Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

No, I said "wider shots" not "wide lenses"...

There are two rules regarding diffusion filters which are somewhat contradictory:

#1 Wider-angle lenses need more diffusion than longer lenses to match sharpness.

#2 Wider shots need less diffusion than close-ups because we expect to see more fine detail in wide shots and don't need to see every pore and flaw in a close-up as long as the eyes look sharp.

The first rule is an objective one about matching sharpness and the second is a subjective one regarding viewer perception. The confusion comes from the fact that wide shots tend to be shot on wider-angle lenses and close-ups tend to be shot on longer lenses. But the reason we use heavier diffusion on close-ups of faces is because our eyes don't demand the same level of detail that we crave when viewing a wide shot of a landscape let's say. We look at a landscape shot and expect to see final detail in leaves of trees, blades of grass, the texture of brick walls, etc. but when we look at a face, an excessive amount of detail and texture in skin, for example, can be unwelcome or at least unnecessary -- we mainly expect things like eyes and eyelashes to be sharp, and strands of hair, but we often don't like seeing too much texture in skin.

[Daniel Doherty]

Got it. Thanks David.

[Brian Pascale]

I already have a complete set of ND. What IR filters should I get? Can I get away with only one grade, or do I need a selection do to changing levels of pollution?

[David Mullen ASC]

I rent IR/ND combos when I shoot and generally haven't found much need for different types of IR filters if I'm using the same camera for everything. You should read Art Adam's various articles on IR filtering:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.p...eet_version_2/

[Peter Dmitriyev]

Hello David. In Hugo Robert Richardson breaks the 180 degree rule of coverage in at least one scene. Here is a screenshot of it. Looking to get your take on why he's able to do this in this particular scene?
In this scene as you can see the lady and the boy are speaking directly to each other but both are covered from opposite sides of the 180 line.

[David Mullen ASC]

Hello David. In Hugo Robert Richardson breaks the 180 degree rule of coverage in at least one scene.
In this scene as you can see the lady and the boy are speaking directly to each other but both are covered from opposite sides of the 180 line.

If you look at the whole scene from the start, it begins with a pan from the hallway to the living room following the children into the room and the aunt is on the far right side of frame and Hugo and the girl are on the left, so the close-up of Hugo, which is a reverse angle, matches that master in terms of the line, Hugo is left-to-right and the aunt is right-to-left. And her first close-ups match that master, she is right looking left at the two children.

But when she looks at the ink drawing, she turns away from Hugo and Scorsese shot a new three-shot where the aunt visually splits the girl (on the left) and Hugo (on the right now). And he shot a new close-up of the aunt from that angle. But the close-up of Hugo is still from the original master screen direction. Now there could be two explanations -- Scorsese never got around to shooting a second close-up of Hugo for the second sub-master where he now is right-to-left (maybe because Scorsese had a child actor who had limited time on set) or he shot the new angle but in editing preferred the acting of the boy in the original close-up where he was left-to-right. But technically he did "cross the line" and I don't think it was intentional, but as you suggest, he (sort of) gets away with it.

Now I'm sure if the front door in the hallway was at the reverse end, he could have shot the master with the kids walking towards camera and then turning to their right into the room, with a right to left pan from the hallway into the room and ended with the aunt in the center between the two kids from the start, and then only needed coverage to match that screen direction, but instead he basically created two wide masters of the scene, one for the first part and one from the second part, which is nice if you have the time to shoot that and cover all of that. The jump to the second master where the aunt visually splits the children does have the effect of now making the aunt the center of attention as she reacts to seeing the picture.

[Peter Dmitriyev]

thanks for the response David. That all makes alot of sense. It just seems like the most blatant example of 180 breaking in a top level movie (with all oscar winning talent involved in terms of director and DP). By blatant I mean the fact that it's a fairly long scene that continues uninterrupted with the "wrong" coverage yet seems to work and thus sort of makes me question how "wrong" the rule really is if it does in fact seem to work although I can't help to feel an undeniable sense of unease when watching it, feeling like the lady is looking in the wrong direction. Seems to prove the theory of Ozu (if I'm not mistaken) right where in the infamous anecdote he tested both types of coverage to appease his complaining DP and concluded that there is no discernible difference between the two. (I might have gotten that anecdote from this thread a few hundred pages earlier lol...can't quite recall).

[Marc Wielage]

That all makes alot of sense. It just seems like the most blatant example of 180 breaking in a top level movie (with all oscar winning talent involved in terms of director and DP).

About ten years ago, I worked on a fairly major TV project. During color-correction, after the director left the room, I turned to the editor (behind me) and said, "hey, what's the deal with this cut? You crossed the line here." The guy shook his head sadly and said, "that was a day-long argument that I lost. The 180-degree rule is one of many that have gone out the window a long time ago. The only people who are bothered by it are people like you and me. Nobody else will notice."

My usual joke is, I don't argue with clients have more Oscars than me. (Which certainly Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker do.) I personally think crossing the line is an important problem in editing, but ultimately, it's the director's film, and if there's no other coverage, you gotta use what you've got.

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not sure even that the great Ozu gets away with it, sorry to say (it looks weird but at least most of his close-ups have the actor looking almost into the lens so the line is less clear) -- you really want people in single close-ups to look like they are looking at the person they are talking to, if that's what they are really doing. I don't mind line crosses in 3-shots or even 2-shots since the two people talking are in the same frame together. I'm talking about run-of-the-mill dialogue scenes -- of course there can be a stylistically motivated sequence of line crossing to establish a sense of paranoia and dislocation -- the trial in "Joan of Ark" would be a good situation where Joan is surrounded by her judges and the camera could pretty much cut to any angle of Joan for reactions whether or not it matched the line to the particular judge talking to her.

Line crosses when there is a strong sense of geography tend to be OK too, like a conversation between two people sitting in the front of a car while driving -- it's pretty clear where the two people are and who they are talking to no matter where the camera is, plus half the time, the driver is (hopefully) looking forward at the road, not at the person sitting next to him.

[Peter Dmitriyev]

Yeah I remember another example given possibly in this thread hundreds of pages earlier (I read through all ~400 pages of this thread twice...lol) where in the Shining bathroom conversation I think it was the line is "crossed" but it doesn't matter because it's a 2 shot where you're able to see the orientation of both characters either way.
Am I correct to assume also that a line can be crossed when you "reset" the coverage. For instance let's say we have coverage of person A looking towards the right of screen and person B looking to the left then we suddenly show a 2 shot of them both from the OTHER side and then go to closeup coverage again this time person A is looking towards left and person B looking towards right.

In fact I forget where in the thread it is but I could have sworn that example you gave of Storaro (or was it conrad hall??) with the night time soft lit dialogue between 2 guys standing outside under a street lamp. Could have sworn the coverage changes different sides there but I could be wrong..