Example of a bleach bypass emulated photograph
Bleach bypass, also known as skip bleach or silver retention, is an optical effect which entails either the partial or complete skipping of the bleaching function during the processing of a color film. By doing this, the silver is retained in the emulsion along with the color dyes. The result is a black and white image over a color image. The images usually would have reduced saturation and exposure latitude, along with increased contrast and graininess. It usually is used to maximal effect in conjunction with a one-stop underexposure.
Technique
Bleach bypass can be done to any photochemical step in the process, be it original camera negative, interpositive, internegative, or release print. Generally it is applied at the internegative stage, as insurance companies usually are reluctant to have the original negative bleach bypassed in the event that the look is agreed to be too extreme, and the cost of the process for each individual release print is usually cost-prohibitive. The effect, however, will render slightly differently at each stage, especially between the negative and positive stages.
Bleach bypass generally refers to a complete circumvention of the bleach stage of development, and is the most commonly offered service among labs. Technicolor's ENR and OZ and Deluxe Labs' ACE and CCE processes are proprietary variants which allow the film to be only partially bleached, giving the cinematographer a more finely-tuned control over the effect rendered by the process.
While originally a laboratory technique, a similar effect can now be achieved digitally through digital intermediate color grading.
Use in movies
Bleach bypass was first used in Kon Ichikawa's 1960 film Her Brother. Kazuo Miyagawa as Daiei Motion Picture Company's cameraman invented bleach bypass for Ichikawa's film, [1][2][3] inspired by the color rendition in the 1956 release of Moby-Dick, printed using Technicolor, and was achieved through the use of an additional black and white overlay. Despite this early foray into the technique, it remained overlooked for the most part until its usage by Roger Deakins in 1984. The effect has subsequently become a regular development tool in labwork, and has remained in widespread usage ever since. Some notable practitioners include cinematographers Rodrigo Prieto, Remi Adefarasin, Darius Khondji, Dariusz Wolski, Oliver Stapleton, Newton Thomas Sigel, Park Gok-ji, Shane Hurlbut, Tom Stern, and Janusz Kaminski, Wally Pfister.
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