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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

Fire Hand Dance

Fire Hand Dance

Dear David,
Many thanks for the thorough answer to my 'fire' question. I will try the suggestions, have time for tests.
 
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions about old lenses vs. filters for a vintage 60's look. I had my shoot today and we ended up using a Cooke 18-100 with a 1/4 white pro mist filter. We used Red Cine X to create a low contrast, low saturation, color corrected look for the clients and they loved it! I must say I was quite impressed with the results. The lighting was really the most fun part of the whole process. Trying to recreate what others had to do out of necessity because of technological limitations was a great exercise. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge David. Peace.
 
beam projector

beam projector

Hello David

Did you try the mole richardson beam projectors, or some other brand similar light? If you did or know about it, how do you think the 2.5 or 4k compare to 800w joker with source 4 for the same task? Do you think it can be used also for other purposes than only shafts of light? I'm thinking about the crls since they use a beam projector of their own for the base source of the system.

http://extranet.mole.com/public/index.cgi?cmd=view_item&parent=1899-1900-1906&id=12487#

Thanks alot
 
hi david,
can you give us some tips about how to put and hidden bulbs behind candle flames or behind a lamp that is visible in the shot?
do you use this method?

thanks
 
Shiny (you need to change your screen name to your real name, see here),

With candles, you can either hide a bulb in the actual candle (for example a bare Dedolight bulb, or a Kinoflo miniFlo), facing the talent - or you can use some specialist film candles with two wicks instead of one - burns much brighter.

Or use a camera with MX sensor ;)

On a lamp, you might want to use some heavy ND gel on the bulb, but only the part facing the camera.
 
Ariel Weiss said:
Hello David

Did you try the mole richardson beam projectors, or some other brand similar light? If you did or know about it, how do you think the 2.5 or 4k compare to 800w joker with source 4 for the same task? Do you think it can be used also for other purposes than only shafts of light? I'm thinking about the crls since they use a beam projector of their own for the base source of the system.

http://extranet.mole.com/public/index.cgi?cmd=view_item&parent=1899-1900-1906&id=12487#

Thanks alot
Click to expand...

I haven't tried all the beam projectors yet but so far I've been a bit disappointed because the beam is not as crisp and sharp as what you'd get from a xenon or ellipsoidal. What I'm really looking for is something like a "tungsten" xenon lamp but the closest I've seen are ellipsoidals like Source-4's and stage Super Trooper follow-spots.
 
shiny said:
hi david,
can you give us some tips about how to put and hidden bulbs behind candle flames or behind a lamp that is visible in the shot?
do you use this method?

thanks
Click to expand...

Haven't had to do much of that, the single candle lighting a person as they cross a room carrying it, other than in a theatrical short lit in the style of an old movie, in which case I used a snooted spotlamp to follow the actor.

You can get prop candles with a plastic tube and a real flame at top, and hide a tiny bulb behind that, or behind a real candle if it is thick enough. Or get multi-wick candles which have bigger flames.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I haven't tried all the beam projectors yet but so far I've been a bit disappointed because the beam is not as crisp and sharp as what you'd get from a xenon or ellipsoidal. What I'm really looking for is something like a "tungsten" xenon lamp but the closest I've seen are ellipsoidals like Source-4's and stage Super Trooper follow-spots.
Click to expand...

Thank you, David.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
That 360 degree shot that moves around Russell Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind" when he's staring at the wall of projected codes is a good example of making you scratch your head to figure out how Crowe's face is being lit by the glow of the wall and yet the wall of numbers is not blown-out as you rotate around him. I suspect that some dimming of the lights might have been involved, but maybe not... having light sources in the frame is one reason why Deakins is so careful to use lenses that flare the least, like ARRI Master Primes.
Click to expand...

David, If I remember correctly Deakins said he lit this shot with lights going underneath, so the lights are bouncing beneath the frame.

I'm not 100% if people were referring to this very shot, but I'm quite sure it's this one.

I need to watch this movie again.
 
Pietro Impagliazzo said:
David, If I remember correctly Deakins said he lit this shot with lights going underneath, so the lights are bouncing beneath the frame.

I'm not 100% if people were referring to this very shot, but I'm quite sure it's this one.

I need to watch this movie again.
Click to expand...

Could be, there could also have been a stop-pull happening when the camera was facing the wall of projections versus back on Crowe's face. Or maybe the film negative held everything.

The point is that it looked very natural with the source of light apparently in the frame itself, which looks easy and yet is one of the hardest things a cinematographer has to do, make things not look lit.
 
What is that binocular-looking apparatus on the top of that Panaflex you've got in the introductory picture to this thread?
 
Smoke and light softness

Smoke and light softness

Hi David!

Your excellent answers to my previous questions have promoted me to ask a new one.

Next week I am shooting, for the first time, beauty shots in a heavily smoked environment (where you can see maybe 16 feet ahead).

My questions is, how much does smoke diffuse light? Will it give me the same softness as a full silk, a half silk.. and at what distance? Should I still light through a silk for beauty shots? Does it add much to the speed of light falloff?

Any tips about the effect smoke can or cannot have on light softness is much appreciated.
 
Smoke does soften a hard light a bit, but it doesn't have as much of an effect on a soft light, I wouldn't worry about that, but the overall loss of contrast in a smoked scene will make the image look softer overall.

The other problem with smoke is that it shows off where every side, back, and edge source are coming from, and anything hitting the subject from behind will create a wash or veil in front of them, depending on how much the beam extends to the camera lens.

All of this means that you should keep the lighting simpler and bolder because lots of little accent lights will create their own beams and wash-out the image more.

The effect is also heavier when the subject is further from the camera and photographed on long-lenses to get tight shots. It works better to keep the subject closer so that most of the smoke effects and beams are in the b.g.

Smoke can cut a little of the intensity of a key light down if it is clumpy, the cloud passing between the subject and the key, not evenly hazy, but in general, it seems to lift the exposure of the overall image, especially when there is some backlighting going on.
 
I just talked with the producer of a big movie, and he told me, he was concerned about the choice of film stock the DoP made. I can't tell you exactly what it was, cause he couldn't tell me, but he said it was a 500ASA stock, and I assume it would be tungsten, cause most of the scenes take place inside a Hotel. His concern was that it would get kind of Television series Look with that stock. Is the grain that heavy on todays 500ASA stocks? Aren't the modern coatings clean enough? I'm asking because I don't know much about film stocks, I shot some years on 35mmm as a director but scince I'm a DoP myself I'm only using digital cameras (Red/Canon). I thought that his concerns came across through grain on the big screen and the association to 16mm or he is afraid of the style of lighting, that 500ASA make possible, a lot of practicals, 360 light set ups. I know this is kind of general but I would appreciate any kind of input to understand, as your input always helps me to understand.
 
Practical Bulbs

Practical Bulbs

Hi David,

I was wondering as far as choosing what practical bulb to put in a practical...

Firstly, if you dim a 300w bulb in one lamp fixture and a 60w bulb in another fixture to the point of it not blowing out the lamp shade, is the only difference then, that the 300w bulb will be giving off more light at the same point (after both are dimmed)? Or are you actually just dimming down the 300w bulb to the output of a 60w?

Secondly, so then if that's the case, wouldn't you always put in a strong bulb in a table lamp or similar, in order to get as much light from it on the subject as possible? Why wouldn't you always put a 250w,300w, or 500w in a lamp fixture? Only because the socket can't handle it?

Thanks,
-Dan
 
500T stock is by far the most commonly-used color negative film, whether for a TV series or the biggest-budgeted Hollywood feature so it's a bit silly for a producer to worry about it making his movie look cheap or TV-ish. I mean, the interiors of "Transformers 2" was shot on 500T film and it doesn't look like a TV show.

However, I am talking about 35mm... for a long time, it has been more common for TV shows and features shooting in 16mm with a decent lighting package to use 200 or 250 ASA stocks to keep the grain down. However, the difference in grain structure these days between a 200 and 500 ASA stock is a lot closer than it has ever been before, so it's a bit of a toss-up which to use, just depends on the light levels you need to work at, or the f-stop.

He perhaps was worried about the 500D Fuji Reala stock, which is the softest and grainiest of the 500 ASA stocks on the market. I suppose the next grainiest would be Kodak Expression 500T, but that has been used on big movies such as "Night at the Museum 2", "Burn After Reading", and "Children of Men". And Fuji Eterna 500T has been used on a number of big movies as well ("Wall Street 2", "Knight and Day", "The Green Zone"), though more people use Kodak Vision-3 500T more than any other 500 ASA stock. I heard that Clint Eastwood used the new Fuji Vivid 500T on his latest movie.
 
juliensees said:
Hi David,

I was wondering as far as choosing what practical bulb to put in a practical...

Firstly, if you dim a 300w bulb in one lamp fixture and a 60w bulb in another fixture to the point of it not blowing out the lamp shade, is the only difference then, that the 300w bulb will be giving off more light at the same point (after both are dimmed)? Or are you actually just dimming down the 300w bulb to the output of a 60w?

Secondly, so then if that's the case, wouldn't you always put in a strong bulb in a table lamp or similar, in order to get as much light from it on the subject as possible? Why wouldn't you always put a 250w,300w, or 500w in a lamp fixture? Only because the socket can't handle it?

Thanks,
-Dan
Click to expand...

You have to dim a higher wattage bulb more to match the output of a lower wattage bulb, and more dimming means a lower color temp.

There is no right or wrong answer, sometimes you deliberately put a very bright bulb in so you can dim it way down to an orangey color. But otherwise, you try and get something close to the level you like so that the amount of dimming is minimal, hence why you carry a wide range of bulbs. Yes, some sockets are not really designed for the heat of high wattage bulbs up full, though if they are only turned on for the shot, you will probably be OK. Whether I start out with a 60w bulb in the fixture versus a 150w bulb mainly depends on how bright I need the lamp to be. Often as a starting point, let's say with a crew that comes into the room early, I will have a whole room of lamps globed the same way... let's say all with 100w bulbs... and then start to either dim some or change the bulbs to get the look I want. Thing is that not every lamp is there to provide light for the room or the actors, sometimes it's just an accent in the background of a shot, just to create a highlight back there, and being fairly dim is OK.
 
Thank you very much for your insight David...
I will find out the details and hopefully they'll make sense cause the Producer is one of the biggest names in Germany, what also could lead to old fashioned thinking
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Smoke does soften a hard light a bit, but it doesn't have as much of an effect on a soft light, I wouldn't worry about that, but the overall loss of contrast in a smoked scene will make the image look softer overall.

The other problem with smoke is that it shows off where every side, back, and edge source are coming from, and anything hitting the subject from behind will create a wash or veil in front of them, depending on how much the beam extends to the camera lens.

All of this means that you should keep the lighting simpler and bolder because lots of little accent lights will create their own beams and wash-out the image more.

The effect is also heavier when the subject is further from the camera and photographed on long-lenses to get tight shots. It works better to keep the subject closer so that most of the smoke effects and beams are in the b.g.

Smoke can cut a little of the intensity of a key light down if it is clumpy, the cloud passing between the subject and the key, not evenly hazy, but in general, it seems to lift the exposure of the overall image, especially when there is some backlighting going on.
Click to expand...

Excellent, thank you.
 
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