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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

exterior street

exterior street

hi david,

two questions concerning shooting an exterior night in a city.

1) how do you tend to deal with street lights if they're interfering with your lighting? is the only option to get a cherry picker or scissor lift; in order to black it out?

2) how exactly does a production "wet-down' a street. it's technically an art department job, no? and if so, do they use fire hydrants and have the fire department come to open them?

thanks so much
 
juliensees said:
2) how exactly does a production "wet-down' a street. it's technically an art department job, no? and if so, do they use fire hydrants and have the fire department come to open them?

thanks so much
Click to expand...

A smaller area can be wetted with a Hudson sprayer or a garden hose. A whole block or two usually involves getting a water truck.
 
There's some shots in this music video where it obviously some sort of telephoto lens, but I'm not quite sure how long it needs to be to get that weird mirage distortion
https://youtu.be/mqFLXayD6e8?t=1m20s

Would 300mm be ok? Or would it need to be longer? f2.8 or would something like f11 be more appropriate?
 
300mm should work — the longer the lens, the more the mirage in the distance becomes larger. The mirage in “Lawrence of Arabia” was shot with a 450mm lens on a 65mm camera, which is like a 225mm in standard 35mm, so it wasn’t that telephoto but the mirage was more like a band across the frame, it wasn’t as tall compared to using something even longer. I’d consider having a 600mm as well.

I’d stop down if you can so the rippling effect behind the actor is more clear.
 
Hi David,

I was wondering if you happened to know what filters Robert Richardson used on Casino?

Thanks!

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Hi David!

I have a shoot coming up and there's a scene that's lit only by lantern. We are shooting Alexa Mini w/ Master Anamorphics. We shooting in Qatar. Would love suggestions of what you've done before? Thanks!
 
Hello David, can you provide some advise on using action guides when shooting aspect ratio of 2.39:1? I'm a newbie starting a micro budget independent feature and I will be using a Red Camera for the first time. The director does not want to use action guides... however I thought it would be best to compose within the action guide.
The director wants to submit to film festivals and possibly get distribution.
 
Chris Saul said:
Hi David!

I have a shoot coming up and there's a scene that's lit only by lantern. We are shooting Alexa Mini w/ Master Anamorphics. We shooting in Qatar. Would love suggestions of what you've done before? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Can you hide a bulb behind the lantern? Is the lantern bright enough to shoot by?
 
Lisa Stoll said:
Hello David, can you provide some advise on using action guides when shooting aspect ratio of 2.39:1? I'm a newbie starting a micro budget independent feature and I will be using a Red Camera for the first time. The director does not want to use action guides... however I thought it would be best to compose within the action guide.
The director wants to submit to film festivals and possibly get distribution.
Click to expand...

Not sure what an "action guide" is. He doesn't want to compose within the 2.39 : 1 frame lines? I don't understand.
 
The Overlays on the red scarlet-w camera has settings for Frame Guide, Action Guide, and Title Guide. The frame guidelines I set to Full (scale 100%), and the Action Guide I set to User 2.39:1 frame lines at (scale 90%, based on red's tutorial recommendations). My initial question I wanted to know if this is the best way to set up for shooting 2.39:1? The shoot started and I found out that the action guidelines at 90% was visually throwing the director off... he thought we weren't shooting 2.39:1 (even though we had explained in the beginning what he as seeing on the monitor). To simplify things I removed the Action guidelines. He's much happier now :) My second question is...when it is recommended to use the Action Guideline and is it best to set at 90%?
 
Lisa Stoll said:
Hello David, can you provide some advise on using action guides when shooting aspect ratio of 2.39:1? I'm a newbie starting a micro budget independent feature and I will be using a Red Camera for the first time. The director does not want to use action guides... however I thought it would be best to compose within the action guide.
The director wants to submit to film festivals and possibly get distribution.
Click to expand...

I assume you know that the guides are not recorded—they’re for monitoring only. But you might not know that you can have them show on your viewfinder but not on the feed that goes to the director’s monitor. So if the director doesn’t want to see them, but you do, you can make that happen.
 
Hello David, this is my first post on the forum and I would be very grateful if you could tell me how you would spend a limited budget of around $5000 on lighting if you had and no other lights (modifiers/grip gear excluded). The intention would be that with this kit you could light interviews, scenes for a small production, products etc. An overall do most things type of light kit. Thanks for your time.
 
David,

I've completed my first TV series (4K) and was expecting to go through an aggregator to get pitched to Netflix. But the aggregators are less than helpful.

Any advise on finding a distributor that works with Netflix?
 
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Hi David,

I have a 2.39 aspect movie I am packaging in a dcp, which option would be more visually appealing in theaters-

1- packaging as scope and potentially having blank screen above and below if the theater screen is 1.85 aspect.
2- blanking the film and packaging as 1.85, which would project the blanking in the theater and make the film slightly smaller(only versus a 2.39 screen).

Thanks!
 
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