For Mr. David Mullen Shooting Dark

[dracul]

Mr. Mullen,

This thread is about exposing film so if you feel its in the wrong website I will understand and will communicate with you by email.

I have battled with an exposure dilema for dark scenes for a long time. All tests and work always result in grainy and flat contrast scenes. Some brief conversations with other DPs indicated that you must expose film enough to provide it a base fog.
Therefore when you have a scene that is 90% dark or more such as the attached photos, you cannot just underexpose it 3 stops you must expose it decently and then print it down in post, print etc....

I have attached a few stills from your work on your website. Could you tell us how you exposed these shots and if they were printed down in print or transfered down in video post etc...

 

[dracul]

Lets Call This DARK 1

Lets Call This DARK 1

lets call this dark 1. In my previous experience the silhoute would be grainy and milky because i would give it zero exposure. My understanding now is you should over that backlight say 3 stops and under the silhoute say maximum 1.5 under. Then bring it all down in post about 5 stops. Mr. Mullen?

 

[dracul]

Dark 2

Dark 2

Dark 2

I know you need some highlight to have a nice image in dark stuff like this but if you try to expose the neg to look like this your gonna have a crappy image.

 

[dracul]

Dark 3

Dark 3

Dark 3

So here those blacks look good. Logic would say to get black don't put any light in there right? My gues is you need some light in there to get decent blacks. The normal looks 1 stop under?

 

[dracul]

Livingroom dark

Livingroom dark

livingroom dark.
So how is the camera left wall exposed here? And the actors back , facing camera?

 

[dracul]

Very Dark

Very Dark

Very Dark. Ok so here there is something to see on one side of his face but its very dark, and the rest looks black oblivion.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There are a couple of issues mixed up in here.

First of all, black level. In a print, the density of the blacks is controlled by the print stock you pick (some have a higher D-Max -- max density -- than others, such as Vision Premier or Fuji XD. But you may more for that extra silver in the emulsion...) and by the printer lights you print the image at. You don't necessarily have to add light to the blacks in the frame to make them blacker -- it's sort of an old wive's tale, though there I'll tell you why it sort of works for some DP's later.

Nothing can be blacker than no exposure, like shooting with the lens cap on or simply sending an unexposed roll of film to the lab. You'd have to develop it normally because push-processing does increase the base fog level, if you want the best blacks, but other than that, how black the blacks look in a print made from unexposed but developed roll of negative just depends on the printer lights.

If you printed this blank negative (almost clear other than base fog density) at 20-20-20, for example, the blacks in the print will look weaker than if you printed the roll at 40-40-40.

So the goal would be to shoot your live action scenes so that it prints at a higher set of printer light numbers. If you do that, the blacks in the scene will look richer, deeper. To do that, you have to be working with a slightly overexposed negative, so that to get a "normal" brightness, you have to print it "down" (at higher numbers.)

Now in a video transfer, it's a little easier to set the blacks in a shot at "0", pure black basically, no matter how you exposed the scene, though if you underexposed it, you may not like the "crushed" look that comes from trying to keep the blacks as black as possible in the transfer because the scene may look too dark. Again, it helps to have a slightly brighter image that you bring down along with the blacks. This way you have more shadow information to work with while being able to set the blacks as black as needed.

Those shots in the movie you posted were shot on Fuji Eterna 500T that I rated at 320 ASA, so even when I underexposed for a night scene, I wasn't really underexposing as much as the image suggests -- I really darkened it in post. So the blue soft light on the shot of the girl with the flashlight was underexposed by two-stops, but since I was rating 500T at 320 ASA, which is a 2/3 stop overexposure, I really only underexposed by a stop and a third, and then darkened it in post further.

I didn't really meter the dark areas, but I had to decide how to expose the highlights. The backlit person laying in the road in the rain was backlit by a spotted tweenie simulating a car headlamp or spotlight on the police car -- it was perhaps two or three stops overexposed (I sort of set it by eye.)

I usually meter the part of the frame where I'm fairly sure what brightness I want to give it, and then balance the other lights by eye in relation to the one thing I'm sure of the exposure of. It gets trickier in a complex dark scene where there are so many subtle levels of bright and dark, but you still have to decide what brightness a certain area is.

I also lean towards not underexposing too much if I'm not sure, figuring it's easier to darken it in post than to brighten it in post if I guess wrong.

Now back to the notion of "lighting" your blacks to make them blacker. That's not really true -- exposure is exposure, and exposure means more information than pure black, which is the absence of exposure (density on the processed negative.) However... highlights in a frame have the effect of making the surrounding blackness look blacker in comparison. So including a point of brightness in a frame can save a shot that is too underexposed because at least your eye sees a white reference in the frame, like a point of light in a frame. It's an illusion, but it helps improve the perception of the blacks.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Dark 3

So here those blacks look good. Logic would say to get black don't put any light in there right? My gues is you need some light in there to get decent blacks. The normal looks 1 stop under?

That over-the-shoulder shot of the young guy in the dark house was lit with half-blue Kinos for key, edge, and fill -- but the fill was very knocked down, to almost nothing... not to make the blacks blacker, just to make sure the eyes reflected some point of light, in the darkness if he looked towards the camera. But the dim Kino did provide a little fill, the shadow side isn't completely black.

Yes, I underexposed the key about one-stop and darkened it a little more in post.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

livingroom dark.
So how is the camera left wall exposed here? And the actors back , facing camera?

That was part of a long Steadicam shot, so the main problem was lighting four rooms of a house without seeing the lights as the camera moved from room to room. I lit through the windows and set the exposure more or less for an imaginary person who would be standing about two or three feet away from the window. I added some fill from Kinos hidden in the room, but the person who moved through these rooms went through all sorts of levels. I figured he could be about two stops underexposed in the center of the room and still be visible.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Very Dark. Ok so here there is something to see on one side of his face but its very dark, and the rest looks black oblivion.

I often expose backlit moonlight "at key" -- that is, I expose for the backlight as if it were a front light. Then I put some soft light on his face that was about stop and a half or two stops underexposed. But because the backlit rain made the backlight look even brighter, I ended up darkening the shot further in post, so the face went even darker.

 

[dracul]

I didn't really meter the dark areas, but I had to decide how to expose the highlights. The backlit person laying in the road in the rain was backlit by a spotted tweenie simulating a car headlamp or spotlight on the police car -- it was perhaps two or three stops overexposed (I sort of set it by eye.)

So the silhoute of the people on the road , did you not have a fill on them. You did not throw anything on them from camera front? So black oblivion? So in order for this not be grainy and milky it has to be total black in post correct?

 

[dracul]

That over-the-shoulder shot of the young guy in the dark house was lit with half-blue Kinos for key, edge, and fill -- but the fill was very knocked down, to almost nothing... not to make the blacks blacker, just to make sure the eyes reflected some point of light, in the darkness if he looked towards the camera. But the dim Kino did provide a little fill, the shadow side isn't completely black.

.

Sounds to me like you under exposed the fill a total of about 4 1/2 stops? Why would this not show heavy grain in that area if not black?

 

[dracul]

That was part of a long Steadicam shot, so the main problem was lighting four rooms of a house without seeing the lights as the camera moved from room to room. I lit through the windows and set the exposure more or less for an imaginary person who would be standing about two or three feet away from the window. I added some fill from Kinos hidden in the room, but the person who moved through these rooms went through all sorts of levels. I figured he could be about two stops underexposed in the center of the room and still be visible.

ok. so again you brought this down heavy in post cause 2 stops would be brighter then what we see on the actor right? I mean he looks black.
so the walls and the actor was not more underexposed then 2 stops?

 

[dracul]

I often expose backlit moonlight "at key" -- that is, I expose for the backlight as if it were a front light. Then I put some soft light on his face that was about stop and a half or two stops underexposed. But because the backlit rain made the backlight look even brighter, I ended up darkening the shot further in post, so the face went even darker.

so 2 stops under your 320 asa reading? So its even less then about 1 1/3 on the 500T correct?

Ok. so the answer to my dilema was simpler then I though. You can't underexpose the neg more then 2 stops max but ideally 1 1/2 and your highlights can go to 3 over. I remember doing a test when i overexposed a key on a face 3 stops print it down on print and it still looked ok. After the test i determined 2 over is probably better rule for down print.

Now printing down (low con print stock) works fine with this print down or making things darker but a few neg to transfer projects I just could not transfer down the footage. Whenever I tried with the colorist the image would always end up flat and weird.
But it is doable from neg right?

Edit: so lets say i decide i want to represent a 4 stop range between back key and front fill. Would the best setup be over the back 2 and under the fill 2 essentially following a general 50/50 split but never under expose more then 2 (really 1 1/3 320asa)? Then bring it down in post as ussual to equivalent of 2 stops so the back key looks normal and the fill goes to almost oblivion.

 

[dracul]

ok one more.. the steadicam shot in the house, so did you over expose those highlights on the windows 5 , 6 stops or did you just set those to eye knowing the interior is 2 under and safe?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Grain is the result of two things: one is the basic graininess of the stock, and two is how it is exposed. Blacks only get "grainy" if they are brightened or lifted in post, usually because you needed to because you exposed them darker than you wanted -- if they aren't being brightened in post, they shouldn't be any grainier than the basic look of the stock.

Now if you want less grain, you either have to use slower-speed stock, or overexpose faster stock. Overexposure doesn't make the biggest grains (which get exposed first) any smaller but it fills in the gaps between the big grains with smaller grains (which are less sensitive being smaller). Slower films have smaller grains in general.

I find a basic rating for the stocks that gives me the blacks and grain I like. After that, I just light and expose the scene for the look I want. If I'm not sure of the exposure, I lean towards more exposure than less, but otherwise, I think you should expose as exactly as you can for the brightness you want. So assuming you decide that the stock looks best rated at 320 ASA, if you want a shadow to look four-stops under, you should expose it four-stops under, but if you're not sure what four-stops under would look like, you expose it three-stops under and figure you may have to darken it a little more in post.

I light by eye mostly, whether I use film or digital. If I'm shining a light through a window curtain, I know the curtain will get hot if I'm exposing for the light in the room that the curtain & window is creating. To some degree, I am deciding to live with some burned-out spots so as to capture the ambience in the room, but I'm also underexposing that ambience because it should look underexposed, so the curtains shouldn't get too hot. But I am playing at the extremes of dynamic range, because it's when you have a full range in the shot that it looks interesting.

As for that Steadicam shot following the back of the actor, in that particular frame, he goes dark, but it's not like that for the whole shot. Besides, I'm following the back of the actor, so I'm not exposing for him, I'm exposing to make the rooms look the way they should look and whatever happens to him, exposure-wise, is whatever happens to him.

You have to decide what the optimal rating is for the stock to get the grain and blacks you like, but after that, you should expose objects for how bright you want them to look in the frame. If you want them to go near black, they should be more than three stops under -- a caucasian face that is two stops under is still pretty visible in the shadows.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

When talking to a colorist, they can control both overall brightness (luminence) and they can control contrast (gamma). So if a shot looks "flat" it's because it doesn't have enough contrast, so you can tell them to either bring the shadows down but leave the highlights where they are, or brighten the highlights but leave the shadows where they are, essentially changing the gamma of the shot.

Now if you lit a shot too flatly, it can be hard to add enough contrast to the scene because there is not enough range in the frame to work with.

 

[dracul]

if you want a shadow to look four-stops under, you should expose it four-stops under, but if you're not sure what four-stops under would look like, you expose it three-stops under and figure you may have to darken it a little more in post.

Now you completely confused me. I thought there is limit as to how much you can underexpose and still retain a decent image in that area.
According to my experiences if i underexpose anything 4 stops under on the neg, it better be crushed to black oblivion in post. If its not it will look grainy , milky and ugly as hell.

1 1/2 under is a beauty, retains decent detail but if i expose how i want it to look it will look horrible. thats my experience anyway. Am i doing something wrong?

 

[NateWeaver]

Again, he's saying that there will be no grain to speak of if you want an area 4 stops under, and in post you keep it at that level.

If in post you decide, oh, I would have liked for that area to be a little more visible, then you can lift it, but you're gonna bring some grain and milk with it.

But if you expose up a little to cover your butt, then you can always push it down in post and most likely wind up with a very clean noir look.

According to my experiences if i underexpose anything 4 stops under on the neg, it better be crushed to black oblivion in post. If its not it will look grainy , milky and ugly as hell.

That could be true if EVERYTHING in the frame is 4 under. But if you have some areas at key or close to it, then your eye will be drawn to the properly exposed bits, and the 4 stops under bits become just that, dark details.

There was a discussion somewhere else on here only a few days ago, talking about how it's a must to have some properly exposed items in the frame if you're trying to do "dark". Your brain needs the contrast so the dark grain (if any) isn't so noticeable. Make sense?

[ack, I just realized I butted in on what was a one-on-one discussion. Mr. Mullen, please holler if I just screwed it up]

 

[dracul]

Again, he's saying that there will be no grain to speak of if you want an area 4 stops under, and in post you keep it at that level.

If in post you decide, oh, I would have liked for that area to be a little more visible, then you can lift it, but you're gonna bring some grain and milk with it.

But if you expose up a little to cover your butt, then you can always push it down in post and most likely wind up with a very clean noir look.



That could be true if EVERYTHING in the frame is 4 under. But if you have some areas at key or close to it, then your eye will be drawn to the properly exposed bits, and the 4 stops under bits become just that, dark details.

There was a discussion somewhere else on here only a few days ago, talking about how it's a must to have some properly exposed items in the frame if you're trying to do "dark". Your brain needs the contrast so the dark grain (if any) isn't so noticeable. Make sense?

What if 90% of the frame is all dark like the sample photos on page 1? pretty sure that would be horribly grainy if you underexposed it 4 stops .