit just to protect the highlights because they can blow out pretty easily. I would lie if I’d say I wasn’t scared of the low sensitivity. And it goes to Fotokem to develop and then you won’t see it for two days.”  - Marcell Rév, Cinematographer

One disadvantage of shooting on such a niche film stock is that there are relatively few film laboratories that can process this film in motion picture quantities. It is still possible but shooting in North America requires shipping the stock to a lab like Fotokem where it will be processed, scanned and then delivered as rushes, usually in a digital file, a few days later.

Another disadvantage is that shooting night scenes with a film that is rated at 200 means that large light sources are required to reach exposure, which also means that these scenes will tend to have a more old world feeling to the lighting with actors illuminated by strong, hard sources, rather than the soft, dark, ambient lighting style that can be more easily achieved by using digital cameras. 

“This is more limited. You have a certain kind of contrast built into the stock that you have to embrace. I think if that clicks with the project then it can really benefit from it.” - Marcell Rév, Cinematographer

So, while it may be easier to shoot digitally and try to arrive at a vintage looking black and white image in post, for some productions who have the right budget and access, shooting on a 60 plus year old film stock which still holds a textured, grainy, contrast laden, classically Hollywood look that is very difficult to accurately create otherwise is the best way to go.