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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

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Hi there, I'm new to lighting and I'm looking for tips on recreating a flash photography look similar to the photo attached. What sort of lights would you need to acheive such a look outdoors? (for example on an overcast day in England)
Also could such a setup be powered by RV batteries and an inverter?
Thanks
 
A big HMI behind the camera through a diffusion frame would create a similar look. Obviously it's very flat, frontal lighting which is fine in an advertisement photo, but is a bit boring and unnatural in a regular movie.

If the weather is dark and overcast enough, or near twilight, a smaller HMI could do the job, like a 1200w HMI PAR, in a closer shot. That's in the range of being battery powered through an inverter.
 
Filters

Filters

David,
Thank you for offering your genius here. I am wondering if you could recommend a book on filters, showing before and after pictures?

I'll be shooting some documentaries and fictional shorts as soon as I get the Scarlet, and i would like to have an idea of filters i can play with to get a distinct look.

Thanks again!
~Dean
 
David,

Is there any standard way to mark what filters are installed in a camera on set? Or is that just something the camera crew is expected to remember and communicate?
 
Usually there is a small tag / tab stuck on the side of the mattebox with the name of the filter. For example, you may see a tab that says "ND6" and another one that says "1/4 PM" (ProMist).

A bigger show might make printed tabs with velcro on the back; otherwise you can just write on a piece of tape with a Sharpie.

Labeling the camera as to what filters are in is an important practice for camera crews, it's too easy to forget what you have in the camera, which can affect exposure if shooting film and using a light meter. It's all part of being organized on a film set.

I sometimes slow-down behind-the-scenes footage on a DVD's extras to try and read the labels stuck on the camera and on the slates. That's how I recently learned that the Enterprise bridge scenes in "Star Trek" (2009) used a 1/8 Black Frost filter. I also have a photo of Storaro shooting a day exterior scene for "Sheltering Sky" and can see a label for an 81EF filter on the mattebox and 5245 (50 ASA Daylight) Kodak film on the magazine. Which means that the 81EF was warming up the shot, as opposed to partially correcting daylight for a cool look if using a tungsten stock.
 
They look very nice, the Nikons seems plenty sharp. In one shot, the fill light is a bit too hard and creating a hard shadow from his shirt collar. But one can justify the harder lighting if you were going for a slightly theatrical look, like for a film noir.
 
Hi David, I'm wondering what you would say the most basic lighting set up would be. In a professional setting this is not my job, but for my personal video work I am trying to find the least I can get away with to achieve a presentable quality. Say someone is standing in a restaurant or standing outside on a cloudy day. Can you just use a bounce card, or are there tricks to achieve better lighting with very little?
Films like the Wrestler, Fallen Angels, maybe even Slumdog have a run and gun style that appear to have no staged lighting at all... I wish I knew for sure.
 
That's a pretty general question so my answer will be general and vague.

"Fallen Angels" is a good example to discuss. First of all, there is a lot of available light used, but this is Hong Kong at night, where they can be a lot of artificial illumination there already. So the trick in this case is to augment the available light when necessary for exposure reasons, or more likely, creative reasons (i.e. to create the right mood.)

You can augment available light first by adding more of it, or increasing the brightness of existing fixtures. By this I mean that you can either add more practical lights to the setting (fluorescent shop lights, table lamps, etc.) and/or you can sometimes put brighter wattage bulbs in existing fixtures to increase their output. You may even find yourself turning off some existing fixtures to create the right mood.

This means carrying around different wattage bulbs for the types of fixtures you may encounter. You can even swap bulbs with ones of different color temps, i.e. replace a Cool White fluorescent tube with a 3200K tube, or vice-versa. It also means carrying some extra practical lamps to the location, and carrying things like Chinese Lanterns.

After that, you may want to augment the light with small professional fixtures. You can use them directly for a hard spotlight effect, or to simulate hard sunlight, or you can bounce or diffuse them for a softer effect. Ideally you'd have some small 3200K tungsten lamps and small 5600K HMI's, but HMI's are much more expensive. Other daylight-balanced lamps would be LED's and daylight fluorescent fixtures.

I learned to light by basically using a bunch of lightbulbs in different fixtures like Chinese Lanterns, and then getting one single bright 650w open-faced quartz movie light as my "big light". When I mastered how to use that light effectively, I moved up to even bigger lights like 1K's and 2K's, fresnels and open-faced.
 
available light night helicopter shots on Red

available light night helicopter shots on Red

Hi David-
I'm working on a Red film that will have a few helicopter shots flying over Los Angeles at night. I'm wondering how you think the Red camera will hold up in this situation-- especially in a projected print. I've got Zeiss superspeeds, but I'm still very worried that the noise will be crazy. The helicopter operator suggested an EX1 that he owns, but I feel like with the smaller chip, fixed lens, and worse compression this is not a better option than taking my chances with the Red.

I thought about the T1 lens that Panavision rents, but then I have the Panavision mount/PL mount problem. Unfortunately, budget-wise these may be my only 2 options. Any thoughts on other low budget options? Or do you think the Red will hold up fine?
THANKS!!!
 
I think you're going to have more flexibility to de-noise and stabilize a 4K RAW recording than what the EX1 gives you (not to mention, it also has a rolling shutter, so no advantage in that area.)

I've seen plenty of nice helicopter shots already using Red cameras. You may want to consider getting the solid state Red RAM drive though (or use CF cards) because the Red hard drives are not good in high vibration situations.

However, Zeiss Super-Speeds shot wide-open are not the sharpest lenses in the world (neither is the T/1.) I would shoot some tests first. You're better off using Master Primes if your rig can handle the size and weight of those lenses.

The noise is mostly in the blue channel if you pick a 3200K base, so I would consider using a higher color temperature setting and letting more of the city render in warm colors.
 
Hello David!

Any tips/ideas on shooting a faux weightless zero gravity segment without much in the way of wires (not much in the way of access). Shooting on a low profile RED1.

The segment is meant to be in a small one man escape pod and there is a bit of weightlessness until the vehicles gravity kicks in.

Most films I've watched just tend to get the actors to move slowly and wave their arms around a bit.

Would overcranking slightly and carefully planned shot selection be the key?

Thanks David. Any input, as always, much appreciated.
 
The low-tech method for closer waist-up shots, even on "Apollo 13", is to use basically a teeter-totter / rocker board to slowly lift and swing the actor a bit up & down, side to side, to create a floating feeling.

The other trick is to avoid staying level with a horizon line, but instead using odd camera angles and set angles to screw up any visual notion of up and down. I would find a way of "floating" the camera slowly, either from a jib arm or some sort of bungee cord rig. Imagine a shot, for example, where as the actor is crossing the frame, the camera is slowly rotating 90 degrees or more.

"2001" also used the trick of hanging the actors from cables from the ceiling, the camera pointed straight up at them so that the actor's body blocked the view of the cables.

Slow-motion might help for certain faster actor movements across the room, but will make it hard to shoot sync-sound; I think it would be of limited help. It makes more sense for faking a moonwalk so that the dust kicked-up falls back down slowly.
 
:nono:
David Mullen ASC said:
Slow-motion might help for certain faster actor movements across the room, but will make it hard to shoot sync-sound; I think it would be of limited help. It makes more sense for faking a moonwalk so that the dust kicked-up falls back down slowly.
Click to expand...

I thought in a vacuum, the dust falls down almost instantly, like splashed water. :nono:
 
David M said:
:nono:

I thought in a vacuum, the dust falls down almost instantly, like splashed water. :nono:
Click to expand...

True, there is no air to lift dust up and cause it to drift around, but since the Moon is something like 1/6th of the gravity of Earth, things (including kicked-up dirt) fall back to the ground much slower.
 
Thanks David.

The See-Saw technique is a good one. Had considered a bigger option but not something that simple. I could get something adapted for the task.

Sync sound is definitely not an issue for these quick shots. We cut outside the pod looking into the window after this anyway. There is no dialogue or anything that require much in the way of sound. A bit of foley work maybe but even then very little.

Thanks again!
 
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