Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

David,
Framing question for you: where to put the horizon?

I think the Rule of Thirds is useful for beginners who need to think a moment and consider their options rather than center-frame everything (which worked for Kubrick after all...)

But I tend to put the horizon based on what details are more interesting -- the sky or the ground? And that balanced against the subjects in the frame. So it becomes more of a feeling when you frame a shot, your application of personal taste more than any calculations. Look at these frames from my work on "Northfork":

I like pushing things to the edge sometimes, more sky than 2/3's if the sky is interesting. But I've also split the sky and ground 50/50 if it looked interesting.

An inspiration for me for many movies has been the Smallville sequence in "Superman: The Movie", which in turn was inspired by John Ford movies. In this frame, they use the Rule of Thirds, but remember that there is equal visual interest on the ground (with the graves) and the sky with the clouds. In my case in "Northfork", the ground was so barren that it was usually more interesting to frame more sky in.

Besides the beautiful clouds, I love the fact that the picturesque church on the hill was a half-scale or smaller set piece.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

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?

If it is overcast, you sort of have two options. One is to add a strong backlight and let the overcast light on the faces feel more like skylight. The other is to maintain the overcast look but increase the contrast by using negative fill and some lights opposite the negative fill. In which case you may want enough light to compensate for the exposure drop from the negative fill.

It all depends on how extreme you are going to go with the negative fill. A 4'x4' or 6'x6' black next to one side of a face in a static close-up, sure, two 1200w HMI's through a 6'x6' diffusion on the opposite side may be enough to create a little contrast and a soft side-lit look.

But anything more elaborate or anything that allows the actors to walk a few feet in that artificial light will need to be scaled up -- maybe a 12'x12' angled black solid, semi-tabled, with additional black skirt hanging off of that on one side, and an 8'x8' or 12'x12' diffusion frame on the opposite with a bigger HMI behind it, maybe a 6K or 12K or 18K.

So it just depends on how important it is to you to change the natural light, because the more elaborate you get, the more time it will take. However, it may be worth it if it is an important dialogue scene. But for a more throwaway shot of someone walking by, etc. then you might as well keep it simple.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I am quite sure that I don't want the natural overcast look left alone. I think it will be too flat, to uninteresting, and it will drain the scene and become something the performances will have to climb up an over... however I think that a very small tweak might be enough. Something to tell the audience this is not how it looks when I go out on the lake... this is a story. Perhaps the open 1.2's as backlight plus a bit of negative fill? Big douvetine drapes on the ground that would be easy to reset plus a good 5-6 C-stands with 4x4 flags with the skirts to the ground (sorry if my lingo is horrendous)... but creating a C with the tarp on the ground, the skirts and the 4x4 flags... not as big as you'd work with probably but a fast set up and break down... add more C-Stands if necessary, but those would still be easy to move, reposition, etc... I guess the main problem would be the top side... but we'd need big stands and frames to get up there, which won't be set up as fast by a new crew... I guess 4x4's up in the air would be just as big of an issue with the wind. We might have wind problems with the lake being so big and flat. What do you think?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I think you're going to find 1200w HMI lights a bit limited then if you really plan on altering the look of the overcast footage -- sure, they'll work on a close-up, but what about medium shots, what about a shot where someone walks into the close-up? You're going to need bigger lights if you really have your heart set on changing what nature is giving you.

And with bigger lights, bigger frames, etc. means more equipment, crew, and time.

So this is a big commitment on your part. It's always hard to fight Mother Nature outside -- she's got you outgunned!

I'd look into at least carrying around a 4K or 6K HMI PAR.

Remember that overcast light can vary from very high levels to very dim levels -- I've had to rise or fall by several stops. So one moment, a 1200w HMI is too much, and the next, a 6K HMI is barely enough.

Multiple 4'x4' floppies will work sometimes, but other times, it will be simpler, faster, and easier to just use a bigger solid on a frame, like a 12'x12', rather than a bunch of individual floppies. Just depends on the shot.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

Thanks David, I appreciate your response!

One addendum, when framing with the horizon, when (if ever) do you pull out ND grads?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

"Pull out" as in remove them or as in pull them out of the camera bag and add them?

I use ND grads all the time for wide shots with clouds in the sky, to bring them down (unless the pola is enough, or I don't need to bring down the sky relative to the ground, like in a silhouette shot). Usually an ND.6 soft-edge grad, or if it's a really wide-angle shot, and ND.6 attenuator.

Generally you don't use them if the camera is tilting up and down, unless the line is super-soft like with the attenuator.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Ok David, I was afraid that you'd say that but I was expecting it. There certainly are overcast days and overcast days, so I wonder what would give me the most flexibility and range...

Right now we have a 5000W generator, and there is a 6500W generator available for rent up there. I am trying to keep things portable and I can envision two or three guys moving those over plywood on the snow, or a snowmobile pulling them up a hill with a sled manufactured out of the same plywood. I don't see that happening however with the 500Amp or 1200Amp Crawfords. hehe... Ok, not funny, I know, shouldn't suggest slave labor like that, don't want be beaten to death with a C-Stand, electrocuted while I sleep, etc..

An other concern of mine is the the mix of electricity, snow and cables. I thought portable gennys would mean shorter cables, so less connections, etc...

I do have quite a bit of stuff that I'd like to do out and about in the countryside. There is however only one "traveling" which takes us up and down a small hill then along the ice of a lake. There are only a few running shots in that scene.

I did write the rest of our exterior stuff as semi-stationary. I mean to say that the cast would be in a limited area and no more walking/running stuff.

There is however, few shots that I do want to get deep in the actual lake, looking back at the distant shore in the BG. Those force us to be light, both as in "nimble" and also in the literal sense of the word. There are also a pair of scenes that take place on the ice, but right near the shore.

I will not allow trucks, cars or big gennys out there. If the ice is thick enough for an SUV, then I'll have a snowmobile pull a 5000w or 6500w out there on the plywood sled I have envisioned. However, even that is making my heart beat fast. Despite the incessant words encouragement from the locals, and local crew, I remain scared. Of course we'll measure the thickness of the ice that month, and that week, and that day... I think remember finding in my research that 2ft of ice is considered enough by the army for their transport trucks!!! But still, I am scared crapless for everyone's safety.

AnyWho... So... I was planning on getting at the very least a third 1.2k par and running it off the same 5000w. Is that too much? Three 1.2's on a 5000W?

With a second small genny (the 6500W), we should be able to run a 4k HMI par. Would it also run a few kinos? They have 6K HMI pars but that alone would be too much for the generator no matter how short of a cable we ran for it, correct?

So if I didn't mess anything up on my rant above, then with both small gennys, the 5000W and the 6500W we could use all three 1.2's on darker days for nice and wide coverage. Then all of them together on one silk or other diffusion should match the 4k quite nicely for two stronger sources. Correct? Two wouldn't be a lot, and we wouldn't have a lot of reach even if we piled all of them up as one 7.6k... but...

Like you said, I should learn to accept and work with what nature gives us, and I am ready and willing to make the compromise to only slightly modify it.

However, I just can't see a supernatural thriller looking 100% real... I just can't. inch: More budget?

I could get a killer deal on a 3-Ton tungsten truck... still need to talk to the guys about an HMI truck.

Please let me know when you had enough with me pestering you. Though I think that was about 5 paragraphs ago. :wacko:

 

[Shawn Nelson]

"Pull out" as in remove them or as in pull them out of the camera bag and add them?

I use ND grads all the time for wide shots with clouds in the sky, to bring them down (unless the pola is enough, or I don't need to bring down the sky relative to the ground, like in a silhouette shot). Usually an ND.6 soft-edge grad, or if it's a really wide-angle shot, and ND.6 attenuator.

Generally you don't use them if the camera is tilting up and down, unless the line is super-soft like with the attenuator.

Thanks David! Yeah, I meant pull out of the bag to use.

I'll make .6 ND grad my first grad purchase.

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

David,

I have a question regarding these frames that you posted:

How did you achieve this look- did you luck out on the day of filming with the clouds? Were you watching the weather and shooting those scenes accordingly? Was it really sunny and warm out but you got the cool overcast look through filtration or DI?

Great work- I really like the overall aesthetic of these shots. Thanks for your time in answering all of our questions, it is a great resource for us all.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I also liked them very much and found the first particularly stunning.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, it was luck, although we had stunning clouds 80% of the time we were shooting in Montana. But they moved rapidly.

For example, we arrived to do that simple wide shot of a man standing outside of an outhouse and a storm was rolling in. I rushed to roll the camera on the wide shot and within a few takes, it went from black rolling clouds to solid grey overcast with light rain for the rest of the scene. But by then we were into coverage so it didn't matter as much. But I really scrambled to roll the cameras while the clouds were distinct like that.

The second was interesting -- we had two days scheduled for scenes in a graveyard set. Day One was this scene where some men dig up the coffin of the wife of one of the characters and an argument breaks out between the man and his son (the valley will be flooded soon for a dam so people have been moving all the bodies out of the old cemetery.) Day Two was a scene where a young boy visiting his parents' grave meets a gypsy who may be an angel.

So we get there and it's a major hailstorm. It's like being pelted with rocks. So we have to hide in a van and when we hear the hail stop pounding the roof of the van, we all run out and shoot a couple of shots until it starts hailing again. So almost every shot I did was with the camera on a sandbag because I wanted a low angle to see the storm clouds and we were rushing between gaps in the hailstorm to shoot. Again, I was lucky in that I shot the wider shots before the clouds totally socked in and became a solid grey. It was very dramatic with the wind whipping the trenchcoats of the men -- it almost felt biblical.

The next day we return to shoot the little boy meeting the angel... and it's one of the most clear blue skies we ever had. Luckily the sunshine made sense for this scene, just as the storm made sense for the scene the day before. But it was pure luck that it worked out that way since we were on a tight 26-day schedule. This was a 1.5-mil non-union movie after all.

There's a reason they call Montana "Big Sky Country"...

--

The slightly cool desaturated look could now be easily done in digital timing... but we didn't do a D.I. back then in 2002 when we made the movie. I shot uncorrected tungsten stock for a heavy blue bias to the negative, timed it partways back to neutral but not quite, left some blue in. I flashed the negative to lower the contrast and color, then did a skip-bleach to the prints to increase contrast and lower color -- net result was closer to normal contrast but most of the color was gone. We also painted everything we could in shades of grey.

The home video version didn't use a skip-bleached print for the transfer, but a normal IP made off of the flashed negative, so I had to do a digital simulation of that effect by crushing the blacks (or more accurately, restoring the blacks to cancel the flashing) and lowering the chroma.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Right now we have a 5000W generator, and there is a 6500W generator available for rent up there. I am trying to keep things portable and I can envision two or three guys moving those over plywood on the snow, or a snowmobile pulling them up a hill with a sled manufactured out of the same plywood. I don't see that happening however with the 500Amp or 1200Amp Crawfords. hehe... Ok, not funny, I know, shouldn't suggest slave labor like that, don't want be beaten to death with a C-Stand, electrocuted while I sleep, etc..

An other concern of mine is the the mix of electricity, snow and cables. I thought portable gennys would mean shorter cables, so less connections, etc...

I do have quite a bit of stuff that I'd like to do out and about in the countryside. There is however only one "traveling" which takes us up and down a small hill then along the ice of a lake. There are only a few running shots in that scene.

I did write the rest of our exterior stuff as semi-stationary. I mean to say that the cast would be in a limited area and no more walking/running stuff.

There is however, few shots that I do want to get deep in the actual lake, looking back at the distant shore in the BG. Those force us to be light, both as in "nimble" and also in the literal sense of the word. There are also a pair of scenes that take place on the ice, but right near the shore.

Your plan sounds fine. It's getting to the point where you really need to collaborate with your DP, Gaffer, and Key Grip as to the best plan of attack. You also have to consider if the shots with the portable genny are MOS or not because those gennies are not quiet. Some are so loud you can't even hear yourself think while they are running; some are tolerable but will still ruin any dialogue recording. Generally even with a silent genny for film shoots, the sound man wants it a block away, behind a hill or house, etc. if at all possible.

 

[Nicholas Shields]

Hi David. I am considering using anamorphic lenses in my next feature - the aesthetic they provide gels well with the narrative. That being said, what factors should my DP consider? Have you used anamorphic on a Red yet? Any information you could provide would be greatly appreciated and thank you again for this forum.

Best Regards,

Nick.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Anamorphics tend to be larger, heavier, and slower than spherical lenses, they tend to be more expensive to rent. They tend to not focus as closely. There are only a few lines and they all have their quirks, you kind of have to pick a series and work with their limitations. With the higher cost, you'll probably use fewer focal lengths.

The anamorphic zooms are generally mediocre and don't have the anamorphic artifacts you'd expect, and they are slow, except for the new front-anamorphic zooms that Panavision built for John Bailey -- you can see zooming shots in "He's Just Not That Into You" with anamorphic lens artifacts, it's so strange to see that (for me.)

So first it comes down to finding a specific series, and if they are on the big and heavy side, figuring out what you are going to do for Steadicam shots -- find some lighter ones just for those shots or make your Steadicam operator deal with a heavy lens.

On a 16x9 camera like the RED, you'll have to crop the sides if you use the standard 2X anamorphics that are available. Because 1.78 (16x9) times two is 3.56 : 1, too wide. It has to be cropped to 2.40 : 1.

Now compared to Cooke S4's and Zeiss Master Primes, the smaller anamorphics like the Panavision C-Series are comparable in size.

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

Yes, it was luck, although we had stunning clouds 80% of the time we were shooting in Montana. But they moved rapidly...

Thanks for the detailed response- sounds like it was quite the combination of being prepared and taking advantage of what you had to complete the look you were after for those shots. All of those elements really add up to create a compelling image that underscores the story line.

With the availability / accessibility of the DI now- do you still prefer to flash your own film if you know that is the look you are after, or does the DI bring more control?

Thanks for your time.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I think being forced to get the look in-camera made us work harder to get the details of the art direction right, etc.

In terms of the desaturation being done digitally versus flashing and skip-bleaching, it's partly just a difference in look between the two approaches. What's nice about a skip-bleached PRINT (as opposed to a neg or IP/IN) is that the black silver in the print is on top of the normal black dyes, so you get super-blacks during projection, and a silver grain that reminds you of b&w photography. Digital desaturation doesn't give you that texture.

 

[Christopher Grant Harvey]

David what do you think about a recent trend of handheld camerawork in features? I see a lot of TV shows (non typical sitcoms) have also started doing this.

Sometimes it bugs me when there is an OTS on a fairly long lens and the camera is jiggling all about.

Just wandering how you feel about the justification of going handheld.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I get a bit tired with the obsession over "documentary realism" exaggerated into an obvious stylistic tic. But handheld can be lovely when done right and when motivated -- it adds a more human touch to the operating.

But jiggling a camera to make the scene more exciting than it really is feels like an unfunny joke to me.

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

I think being forced to get the look in-camera made us work harder to get the details of the art direction right, etc.

In terms of the desaturation being done digitally versus flashing and skip-bleaching, it's partly just a difference in look between the two approaches. What's nice about a skip-bleached PRINT (as opposed to a neg or IP/IN) is that the black silver in the print is on top of the normal black dyes, so you get super-blacks during projection, and a silver grain that reminds you of b&w photography. Digital desaturation doesn't give you that texture.

I'm a big fan / proponent of getting the look done in camera as much as possible.

Flashing film has always impressed me- both in the look it helps to produce and in the chance you are taking with the neg. (I've only worked in the digital domain, so I've had the safety of the undo button in post.) I assume that your years of experience prior to the film helped you determine the amount of flashing you were going to want. Did you still run tests prior to the shoot, or did you just go with your "gut"?

Thanks as always.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You absolutely have to test flashing levels before a production -- the numbers thrown about like "10%" are meaningless. It's a pretty simple thing to test though. You just have to remember that the flash is most visible in the blacks, so your flash level will probably be lighter for a night scene than a day scene, for example, and probably lighter for a smoked/hazed scene than one without that haze.

At some point when I shooting, I did have to go by my gut when using smoke and diffusion, which looked heavier or lighter depending on the focal length and camera angle relative to the light. So while I knew what a certain flash level would give me, if the shot seemed low-contrast enough, I lowered the flash level or turned it (the Panaflasher) off completely.