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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

Hope you don't mind me copying some of your grabs on your thread, but I wanted to ask you to briefly tell me a bit about the lighting on this wide... which I think is absolutely phenomenal.

page11_6.jpg


Also, if you would please I'd love to know how to achieve this colors which I think are so perfectly suited for horror.

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Needless to say I added the movie to my queue. :watsup:
 
OK. as I said, I had not heard of that either... but yes, it was relative to settings
and somehow covering a larger gamut thru settings ... and yes it sounded like shooting more blandly... so it could be corrected/adjusted in post.

which makes sense as to why the DP was frowning.

Im an old school film guy, so I grew up knowing fixing it in post, meant (TONS OF MONEY)... and still does really.

I always believed capturing the image correctly in the first place, was the "right" way
just as I prefer as many "practical effects" as possible, versus digital effects.

perhaps because so many indies are DP, Editor, Director... the artistry is being minimized for sake of speed... budget. etc. and the "fix it in post" mind set.

Several people on here even commented they dont use filters, when they can
"just add that effect in post"

I appreciate your answer... film is a collaborative medium, and I just didnt see value in diminishing a critical artist (a DP) just to make post easier.

Thanks
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
OK. as I said, I had not heard of that either... but yes, it was relative to settings
and somehow covering a larger gamut thru settings ... and yes it sounded like shooting more blandly... so it could be corrected/adjusted in post.

which makes sense as to why the DP was frowning.

Im an old school film guy, so I grew up knowing fixing it in post, meant (TONS OF MONEY)... and still does really.

I always believed capturing the image correctly in the first place, was the "right" way
just as I prefer as many "practical effects" as possible, versus digital effects.

perhaps because so many indies are DP, Editor, Director... the artistry is being minimized for sake of speed... budget. etc. and the "fix it in post" mind set.

Several people on here even commented they dont use filters, when they can
"just add that effect in post"

I appreciate your answer... film is a collaborative medium, and I just didnt see value in diminishing a critical artist (a DP) just to make post easier.

Thanks
Click to expand...

If you are simply referring to the process of capturing as much usable info as possible (i.e. not blowing out your highlights or crushing your blacks on set if you can help it), then that is indeed new best practice of the digital era.

Just because some random DP may be a god of 35mm who was developing by hand in a washbasin when I wasn't yet born...doesn't mean he understands the modern digital cinematography workflow (and just to be clear, I am not refering to you Tim or to David). I've both met and heard of VERY skilled artist who became incredibly arrogant and flat out stupid about digital tech, mouthing off all sorts of BS FUD about Red, digital cinematography, etc. (Not to say that your DP was that way).

It is not unreasonable to expect a DP's job to be to get the cleanest negative possible (given the desired look and feel of course) so that a good colorist (possibly with the DP's assistance) can maximize the end product in post. DP's grouching that they've lost the power of the image just need to wake up and take notice of the moving job description.

and so to segue this into a question for David. Is it part of your negotiations how much say you have in the post colorization process?
 
That movie was shot in 3-perf Super-35 on Fuji Eterna 500T and F-250D, framed for 2.40.

In the first frame, that night shot, it was pretty basic -- I had a Condor in the background with two HMI's in the bucket, corrected with 1/2 CTO for a half-blue effect. I think I had an 18K HMI doing the main backlight and then a 4K HMI pointed downwards at the house in the background. I had a half double-net scrim in the bottom of the 18K to feather the light down on the ground in the background.

The house had some 2K tungstens in various rooms, and I hid some small lights under the roof of the porch to light the front of the house.

The people in the foreground had the light of the real fire plus some hidden lights gelled Full Orange. I buried a 4' 2-bank Kinoflo in the ground between the fire and the middle people, then I hit the people at each end with an off-camera tweenie gelled orange.

The second shot was a daytime house lit with HMI's, but instead of use the F-250D stock like I did elsewhere, I wanted that house to be very cold in color, so I used the Eterna 500T stock without an 85 filter. I tried to light it mostly through the windows and play the interior more silhouette although I hid Kinos behind doors and whatnot - the sequence basically was lit for a Steadicam to move from room to room looking front and back.

The real problem was that this was an old farmhouse and a lot of windows had these wooden slatted blinds that did not adjust -- the only way to shine light through them, since they were designed to stop direct sunlight, was to put the light outside low on the ground and point them up through the slats! Luckily with a sheer curtain hanging in front, you can't tell that the pattern from the blinds is created by a light from below instead of from above the window.

The farmhouse was painted that way, faded blues and greens -- I lit it cold and blue and kept the color saturation a bit lower in the timing. Plus the rooms were smoked slightly which softened the colors.
 
good shawn! because I am a producer, not a DP... I just have a lot of respect for the craft having had the luxury of working with Greg Gardiner on my first feature and seeing a a ton of wannabe's disrespect the craft... I actually empathized with his bitching... he was not a prima donna... just frustrated they didnt trust him to capture looks in camera.

I have worked with a lot more colorists who are ARROGANT and haven't shot a damn thing, but boy they sure love to bitch about DP's...

interesting question for sure!
 
David Mullen ASC said:
That movie was shot in 3-perf Super-35 on Fuji Eterna 500T and F-250D, framed for 2.40.

In the first frame, that night shot, it was pretty basic -- I had a Condor in the background with two HMI's in the bucket, corrected with 1/2 CTO for a half-blue effect. I think I had an 18K HMI doing the main backlight and then a 4K HMI pointed downwards at the house in the background. I had a half double-net scrim in the bottom of the 18K to feather the light down on the ground in the background.

The house had some 2K tungstens in various rooms, and I hid some small lights under the roof of the porch to light the front of the house.

The people in the foreground had the light of the real fire plus some hidden lights gelled Full Orange. I buried a 4' 2-bank Kinoflo in the ground between the fire and the middle people, then I hit the people at each end with an off-camera tweenie gelled orange.

.
Click to expand...

Wow, about a dozen fixtures, including tungsten, buried Kinos, AND a Condor with 2 HMI's, and numerous gels, plus 3 PErf Super 35Mm film stock

and you say that was "pretty basic!?"

I love your humility!

I think that is an amazing shot because of the detail you went to that made it seem so simple and elegant, in my humble opinion.

thanks for sharing!
 
Digital is not that different than film -- with film, it's also about capturing information within a certain recordable range, it's just that the range is bigger... and thus you have more leeway if you get it wrong.

But it's still about a range and where you place information within it, just like with digital. Underexposure gives you more highlight detail but pushes more shadow information into grain (or noise with digital) and overexposure gives you more shadow detail but highlights burn out faster (and even faster with digital.)

I'd say the biggest difference between the two is in that overexposure range because film burns out gracefully and digital just sort of gets clipped unattractively. So clearly it's an area you need to worry about more with digital.

But we're talking about the philosophy of playing it safe for post versus taking chances, and generally, I'm for taking chances... as long as they are chances based on understanding the technology, not chances based on ignorance.

I remember this interview with Conrad Hall saying that it wasn't that he took fewer chances as he got older, it's just that having shot so much, it was harder to do something that he hadn't already tried before -- he wasn't "taking a chance" if he already knew what the outcome would be.

Good cinematography comes from making strong choices, not avoiding them.

Most of the time, I don't have a problem being involved in post because the director and the producer want me there, want my expertise. It can actually make things go smoother since I know how the footage was shot and what it is supposed to look like. Now it can be a problem if the producer has kicked the director out of the post process, because that means that I also get kicked out too, being the director's collaborator.

It's also a problem if I'm shooting something else when the color-correction is done -- I can't be in two places at the same time.
 
Sorry for terrible questions:

1) I'm grading a "horror" sequence in a kitchen set with dark-reddish walls, and I'm wondering if you have any tips for what kind of palette feels "scary" or "visceral." I noticed that the Strangers has a warm, desaturated look (and my set looks a bit like that), but a lot of modern horror films have a cooler look with a wide color palette. I know it's context sensitive, but what do you like? Orange? Yellowish? Cyan? (It's going to be grainy and fuzzy whether I want it be or not as I've been forced to push 2+ stops, so I've got that covered.) I talked with the Platinum Dunes guys and they rely heavily on DI's, so I figure there's a best way to approach this, but I don't know what it is.

2) Also, I'm moving out to LA (to temporarily become a professional PA or grip, heh) and I'm wondering if business has picked up now that the SAG strikes seems less likely to happen and revenues have stabilized in the new year. Also, how does one go about getting a gig as a grip (or literally anything that pays over $8/hr)? I have super prestigious college degrees all over the place and I've DP'ed a couple low-end features, but I'm not in any union and I'm poor as shit. Will I likely have to start off doing student films for free, or what's the deal?

Thanks; you're smart and talented.
 
I don't think you should fight a warm-painted location by trying to shift it the other way, to the blues... it never works because the skintones go much bluer before a red wall does.

Reducing the saturation may help take the prettiness out of the shot, which may help the horror, adding more contrast to make the shadows darker may help. Truth is that horror is really about the set-up and situation -- bright fluorescent-lit rooms can be scary in the right context.

Otherwise, they are about the unknown danger lurking, which is why lots of shadows helps. Horror films are often Expressionistic -- the lighting and angles reflect a psychological and emotional state more than a realistic place.

It's still slow here in L.A. I've only been to one job interview recently and there was practically a line of top ASC cinematographers waiting along with me. It's a buyer's market if you're a producer right now looking for a DP...

But in terms of starting a career, I've found that it's not a bad thing to come in when the market is slow because (1) you're cheaper to hire than a lot of people, and (2) you don't have a large overhead yet nor expectations of making a lot of income, so you can wait it out, take freebies and low-paying jobs, etc.

Ultimately it's all about three things: contacts, your resume, and your reel. Whatever gets you more contacts, even if it means working for free or low-pay occasionally, whatever gets you some credits, especially with name actors or producers, directors, and whatever gets you decent material for your reel.
 
Awesome, thank you for the advice. Both answers were very helpful. Hopefully business will pick up soon!
 
mail4joeg said:
Hi David,

The United States of Tara episode 1 is up on Showtime's website. Very interesting premise. Is it shot on Red?

http://www.sho.com/site/order/preview.do
Click to expand...

No, Episode 1 (the pilot) was shot on 3-perf 35mm, on 5218 stock. All the rest of the episodes were shot on the Genesis camera. Showtime has a digital origination requirement but they allowed this pilot to be shot on 35mm.
 
Bob Franco said:
David,

I am curious what your opinion is about this subject that appeared on Cinematography.com regarding using mirrors to completely light a set.
http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=36527
Thanks,
Bob Franco
Click to expand...

It's an interesting idea and there may be locations where this would be the right approach... but it seems a bit overly clever, every lighting set-up like a game of pool, bouncing every light around. And all it would take would be a heavy breeze or someone bumping the rig to cause all the lights to dance and shimmy on the scene. But as I said, maybe I'll run into a location one day and figure this was the best approach to lighting it.

I've certainly done a lot of lighting with Source-4's and bounce cards and reflectors.
 
Have you ever shot on snow David? You probably have at some point in time.

Not sure if you'll feel like going too much into depth to answer my question but, how would you light day exteriors in the snow with a limited 1-ton package to make them interesting and move fast? Hopefully you can give me a few tips as to how you'd handle the white blanket below, hopefully on both sunny and an over cast days.

We'd have two moods we'll be going for and hope to create a gradient as plot points occur and the story progresses. A rough description of them would probably be spring-break/party/happy, happy etc... going towards thriller/terror/horror etc...

I've been getting lots of conflicting advice. It would be very interesting to hear what you'd have to say and it would sure be appreciated.
 
Trouble is that I tend to believe in embracing what nature gives you outside rather than tent and relight it, for example -- it takes too much time and it ends up looking artificial.

I mean, I'll silk a scene for various reasons, to give me some consistent light for coverage or to flatter an actress, etc. but it's not my favorite thing to do, which is one reason why I like Half Soft Frost more than silk -- it barely softens the sun so you don't lose the exposure or the directionality, you just take the edge off of the harshness.

So most of my experiences shooting in snow during the daytime have been about the same as doing day exteriors without snow, the main difference is that you get more bounce fill from below so you need to add less fill than normal, or no fill at all, or even use negative fill.

I have found, when trying to light snow at night to fake daytime, is that snow does not look the same when lit artificially, though you may have no choice. Snow crystals are like millions of tiny mirrors that reflect the skylight and the specular sunlight, so snow lit with HMI's can look different than snow lit by the sun. But not enough that you can't do it, you just notice that it feels different.

I think it's mainly an issue of deciding the look in terms of sunny vs. overcast and snow having a blue bias vs. a neutral color tone.
 
David,
Framing question for you: where to put the horizon?

What I mean is that you have a medium to wide angle shot out somewhere where the horizon is visible, what rules or ideals guide to as to where to put the horizon line? Such as whether to go high and tilt down such that the horizon is upper thirds and above the character's heads, or to go low and put the horizon as consuming greater than two two thirds the screen.

Sometimes I want neither of those two aesthetics and the inbetween gets weird, with the horizon cutting through their waists or heads.

What are your thoughts?
 
Thanks for pointing out the Half Soft Frost... I am so clueless that while I know there are a myriad of options in a well stocked truck I tend to call every diffusion a silk. :blush:

It is great to know what you use and I will certainly mention it to my guys.

It is funny that you mention shooting night for day on the snow. I think I might shoot some day for night. Reason being the frigid cold we might experience... -20 is not that uncommon up there. I wrote the script with a healthy dose of interiors and a single ext night scene, which was going to be my next question for you. :)

But before I try to squeeze that out of you... about day exteriors: I suppose negative fill is something we might have to do a whole lot, right? Also some softer diffusion for direct sun stuff might also become common practice... perhaps something even lighter than that for the guys?
And what about overcast days for a part of the story when things are already quite dire for our heroes? Would a couple of 1.2 HMIs pars give us enough to make it a bit more interesting instead of leaving it super flat?

I apologize for the 20 part question, but as you must notice there is a lot of questions about lighting in my head and not so many answers. I'd like to know a bit more before I interview DPs (that I can afford :))
 
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