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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

Kemalettin Sert said:
General film question: What percentage of movies made in the last 15 years were shot on Super35 film? Rough estimate of course.
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Trouble is that you'd have to divide the list into before D.I.'s and after D.I.'s. Once D.I.'s became the norm and not the exception, thus eliminating the need for an optical printer blow-up using dupes from Super-35 neg to projection format 35mm, there was a huge increase in the number of movies shooting in Super-35 for movies intended for both convention "flat" 1.85 and anamorphic 2.40 cinema prints.

This was about four years ago, the tipping-over point where D.I.'s stopped being the exception. So the decade before that, you had to optically convert Super-35 neg to whatever your final projection format was going to be, giving more impetus to shoot in a standard 35mm projection format to begin with, i.e. sound aperture, not full aperture.

Before the era of D.I.'s, most people shooting for 1.85 projection shot standard 1.85, and maybe half the people shooting for 2.40 projection shot with anamorphic lenses rather than Super-35. It varied over the last two decades, but you could roughly say that half the movies released were 1.85 and half were 2.40 and half of that half were Super-35, so one-quarter roughly.

But once D.I.'s become commonplace, there was little reason to not shoot full aperture (Super) even for 1.85 movies. And Super-35 for 2.40 was less grainy now due to avoiding dupes and optical printing, reducing one of the prime arguments for anamorphic.

Not to mention that one of the odd backlashes against digital was an embracing of grain, so cropping & enlarging a smaller negative was in vogue for awhile. So some people shot anamorphic less for the larger & less grainy negative and more for the optical artifacts.

Now I'd guess that 3/4 of movies are shot Super-35 (4-perf and 3-perf now -- 3-perf was less popular before D.I.'s except for TV) for either 1.85 and 2.40 prints, leaving 1/4 shot in standard 1.85 and anamorphic 2.40.

But those are all rough impressions. Worldwide, there is probably less 2.40 anamorphic production compared to Hollywood (and India.) But due to D.I.'s there has probably been a worldwide increase in 2.40 Super-35 movies.
 
I think Kemalettin had a pretty decent question which got a even more decent answer from David. Are we all a bit tired and need to sleep?
 
David, I know you've said before that certain things are "pretty much all the same to you" lenses, sometimes even cameras. The DI really takes care of the look for you, and the timing is so powerful these days that sometimes you lose your control over what the end product will look like. I know how this happens a lot, and with the huge progression in technology, we are at, and moving towards where the post production will be controlling just about a huge portion of our sound and picture on a computer system.

how do you feel about this, do you think it benefits you as a filmmaker and DP? Or do you feel like you will hit a point one day where nothing you shoot anymore will ever look the way you intend it to because of the level of manipulation in post? Do you feel like the technology is depreciating the craft of shaping and controlling, what you can get direct into camera, or do you think it's helping you by taking limitations off, such as not needing so much light...
 
Whats wrong with my question :confused: ? i didnt ask who will win world cup
Thank you David :smile: you are #1 :cheers2:
One more question :biggrin:
First D.I used in movie is O Brother, Where Art Thou am i right? (not only in hollywood im talking about worldwide)
 
Felix, its a wonderful question. Its just that there are already enormous databases compiled with that information. http://www.imdb.com/SearchTechnical?PCS:Super 35

David contributed some other wonderful information, so made the most of it.
 
"O Brother Where Art Thou?" (2000) was one of the first, it's a bit vague because around that time, there were movies that went through a D.I. for large sections such as "Pleasantville" (1998), just not 100% of the movie. And technically "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" (1999) was all scanned from 35mm anamorphic and output back to film, thus was a D.I. done by ILM.

And what about a movie like "Breaking the Waves" (1996) which was shot in Super-35 but went through a PAL intermediate before being filmed-out? Technically that was a digital intermediate.

And then there was the 1993 all-4K digital restoration of "Snow White", which was technically a digital intermediate as well.
 
Yeah, like I was wondering if there'd be an iphone app or equivalent into which you could put a film's characteristic curve and generate a look for a given digital camera, but then thought: Why bother? they'll just make it look like 5245 on C-series anamorphics in post, shoot flat raw all day.

Trying to achieve a look must be a creative decision, and that's why we get involved. Do you go with trying to get a film look or do you try to imagine something more now with all the power that the technology has provided David?
 
Hello David.
I saw your work in the Astronaut Farmer, it was very good.

I am looking to buy an Arri ST5 Studio Fresnel 5000W Tungsten light, (along with some flo-light LEDs) for use with my 5d/7d and shoot some shorts this summer. I'm worried about power...I'm going to be shooting mostly in peoples houses. Is 5000 watts going to blow the circuit? How am I going to power this monster? Most residence homes seem to be able to reach ~2000 watts but anymore would require a speacial plug or something. Does this Arri Plug into a standard outlet or require a special plug?

Also how many stops do you lose when you put a daylight corrective gel on it? I want to bounce this off celings and use my LEDs as key and fill. Either the Arri will have a daylight gel, or the LEDs will have an indoor gel of course.

B&H # ARST5S

thanks!
Andrew
 
Andrew Huse said:
Hello David.
I saw your work in the Astronaut Farmer, it was very good.

I am looking to buy an Arri ST5 Studio Fresnel 5000W Tungsten light, (along with some flo-light LEDs) for use with my 5d/7d and shoot some shorts this summer. I'm worried about power...I'm going to be shooting mostly in peoples houses. Is 5000 watts going to blow the circuit? How am I going to power this monster? Most residence homes seem to be able to reach ~2000 watts but anymore would require a speacial plug or something. Does this Arri Plug into a standard outlet or require a special plug?

Also how many stops do you lose when you put a daylight corrective gel on it? I want to bounce this off celings and use my LEDs as key and fill. Either the Arri will have a daylight gel, or the LEDs will have an indoor gel of course.

B&H # ARST5S

thanks!
Andrew
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Hey Andrew,
All of these questions are easily looked up on the internet, but I'll go ahead through them.

A 5,000w light is way too much for household outlets. Have you ever held a 5k? It's a GIANT light usually requiring two men and a giant freakin stand and tons of sandbags. I recommend a 2k light tops, even that you have to make sure your household socket can actually go to 20amp (some top out at 15amps, which means no more than 1500w on a circuit). You can cheaply get Mole 2ks here http://www.usedmovielighting.com/lights/mole-richardson-412-2k-fresnel/ but given your description, i'm not sure that's a good course of action for you. A full CTB will make that daylight but you'll lose a lot of punch, over a full stop of light.

I'd recommend smaller fresnels for you, as well as some fluorescent lighting to supplement your LEDs
 
Hey David, did any of the announcements from NAB catch your interest?
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Hey Andrew,
All of these questions are easily looked up on the internet, but I'll go ahead through them.

A 5,000w light is way too much for household outlets. Have you ever held a 5k? It's a GIANT light usually requiring two men and a giant freakin stand and tons of sandbags. I recommend a 2k light tops, even that you have to make sure your household socket can actually go to 20amp (some top out at 15amps, which means no more than 1500w on a circuit). You can cheaply get Mole 2ks here http://www.usedmovielighting.com/lights/mole-richardson-412-2k-fresnel/ but given your description, i'm not sure that's a good course of action for you. A full CTB will make that daylight but you'll lose a lot of punch, over a full stop of light.

I'd recommend smaller fresnels for you, as well as some fluorescent lighting to supplement your LEDs
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Seconding what Shaun has said. We never use more than 2.5Kw heads when we are using household power over here in the UK (240v/13amp system). We have tripped our fair share of breakers/fuses also when using multiple 2.5kw heads even. The only way you can use more than a 2.5Kw is if you tie into a 32amp breaker/output on the house distribution box which would give you enough juice for a 5Kw (done this a few times, but you MUST know what you are doing, or hire someone who does). We've powered multiple 5Kw fixtures from house mains by doing this before.

There's a simple sum - voltage x ampeprage = wattage - this will allow you to calculate roughly what lighting you should be looking to use in household situations over in the USA (my knowledge of your power system isn't upto scratch!)

Why not look at smaller fresnel heads, and maybe some kino lighting to supplement it? Depending on your needs, a 1.2Kw HMI Par would provide a heck of a lot of output for most interior situations, and can be supplemented nicely with smaller fresnels and fluorescent lights.

A 5Kw lamp is absolutely a no-no for household use without a tie in!
 
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Hey David its me again :smash:
asked this on cinematographers forum but no reply yet

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Is this special effect or caused by lens ?(talking about flames)
 
Kemalettin Sert said:
Is this special effect or caused by lens ?(talking about flames)
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Justin K Phillips said:
I'm not David, but if I recall correctly, that effect is the result of the shutter rotation being out of phase with the film motion. I could be mistaken, though.
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You are correct, Justin. I believe I read about this in AC at the time. This is not a lens issue or SFX. It's due to the the gate movement of the film being out of time with shutter (the film negative is moving while the shutter is open exposing it) So you get this streak of any highlight in the frame.
The negative normally only moves, advances to the next frame, when the shutter is closed.
They had some of the cameras set like this on purpose to emulate a field camera in a war zone that has been knocked out of adjustment. You know - a defect to make it seem more like real documentary footage. I know all about this effect, by learning about it the hard way on a small 16mm film I DP'ed.

They also had some of the fancy lens coatings stripped off some of the lens to simulate the lenses of the time. Again, a defect to make it more like real documentary footage of the WWII era. But that does not cause this streaking effect.

If you want to simulate the streak effect, it helps to know what the real cause was of a film defect.
I hate when people try to emulate a film flash frame by just fading to white and back in a NLE.
There may already be a plug-in that might simulate the streak well. I haven't looked. It's kind of like "glow" but only in one direction - up.
 
That effect is caused by tweaking the mechanical shutter on a film camera out of phase with the film pulldown. Several years ago while working at Otto Nemenz, this effect was in all the rage, and Arri even made a device that allowed the operator to tweak the shutter for phase alignment. Made a really awful crunching noise that would freak everybody out.
 
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