"I was probably influenced a great deal by Ted McCord because I worked with him for a number of years. Although I know on the day I took over from him on a Stoney Burke segment when he got ill, I said to myself, 'I get to do it the way he does it.' But I couldn't do it the way he was doing it. I didn't believe in the way he was doing it and I changed everything all the way around. He was into really controlling light; I was into using light and controlling it. He was into cutting it out and starting from scratch; I was into using it and controlling it somehow. I learned my black-and-white craft basically from Ted. And his ideas about contrast and lighting are still probably instilled in me."
—Cinematographer Conrad Hall about black and white cinematography, culled from Masters of Light — Conversations with contemporary cinematographers (University of California Press, 1984, 359 pages, ISBN 0-520-05336-2).
 
 
 
* Key light: the dominant light used for illuminating a scene.
* High key: lighting style where the majority of tones reproduced are at the light end of the grey scale.
* Low key: lighting style where the majority of tones reproduced are at the dark end of the grey scale.
 
 
The criteria of composition
 
1. Angle shots
Frame: high, low, tilted, splitted, off-centered; lens effect; reflection; editing link.
2. Lens
Wide angle lens: depth of field and high perspective (skyline and vanishing point); frame; distortion (extreme close-up); scale of shots (characters' composition in the frame); editing link.
Telephoto lens: portrait use and flat perspective; lens motion (zoom shot: from wide to flat perspective).
3. Light
Low key (spots of light: geometric patterns and focused light: beams and satured light); chiaroscuro (a bold contrast between light and dark) or high contrast (extreme black and white values without the shades of grey values); shadowgraphs (reflected dark patterns); soft focus (diffusion with a coated filter).
4. Motions
Dolly, crane, pan or hand-held shots.
 
 
 
The "Outer Limits" cinematographers from season 1
 
1. Conrad HALL
Number of compositions: 15
Recursive figures of style: Extensive use of the wide angle lens and low key lighting.
 
First job: "The Human Factor" (click on this title)
Last job: "The Forms of Things Unknown"
 
Broadcast order: "The Hundred Days of the Dragon", "The Architects of Fear", "The Man With The Power", "The Man Who Was Never Born", "O.B.I.T.", "The Human Factor", "Corpus Earthling", "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork", "The Mice", "Don't Open Till Doomsday", "ZZZZZ", "The Invisibles", "The Bellero Shield", "Specimen: Unknown", "The Forms of Things Unknown"
 
2. John M. NICKOLAUS, Jr
Number of compositions: 9
Recursive figures of style: not available
 
First job: "The Galaxy Being"
Last job: "The Zanti Misfits"
 
Broadcast order: "The Galaxy Being", The Sixth Finger", "Nightmare", "The Borderland", "Tourist Attraction", "The Zanti Misfits", "Controlled Experiment", "Moonstone", "A Feasibility Study"
 
3. Kenneth PEACH
Number of compositions: 8
Recursive figures of style: not available
 
First job: "The Children of Spider County"
Last job: "The Chameleon"
 
Broadcast order: "The Children of Spider County", "Second Chance", "The Mutant", "The Guests", "Fun and Games", "The Special One", "Production and Decay of Strange Particles", "The Chameleon"