Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Clayton Harper]

David,

Boxers or Briefs?

Coke or Pepsi?

Union or Confederate?

Dogs or Cats?

Elvis or Beatles?

Honda or Toyota?

Regards,
Clay

[David Mullen ASC]

I have a black lab mix and drive a Prius, if that's enough personal info...

[David Mullen ASC]

Just curious, David . . .

What's your opinion on lighting close-ups noticably different from masters? It's done quite often in mainstream production, but anyone who knows something about lighting can see the difference. This is often done to make the close-up "prettier." I don't mean even major "adjustments," or even total re-lights (but which still emulate the master), which are typically always done on the close-up or turnaround, I mean like, suddenly having a backlight (even if motivated) that simply wasn't even there in the master.

Or is this sort of like the "burn out the windows/don't burn out the windows" kinda thing?

You're talking about cheating, and obviously some viewers are going to be more aware of the cheat than others. You have to ask yourself if the improvements you're getting from cheating the lighting in the close-up offset the mismatch in continuity and are therefore distracting. You also have to factor in the time lost from relighting the close-up. There's no right or wrong answer.

Sometimes cheating the lighting is actually less distracting because once you move into a close-up, the master lighting may be doing something unappealing to the face and you had better clean it up a bit, whereas in the wide shot, you couldn't see the problem.

I try to light master shots so that there will only be some minimal adjustment to the tighter angles, if at all, but that's an ideal scenario.

[scriptor]

hello David, i m first an editor but shot 2 shorts with a friend and prepare my first alone
i have 2 questions,my first is: if someone call you to light is set and you dont know anything about you gonna find and shoot (maybe just the film spec) what is the few basics lights you would take? (perhaps one for the night and one for the day?)
in others words: is there a basic set of light that can do a valuable job in most of the case?
the second: what little details make you thing a cinematographer is good or bad?
tx u a lot
++

[Clayton Harper]

I have a black lab mix and drive a Prius, if that's enough personal info...

Two excellent choices.

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't know if there is a "generic" lighting package -- other than finding out if the location needs both daylight and tungsten lighting, the determining issues, assuming you only have vague details, are the size of the crew to handle the size of the package (no point in getting a 12K HMI if you only have one guy helping you) and the power situation (no point in getting a 12K HMI if you don't have a way of powering it) and the budget (you can't afford that 12K HMI anyway...)

If the restrictions were: (1) house power only; (2) mix of daylight and tungsten; (3) small crew, I tend to favor Kinoflos as part of the package, since they are low in power consumption, switchable between daylight and tungsten, and are naturally soft sources without a lot of grip work needed. Usually I'd carry a couple of 4' 4-bankers. Besides that, there might be a tungsten kit of a couple of 650w and 1K's in a case, maybe some Chimeras for those.

Besides the medium tungstens and the Kinos, then I might add some smaller HMI's if the budget allowed, like 575w and 1.2K HMI PAR's. LED panel lights could also serve some of the same functions as the Kinos.

At the other end of the scale, there might be some smaller tungstens, like Dedolights or Peppers.

If I needed a punchy light that was really bright but under 20amps, besides the 1.2K HMI PAR with a narrow lens, you could get a 1K PAR64 tungsten with a spot or narrow spot globe (the VNSP globes are called "firestarters" I believe.)

I'd also bring some Chinese Lanterns and an assortment of light bulbs.

Now if I knew that there was less daylight scenes and more night interiors, or vice-versa, I could rebalance the package towards one direction or the other, either more HMI's and daylight Kinos, or more tungsten lamps.

Of course, you need some basic grip gear, c-stands, sandbags, flags, and some electric gear like extension cords, power boxes, etc.

If you're stuck using house power, try and scout the location to see how much power is available to you -- it may be an old house with smaller circuits than the typical 20amp ones. You may need to bring spare fuses and you may have to consider running power from next door. You may even have to consider finding the budget for a generator -- some locations have diddly-squat power. I once filmed in a bar where there wasn't enough house power available to run a string of Christmas tree lights.

There was an old add with Julio Macat, ASC where he said that if he had to shoot a movie with only two lights, it would be a 20K and a Dedolight. He was joking, of course, but I can see his point -- you need the little accent lights and you need the big workhorse lights, the big brush strokes and the little ones.

[Clayton Harper]

There was an old add with Julio Macat, ASC where he said that if he had to shoot a movie with only two lights, it would be a 20K and a Dedolight. He was joking, of course, but I can see his point -- you need the little accent lights and you need the big workhorse lights, the big brush strokes and the little ones.

The poor man's version of this example is a 6K HMI, some gridcloth and a 4x8 silver b-board.

[Dan Blanchett]

David, I was really impressed with the look of Children of Men, and read that the DP used very little in the way of movie lights. In my upcoming feature I would love to get away with minimal production lights and go for a more realistic, documentary feel, yet still maintain a "filmic" quality. There will be many day interiors, some outside day and night, and a few low light interiors, including hallways.

Given the speed (t3) of the 18-50 red zoom, which I plan to use shooting mostly on the shoulder, how realistic is it to assume I can get away with mostly available light? Particularly if I want shallow DOF on occasion with wider lenses...

Being able to move quickly and shoot a lot of set ups each day with a small crew is a factor as well. (not to mention budget)

Thanks in advance!

[David Mullen ASC]

T/3 is a bit slow for low-light work, unless you are willing to live with some noise from underexposing and having the brighten the image in post. You can gain another stop of speed by turning off the shutter (360 instead of 180) but with an attendent increase in motion smear which some find to be very video-ish (see some of the action scenes in "Apocalypto" for an example.) You can also gain exposure by undercranking, but then you have motion problems.

If you are determined to use very low levels of available light, like for night exteriors or candlelight scenes, you should get some high-speed lenses (T/2 and faster.)

For day interiors, T/3 is probably fast enough most of the time. And well-lit night interiors.

[johannperry]

I have a black lab mix and drive a Prius, if that's enough personal info...

My wife keeps on at me to get a prius for her. Do you like yours? (so sorry for being quite so far off topic, straying into cars could be a little dangerous.)