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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

Hey David, I just finished Northfork about an hour ago and thought it was beautifully shot. I loved all of those poetic landscape shots... I watched it on Netflix's Watch Now option, but I was wishing I could see it on the big screen in 35mm. The vast skies with those patches of snow on the barren hills, the almost total lack of saturation -- a visually impressive film.

In some ways the strangeness of the picture and even some of the outdoor photography reminded me a bit of Tideland, though your landscape compositions are better, IMO, and more like expertly framed stills. I don't know if you've seen Tideland but it's a visually interesting picture.

After I watched Northfork I read a few of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It must have felt great for you guys to read that glowing review from Ebert and have him compare Northfork to Days of Heaven in the opening paragraph! Wow.

I'm assuming all those cutaway shots at the very end were you traipsing around the countryside with your camera, AC, and tripod? I also liked that backlit shot of the cows and of course the final shot of the plane taking off at magic hour. Was that legit, or was there any sky replacement or anything? Also, it seemed like you were using a rather tall crane in some shots? What kind was it?

Any of your other pictures you are really proud of? I'd like to check out more of your stuff. I bet you would really thrive with the right picture, David -- a chance to really go to town on the type of stuff that Lubezki and Doyle shoot these days.
 
David,

Hello and thanks for taking time from your schedule to answer questions within this thread.

A hundred years ago, when I was just getting into filmmaking and TV, I had the priveledge to hang out in George Dibie's smoky little back room at Warner Bros. and talk shop. It was one of a handful of formative experiences that took me from being a young cinema enthusiast into actually contributing to the crafts.

At any rate, your willingness to do this here will certainly have a comparable benefit for another emerging talent.

Being that I do all my work in TV, I'd be interested to know about your practical and creative working style for single-camera film television and what, if any, favorite tricks you employed this past season.

Thanks again for giving back.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I remember turning down one dumb comedy only to see some big-name DP that I respect take it instead, and then I felt guilty, like I was being a snob or something. .
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Maybe he had finally reached that desperation stage! Thanks for such an inclusive answer, David. I feel like I should be paying a fee here.

Does the producer send out scripts to several DPs asking who's interested? I'd like to understand the process a bit more.

I guess appalling movies get made so I shouldn't be surprised that appalling scripts make it through this process. I admire someone with some standards of what they want to shoot when it comes to the level of sex and violence.
 
I would also be very interesting in finding out how ASC and other top-level DPs get those scripts. I assume you guys all have agents. What agencies are the best-known in terms of repping DPs?
 
"Northfork" didn't have a post budget for a D.I. or anything -- there are a couple of low-budget efx shots where some extra graves were added digitally in the graveyard, but that's it. No sky replacements -- they really look like that in Montana!

Luckily the local Montana gaffer, J.P. Gabriel, owns a lighting house up in Bozeman and had his own version of a Titan crane, so I had access to a camera crane whenever I wanted. It helped sell the vastness of the Great Plains when you could do a vertical move.

I'm most proud of "Northfork". "Astronaut Farmer" comes out on DVD on July 11, so check that out. I'm proud of all those Polish Bros. movies. "Twin Falls Idaho" is a good example of a small film shot mostly indoors. "Jackpot" too, and it was an even smaller shoot, in 24P HD.

Outside the Polish Bros. movies, although my work in it is not particularly striking, "Akeelah and the Bee" is another movie that I'm proud of.

"Shadowboxer", shot in Philadelphia, is visually interesting but problematic as a movie; some people find it a bit odd, not necessarily in a good way.

---

The pace of a show like "Big Love" is similar to the features I shoot, five pages a day on average, so it wasn't a big cultural shock for me except that the HBO TV crews are top-notch, which made things go faster and easier. So perhaps that's the trick I learned: hire good people. Other than that, I picked up some cool bounce lighting tricks from DP Bill Wages, ASC, who does a lot of interesting things with Source-4's into cards, and 2K's bounced into bedsheets. The thing with TV is to get as much advance work done as possible so you can hit the ground running every day. We usually got our first shot off fifteen or twenty minutes after calltime. The AD's are critical to this. Our B-camera crew had worked on a number of Spielberg's movies, which also go quickly, and I pestered them for a lot of info.

---

Most DP's get their scripts through their agents, though often/sometimes I get contacted directly and just tell them to send the script through my agent to get her into the loop. I'm with a smaller agency, ever since I did "Twin Falls Idaho." There are some big below-the-line agencies in Hollywood.
 
It's lucky for you that on the day you guys were shooting that plane taking off the sky looked so great!
 
David, I saw Astronaut farmer twice (with different dates). The landscapes and isolate environments were captured beautifully. I thought that the whole concept of this man being "alone" in his quest was translated eloquently through the visual language. Oh and the way that rocket was lit during the night, it was almost Cathedral like! A sense of holiness almost.

Although not directly cinematography related, I am curious to know how that scene was shot where the windows blast and you see the wife get blown back. If I remember correctly it was one entire take.. How was this accomplished?
 
We did a digital split-screen. She was on the left side of the frame with windows behind her head that were blown out wth some air cannons, then she stepped out of the frame and we blew out the windows on the right side of the frame in the foreground with air canons. When she was in the shot, we hit her with a blast of air at the same time. The two takes were combined digitally.

We used the same trick for the shot of the guy sitting at his desk when the brick is thrown through the window to his right, did it in two passes.
 
Quite an elegant solution. I thought it looked quite natural.. now I know why. No CGI!
 
Hi David,

could you give your professional opinion on the number of cameras needed in a shoot.

I immagine the number to need to be different for each film senarial, but in general, if this can be generalized, how many cameras are in off for a project?

My self I write mostly Drama with some action driven by Lovestory.

His the number 3 a standard for behiond the sholders and the master?

I also imagine budjet to be a factor as if you do not have one you must do with only 1 camera; the more money the more cameras?

I will complete my production package after Cinegear and the final say on RED's delivery scadule, but at this time is very important for me not to over buy but also not to under buy, and not be capable to fulfill the shoting needs.

Thanks in advance for your answer.

Ciao

KETCH ROSSI
www,KETCHFRAME.com
 
First off, some of what I am describing refers to shooting film, so ignore anything that doesn't pertain to shooting digitally, like worrying about how much footage you are shooting.

For a long time, most low and medium-budget feature production was single-camera -- in fact "single camera" is still used to describe TV shows shot in this style, even though they are rarely single-camera anymore.

I shot many features on one camera, with an occasional "B" camera for heavy days where we needed to get more coverage quickly. But with an extra camera, there are the costs of the extra operator and focus puller for that camera, so most film budgets limited the number of days when a second camera and crew would be employed.

And even on these single-camera shoots, we had to occasionally rent a special camera for unique shots, like a high-speed camera for super slo-mo, or a crash camera, etc.

But even back then, if you went on location away from a city with rental houses, you generally rented two sync-sound cameras just in case one went down, so the issue was how many days could you afford a second camera crew to run that second camera in the package, plus the attendant increase in film consumption that running two cameras caused.

But lately, two-camera shooting as the base norm has become more and more common, and budgeting for more film stock as a result. Maybe these higher shooting amounts are a bleed-thru from more and more people shooting digitally and getting used to those habits of being able to shoot more footage.

So while a single camera is still fine for many small productions, especially intimates ones in small locations with few actors in the scene, it's becoming more commonplace to plan on using two-cameras for a large percentage of shooting, especially big scenes. Of course, even three or more cameras may be employed on really big scenes, but there is a law of diminishing returns when you try and constantly run three or more cameras on everything. Plus the sound crews hate it because you've got wide and tight being shot simultaneously and cameras pointing in different directions at the same time.

The advantage of a two-camera crew and package is that even if you can only work the second camera in there for 50% of the shots, that B-camera crew can either be grabbing second unit type shots or pick-ups or inserts that are missing, or they can be setting up for the next shot, like building the camera onto a crane or putting it into Steadicam mode, so there is no downtime.

But it's really a budget issue, plus it does make a shoot less intimate for the actors when you've doubled the size of the camera crews in small locations, though many actors like having two shot sizes knocked off at the same time so they are not playing the scene over and over again as much. But some actors don't like two-camera shooting either because they feel that the second camera has some sort of compromised viewing position (I know... they probably should leave worrying about such things to the director).

Some editors also like two-camera shooting because then there is better continuity/matching in action between the shot sizes, and more editing options -- but then, others don't like a "dump truck" style of directing where they get hours and hours of footage to wade through just to cut a little scene.

My last HD feature, "The Quiet", was pretty low in budget (under 1 mil.) and we shot most of the movie with a single HD camera that I operated, but we had maybe six days in the schedule with a second camera and second crew for it -- like to shoot a basketball game and a high school prom, etc.
 
Thanks very much David, you have given me the exact info I was looking for.

As money is not very big of a issue(I have RED #349/851/852) especially shooting digital, the only reason for my Q?
was really because I like to be present and in focus for each shot and believe that multiple camera shots will not get my full attention, especially so at the begine during my first films.

So at the end I believe I will stay with two cameras, the second one exactly to do the function as you described, set up for the next shot or replace the first one in case it brakes down(hope not!)

And I do think one camera point of view gets more of the actors qualities as he/She concentrates in the one camera angle.

Thanks again, hope to meet you some time, maeby Cinegear?

Ciao

KETCH ROSSI
www.KETCHFRAME.com
 
Yes, after doing many two-camera shoots lately, I like it when we get back to single camera shooting because it's more controlled, simpler, the crew is smaller, and I can adjust things in the frame to improve the composition.

But now and then, it's great to knock off extra angles with a second camera, like when there are children in the scene. Sometimes when doing a family scene with kids playing in the shot, we'll run both cameras on what the kids are doing first, in case we get something interesting and spontaneous, and in case the kids end up being pulled from the set later when they start crying, etc. You get some great cutaway shots that way.

Hopefully I'll be at CineGear, unless I am working. If I am there, I may have to put some time in at the ASC booth, so you can catch me there.
 
km9000 said:
Can you recommend a great restaurant while in LA? How about Palm Springs?
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Fred 62 (24/7 diner) at 1850 N Vermont Ave is pretty good
 
David, are there any visual cliches that you are tired of seeing and/or have an aversion to shooting?
 
I've already mentioned the "funny" use of wide-angle lenses for close-ups, which is a bit aggressive to my tastes in general, but I've seen it work.

I just get distracted by stylistic touches that don't seem to be motivated, or aren't motivated enough to be worth the distraction. The "Shakeycam" operating style started around the time of "NYPD Blue" is one of those things that really need to be motivated for me if the director wants to use it, otherwise it feels arbitrary.

I know this is not a popular opinion, but I get a little bored by excessive realism sometimes, two-hours of slice-of-life shooting, usually handheld, but probably I'm only bored when the narrative is boring so I start thinking about the technique. When the narrative is interesting to me, then a very realistic style can be very apt and motivated. I guess I'm of the opinion that some element of the filmmaking has to be interesting at any one point, and if it's not the story, dialogue, or performances, and if there isn't interesting visuals or sound design either... then what's holding my interest anymore?

I'm not really one of those people who feel that technique has to always be invisible though -- I see it more like symphonic music where everyone is playing as a single unit but occasionally one instrument or theme becomes dominant and then fades into the background again. So even though narrative cinema is story-driven by definition, now and then the image or the sound or the cutting or the music score, etc. may have its solo moment where it gets to shine before stepping back again.

Cliches are generally bad when they don't work. For example, doing a horror film in a Gothic style is a cliche, but when it works, it can be satisfying. An example is "Psycho" -- Hitchcock generally avoided cliches of the thriller/suspense genre, saying that he preferred shooting a murder in color, staged in a sunny field of flowers, but in the case of "Pyscho" there are some classic elements like the scary house on the hill, a stormy night, dark clouds, moody b&w photography, etc.

Another cliche is the pathetic fallacy of having it rain when someone is sad, but sometimes it works visually. Mozart was apparently buried on a cold winter day but the movie "Amadeus" portrays it as a rainy day, which works visually to match the Requiem Mass playing on the soundtrack. A simply cold but dry day may have not had quite the same theatrical, operatic overtones in film.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I see it more like symphonic music where everyone is playing as a single unit but occasionally one instrument or theme becomes dominant and then fades into the background again. So even though narrative cinema is story-driven by definition, now and then the image or the sound or the cutting or the music score, etc. may have its solo moment where it gets to shine before stepping back again.
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Ahhhh, an opening....
David.
Sound from your perspective and experience.
 
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