Redscaling is a technique where the film gets exposed in the wrong side. This creates a strong red hue in the images and it's very cool. You should definitely try it if you never did.
So, what would happen if a redscale a black&white film? Nothing? Inverted images? Has anyone tried it?
Having accidentally wound an entire batch of cassettes backwards in the bag I can tell you it's not nearly as impressive as redscaling color film. The image will be slightly softer, and it will behave as if it was filtered with a slightly orange/brown-tinted ND filter (not the same as red or yellow, somewhere in between) due to the light passing through the film stock before it reacts with the chemistry. You'll also have more scratches in the film since the fragile chemistry side will be exposed to the mechanical parts that normally only see the smooth polyester base side of the film. Once I realized the mistake a couple rolls into the batch and started to compensate by treating it as slower film than it actually was I was largely able to ignore it and move on with my assignments... that's how minimal the effect was.
Since redscaling tends to virtually eliminate blue tones and emphasise red ones, it would probably have a similar effect to using a red filter: red and yellow objects would be lighter, blue objects (especially the sky) would be dark. It would probably work well for landscapes.
In any case, there's only one way to know for sure: go forth and photograph! We look forward to your report :)
