Are modern black & white movies shot in colour?

Question

A few movies are still released in black & white, largely for artistic reasons. Are such movies shot in colour, and then converted to black & white for release? Or are they usually filmed in black & white? Is one approach more common than the other?

Answer 1

They are shot in black and white. Any film that is shot B/W is lit very differently from a color film. The contrast, shadows, highlights are all much more pronounced in B/W cinematography, and if one were to shoot in color they would miss out on a lot of ways to make B/W cinematography look much better. Essentially, there are two different sciences to shooting color vs. black and white, so even modern black and white movies are shot in black and white, no matter how old school that may seem.