Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Peter Dmitriyev]

Hi David, it would be interesting to hear what you have "learned" recently. I know top guys like you are supposed to know everything (lol) but I'm sure there are still days when you "learn" some new trick or way of using a light or camera angle in a certain situation etc from one of your heroes that you begin to incorporate. For example, I think I remember reading an interview with Janusz Kaminski where only recently did he "learn" to use chinaballs and has begun using them and has never messed with them much and never knew how useful they can be. I thought that was quite interesting and surprising to hear from this "titan" of cinematography.
So in the same vein I was wondering if there's anything that you learned relatively "recently" in your career or started to do that you have never done etc.

 

[Peter Dmitriyev]

Oh and since no one else is availing themselves of this amazing thread and it seems to be slowing down, I will ask a 2nd question in a row if you don't mind. It is along a similar vein as the first above, though feel free to answer only one or neither ..as your whim may dictate:

David can you list the most seminal and important 'realizations' or epiphany moments you've had as a cinematographer that have instantly taken your craft to a new level? I'll list mine in my short development over the course of the past year or two that have instantly put me on a higher level

for instance

1. the biggest "leap" into a new level of craftsmanship came when I learned about facial "modeling" and contrast ratios. I.E. that faces need to be lit with a modeling in mind which constitutes having to either light from the side to increase contrast ratio, or use negative fill in certain situations, etc, etc.

2. The 2nd biggest thing that came along my development was the active realization that eyelights are things that are CONSCIOUSLY chosen and used by cinematographers (at least in most/many cases) and not just accidental remnants of the lighting setup. Once I started consciously incorporating eye lights into my work, it has taken on a new level of "professional" cinematic look to it.

Can you discuss some of your "milestones" in this regard in your professional career that you felt hit you in this sort of epiphany moment?

 

[Lorenzo Levrini]

Hi David. I have read through this entire thread so hopefully there’ll be no repetition in my questions.

The first is about running a set. On low budget and freebie shoots there is often a less-than-competent AD, and when coupled with an inexperienced director this can make for a slow set where I often feel my own work is negatively affected - if the AD was doing his or her job better then I could make things look much better. Much as I’d like to imagine myself as a Zen-like bastion of patience I actually have the tendency to become a bit arrogant and start running the set on these occasions. Sometimes I go too far and worry that I have undermined the AD’s (and sometimes even the director’s) authority, which I know I shouldn’t be doing. Do you have any tips on how to think about and/or deal with these situations? How do you tend to work with ADs?


My second question is about HMIs coming through windows to recreate sunlight, and the effect of the actual sunlight in the rooms in question. When I started out using small units I noticed that the feeling of the light in the room would change as the sun changed position or came in and out of clouds because the units were not that bright. So I would rig blackout tents or partial blackout tents around the units outside the windows. I do this less often now but over time I have noticed that no professional set seems to do this, whereas I would have imagined that the resulting improvement in continuity would make it an attractive technique. I’m guessing it’s because the effect of real skylight blending in with the HMIs adds authenticity?

Thanks!

 

[Mohamed Younis]

Hey David.
I Know you worked with the Alexa before. Did you try the Epic? How does it compare to the Alexa? If not which do you like better the MX or the Alexa?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

So in the same vein I was wondering if there's anything that you learned relatively "recently" in your career or started to do that you have never done etc.

The last big thing I learned was a maybe five years ago when I discovered Source-4 Lekos and that I could create a soft source from any direction or space if I covered it with some white cloth, or taped a white card to it, and hit it with the Source-4 Leko cut to the area I wanted. Recently I was in a restaurant at night looking out towards some big windows at the street, and any lights I added were reflected in the glass, but I needed some ambience added to the room. I ended up putting a Leko on a mount on a pancake and pointing it straight up at the ceiling, then closing the doors to create a narrow slit of white -- in the reflection in the glass, it looked like a fluorescent tube was in the ceiling. Another time in a similar situation, I used the Leko blades to create a bright rectangle on the ceiling that looked like a light fixture in the ceiling in a reflection.

Another recent lesson was to not be afraid of physically moving a light or dimming it during a camera move to get it where you need it.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Hey David.
I Know you worked with the Alexa before. Did you try the Epic? How does it compare to the Alexa? If not which do you like better the MX or the Alexa?

I used the Epic on "Big Sur" last spring. The footage looked fantastic. Alexa footage looks great too, somewhat flatter and wider in dynamic range, but also softer and milkier at times, especially in low-light. Of course, the milkiness is correctable in post, but I find myself having to make sure I don't get fooled into thinking I have more shadow detail than I really have because once you set the blacks back to zero in post, the image will look more contrasty than it did on the monitors.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The first is about running a set. On low budget and freebie shoots there is often a less-than-competent AD, and when coupled with an inexperienced director this can make for a slow set where I often feel my own work is negatively affected - if the AD was doing his or her job better then I could make things look much better. Much as I’d like to imagine myself as a Zen-like bastion of patience I actually have the tendency to become a bit arrogant and start running the set on these occasions. Sometimes I go too far and worry that I have undermined the AD’s (and sometimes even the director’s) authority, which I know I shouldn’t be doing. Do you have any tips on how to think about and/or deal with these situations? How do you tend to work with ADs?

The director, DP, and AD are sort of the Holy Trinity that set the pace of a production and the tone of the set, so they HAVE to work together and be in sync. There really isn't any alternative, each relies on the other two for anything to get accomplished, and it rarely works when one tries to do the other's job.

Hopefully a lot of these issues are worked out in pre-production as you (the DP) go over the schedule and scout locations and discuss the style and coverage needed, and how long things are going to take.

I generally have a good relationship with AD's because I recognize that my work perhaps takes up the lion's share of time during the day, so I can easily slow things down if I'm not careful. So I appreciate the responsibility of the AD. On the other hand, I don't want my work to suffer because I'm having to compensate for time lost by other departments because of a lack of coordination by the AD department. Now sometimes there's not much you can do when an actor takes twenty minutes to come out of their trailer when called, etc. But most of that stuff gets noted on the production reports anyway so you won't be blamed. And things do go wrong, equipment breaks down, background noise can ruin a take, etc. I've always felt that any schedule built on a best-case scenario isn't worth the paper it is printed on. I'm much more of the "hope for the best but plan for the worst" sort of person.

The best AD's are just as committed to creating a good and artistic final product as the DP and the director are... other AD's feel that their job is to stay on schedule even if that means the work suffers. I get along less well with those types of AD's (though I haven't met many) because they are making a schedule, not a movie, and their names are not at the head of the credits, unlike the actors, director, and DP whose compromised work is out there for everyone to see and criticize. But the better AD's know that their job is to allow the lead artists to do their work, as long as those artists are responsible in turn about the time restraints.

It's called the art of collaboration.

So if you are working with incompetent AD's, all I can say is that I hope your producer catches on and replaces them.

But you have to break the habit of trying to do other people's jobs for them because in the long run, people resent you always being a know-it-all, even if you actually do know more than they do. People stop hiring you after awhile. But it is your responsibility to get the producer involved if you feel that there is a lack of organization and coordination, and that it is affecting the work. But it's all politics, you have to tread carefully and with great diplomacy, and make it a group effort to get back on track, you can't trample over people.

In the end, it may just have to come down to avoiding working with that particular director or AD in the future, after you do your best for them and finish the job.

I probably don't fight enough for myself and the integrity of my work, I perhaps try too hard to be the team player, which accounts for some of the mediocre work I've done in the past, but on the other hand, my work is fast and my productions stay on schedule and I keep getting hired, and most of the directors and producers are happy with the results, so I guess I'm doing something right... I guess I'm just trying to say that it's a balancing act and no two people are going to handle it the same way, some fight more with everyone to keep the quality of their work up, and that ultimately benefits them because the work is good for everyone to see, while others fight and stop getting hired, so it is self-defeating because no one ever sees their work. So you have to find the right balance.

My second question is about HMIs coming through windows to recreate sunlight, and the effect of the actual sunlight in the rooms in question. When I started out using small units I noticed that the feeling of the light in the room would change as the sun changed position or came in and out of clouds because the units were not that bright. So I would rig blackout tents or partial blackout tents around the units outside the windows. I do this less often now but over time I have noticed that no professional set seems to do this, whereas I would have imagined that the resulting improvement in continuity would make it an attractive technique. I’m guessing it’s because the effect of real skylight blending in with the HMIs adds authenticity?

It's a tough call because sometimes you get a natural lighting effect that looks wonderful but doesn't match the other shots in the room, but you embrace the happy accident when it happens and live with a little visual inconsistency. Every DP has to learn how to be consistent, but once they learn it, they have to unlearn it again and embrace the unexpected and the accidental even if it leads to visual inconsistency... because the last thing you want is to be consistently mediocre or boring. You don't want every shot brought down to the lowest common denominator.

A technical example would be if you had to slip some h.264 8-bit 4:1:1 720P video (like from a GoPro) into a Red project -- for consistency's sake do you shoot everything at that lower quality level? Or do you live with a momentary inconsistency and quality drop rather the lower everything to match? Do you shoot everything to match your softest lens or your most underexposed shot? I think there are limits, you don't want bad shots to stick out like a sore thumb but you don't want visual consistency to be the main driving force, not if it drives you to match the worst shots in your project.

So first, regarding HMI's, I try to get them to look fairly sunlike in color and balance, even if the real sun is much more powerful and sharper, etc. than the HMI can possibly match. But if the real sun comes into the room for awhile, I just have to decide if I can get the coverage that looks in that direction to capture that real light, and after it is gone, be then shooting some other angle... or maybe a close-up where I can more easily fake the real sun.

But if something great is happening in the room with the real light, then generally I'd try to take advantage of it while it lasted and then deal with the consequences of matching... rather than make my life easier by getting rid of the real sun.

But it just depends because sometimes the real light isn't what the scene requires or maybe instead of looking great, it looks bad on the actors or something, hence why you end up flagging it.

 

[scott william]

hi david,

if you had the choice would you prefer to have the walls of your sets painted in darker tones to make it easier to light your subject and keep them the focus of the frame?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

hi david,

if you had the choice would you prefer to have the walls of your sets painted in darker tones to make it easier to light your subject and keep them the focus of the frame?

Yes, in general, unless it just doesn't make sense, story-wise. A hospital corridor may look a bit odd painted near 18% grey in level. There are always exceptions, it depends on the visual design of the scene. But on the whole, for your typical bedrooms, dining rooms, offices, etc. it's easier for me when the walls are near midtones, not very light.

 

[Lorenzo Levrini]

Thanks for your comprehensive and thoughtful answers, David.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks for your comprehensive and thoughtful answers, David.

I should add to my HMI sun response that sometimes you have to flag the real sun when it starts creeping into the room -- or if you started shooting in overcast and later the sun comes out -- and you already have a sun effect going with lights, so now you have two sun beams in the room. So either you flag the real sun off at that point, or switch off your fake sun, but obviously it's hard to live with two suns coming through the same window at different angles.

 

[william lan]

David,
Do you think film will go ? Will the Redcam take over?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The majority of projects will be shot digitally soon and film will become a small boutique process if it can survive at those small volumes. I shot a small-budget feature on 35mm just last summer and a director I know is shooting one this fall in NYC, so it's hardly dead, but right now in theaters you have a number of digitally-shot movies: "In Time", "Anonymous", "3 Musketeers", "A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas", etc. But there are also a number of ones shot on film, from "J. Edgar", "Tower Heist", "Ides of March", "Moneyball"... We are living in that crossover point right now. The telling thing is that many people can't tell one way or the other whether a movie in the theaters today was shot digitally or on film.

Red will certainly be a major player, but not the only one.

 

[Lorenzo Levrini]

I'd like to ask you a more straightforward question this time, David. I'm reading your old production diaries over at cinematography.com and you often mention you use HMI Jokers for different things (including the night exterior of Riverview Hospital in 'Jennifer's Body') - there are a few differently rated units (http://www.filmandvideolighting.com/jokerk5600.html) and I was wondering if there is a specific one you are always referring to when you say 'HMI Joker'. Thanks.

I just edited this to add another question - how do you work with your gaffers to pre-light things? I don't mean in how much detail, because you've covered that already; I'm specifically interested in WHEN you talk to them (Pre production? Tech recce? Days before shooting? Day before? Morning of?) and how you communicate your ideas and requirements, because I remember you mentioning you didn't use lighting diagrams. For complicated lighting setups, I find it frustrating to do it solely by verbal means because things can get lost, misheard, misinterpreted, forgotten. I usually talk about it on the tech recce and sit down with the gaffer and draw up some sort of diagram.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I'd like to ask you a more straightforward question this time, David. I'm reading your old production diaries over at cinematography.com and you often mention you use HMI Jokers for different things (including the night exterior of Riverview Hospital in 'Jennifer's Body') - there are a few differently rated units (http://www.filmandvideolighting.com/jokerk5600.html) and I was wondering if there is a specific one you are always referring to when you say 'HMI Joker'. Thanks.

I just edited this to add another question - how do you work with your gaffers to pre-light things? I don't mean in how much detail, because you've covered that already; I'm specifically interested in WHEN you talk to them (Pre production? Tech recce? Days before shooting? Day before? Morning of?) and how you communicate your ideas and requirements, because I remember you mentioning you didn't use lighting diagrams. For complicated lighting setups, I find it frustrating to do it solely by verbal means because things can get lost, misheard, misinterpreted, forgotten. I usually talk about it on the tech recce and sit down with the gaffer and draw up some sort of diagram.

Generally I am referring to either the 400w or 800w Jokers, sometimes mounted into a Source-4 Leko, sometimes mounted with a lens in front to make it a PAR-type light.

A gaffer will show me a lighting diagram based on notes I've given him, if it's really necessary, but so far I've only done lighting diagrams for rigging a soundstage when there are lots of sets to be pre-rigged, like for a TV series. I will draw/sketch on the gaffer's preliminary version to edit it, but I haven't had to generate the actual diagram myself yet. We have diagrams for all the stage sets on "Smash", my current TV series.

We talk during prep, during the tech scout, the week before, the day before, the morning of, etc. You never really stop talking about it because it is in a constant process of revision.

 

[Greg Bennett]

Hello David,

This article from the ASC for the movie Biutiful states that most of the day exteriors, such as the city street shots, were filmed with only available light, with the proper scheduling. What all is involved with this process? I would imagine the use of a sun inclination calculator and some planning would be useful. Its interesting to me because the sun is a great light source and there seems to be a lot one can control, especially for low budget work when there is not the funds for big lights and the complimentary crew to support the equipment.

http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/January2011/Biutiful/page2.php

 

[Jed Shepherd]

Hi David
I have a few questions if you could answer it would be much appreciated.

1. Use of dolly's. Now i am still at a student level of filmmaking so im not sure of the ways of a real set. Not sure if its a dop or director or both choice but when do you find it is appropriate to use a dolly within a scene. I notice that many films and show's constantly use dolly shots, particularly slow 'creep' in's. Do you use dolly's to help emphasize the drama in a particular shot? I'm mainly trying to get an idea of when its appropriate to use a dolly or crane not just for the novelty but to actually 'improve' shots within a scene.

2. Fake ambient light. So recently i shot a small short with barely any lighting package and to get ambient light i made the mistake of leaving the house lights on. This resulted in a very unpleasant image even with the 2 or 3 point lighting setups i used combined. Cant quite put my finger on it but I guess it's maybe a little underexposed and flat to put it best. How do you go about creating ambient light within an environment that you cant properly control such as a real house where studio lights cant simply just be place above a wall or moved around on a grid? And just to add to it, how would you continue this ambient light without continuity problems when shooting a wider shot within the room?

3. Angle choice. I recently learnt about shooting from lower angles up from a thread on dvxuser. It said it helped the characters feel more dominant in the frame or something along those lines. Now that I have started doing this I struggle to put the camera above head height as it looks a bit odd now. In what situations would you place a camera above an actors head aiming downwards? And im not just referring to creating dominance within a conversation etc.

4. This is more just some basic lighting questions combined.
- Rim lights; how do you normally do these without a. the light being in shot and b. not creating a strong backlit halo effect? I know it seems like the answer should be pretty straight forward but i still struggle to get it right and to know even when its the right shot to have a rim light.
- When creating a soft key on an actor is it common to try and make a larger soft light depending on the size of the source it is meant to be simulating? EG. If the light source is meant to be coming from a window from outside would a larger soft light produce a more realistic effect rather then a 650w with diffusion on it?
-Lastly. How do you normally light a scene where 'pools' of light hit the actors rather then the entire environment being at a similar exposure. Like a few scenes in jennifer's body especially within the house which is under development, the actors are well exposed but there are plenty of darker areas without light spill. Is it normal for you to light these scene's a bit more exposed then what the final scene should be, then let cc take care of darkening the image or do you light how you envision the scene to be in the final product and risk creating shadow noise(on digital shoots)

I know some of these questions have 'obvious' answers but I still struggle to get the results I am looking for and thought I would see what you had to say on a few of the subjects.

Thanks again.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Hello David,

This article from the ASC for the movie Biutiful states that most of the day exteriors, such as the city street shots, where filmed with only available light, with the proper scheduling. What all is involved with this process? I would imagine the use of a sun inclination calculator and some planning would be useful. Its interesting to me because the sun is a great light source and there seems to be a lot one can control, especially for low budget work when there is not the funds for big lights and the complimentary crew to support the equipment.

http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/January2011/Biutiful/page2.php

The flipside though is that low-budget movies often have short schedules, which can make it hard to take advantage of natural light if you have continuity issues -- for example, it's hard to shoot a 5 page scene with coverage on several people as the sun is setting, and it's hard on a short schedule to parcel out shots over a couple of days, so the whole scene is shot in one day from morning thru noon to sunset.

And for day interiors, the advantage of having lighting is to be able to maintain a consistent look all day and into evening, which happens all the time with low-budget movies, shooting day interiors at night after the sun has gone down... because you don't have much choice, the next day you'll be at a new location or your actor will be gone, etc.

So if the script and schedule can take advantage of natural light either by being non-specific to time of day or being made up of short simple scenes, then natural light is great... and ideally your schedule will pick the right time for the scene and location. But often scripts aren't structured like this, they are driven by their plot needs, so maybe the writer imagines a backyard picnic scene that runs several minutes and you're not going to be able to shoot all of it at the optimal time of day.

To do a movie based on shooting at the best times of day, you need absolute support from the director, producer, and AD -- and your schedule has to accommodate it.

Today, for example, I had a morning scene in a diner where there was barely enough light at 7AM in downtown Manhattan to make it seem like a sunny midday scene, but with a few lights, I created some feeling of sunlight in there... but next I had a big scene inside a nightclub that was supposed to be at night, so we blacked out the windows... fine, but then we had a day scene to shoot and didn't get out there until 4:30 PM when it was more like dusk, for a midday scene... then we went back into the nightclub. Now why didn't we shoot the day scene after the diner scene and then finish in the blacked-out nightclub where I didn't have daylight issues? Because we had to give art department time to turn the set around to look like a new location, a different bar, so we stuck this little day exterior scene in between the two nightclub interiors. So issues other that the optimal time of day for shooting were driving the schedule.

I mentioned in my "Big Sur" thread that we only had 20 days to shoot the movie, and only 10 of them in Big Sur... and with every day ending with a night scene, it meant that our call times every day were at 11AM, i.e. in noon light. It sucked frankly, and I didn't have the crew or time to fly big silks over the actors, so I had to embrace all that hard overhead light as part of the look.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

1. Use of dolly's. Now i am still at a student level of filmmaking so im not sure of the ways of a real set. Not sure if its a dop or director or both choice but when do you find it is appropriate to use a dolly within a scene. I notice that many films and show's constantly use dolly shots, particularly slow 'creep' in's. Do you use dolly's to help emphasize the drama in a particular shot? I'm mainly trying to get an idea of when its appropriate to use a dolly or crane not just for the novelty but to actually 'improve' shots within a scene.

You either move the camera in order to follow the action, or you move it to create a mood, to enhance a story point (like a move that reveals a key plot element), or to enhance an emotional moment. But a lot of that is a matter of taste. I mean, a slow push-in on everyone's close-up can become a bit annoying after awhile so you have to do it with restraint. If the move is not tied into following the action, then you are talking about the feeling that the move creates, it's a musical issue to some extant.

With a dolly move, you can reveal new information -- for example, you may begin with a business man on a phone by a window in a tall building, but pan or dolly with him as he walks to reveal that he is in a hotel room with a woman on the bed.

2. Fake ambient light. So recently i shot a small short with barely any lighting package and to get ambient light i made the mistake of leaving the house lights on. This resulted in a very unpleasant image even with the 2 or 3 point lighting setups i used combined. Cant quite put my finger on it but I guess it's maybe a little underexposed and flat to put it best. How do you go about creating ambient light within an environment that you cant properly control such as a real house where studio lights cant simply just be place above a wall or moved around on a grid? And just to add to it, how would you continue this ambient light without continuity problems when shooting a wider shot within the room?

You have to look at the natural ambience in the room and decide whether it's good or bad for your set-up. You may find that an off-camera table lamp is adding some fill to a scene but a passing camera is probably going to create a shadow as it passes the lamp, so you're better off adding that ambience from some other direction. Adding soft ambience can be done in many ways, like bouncing off of the floor or ceiling, etc.

3. Angle choice. I recently learnt about shooting from lower angles up from a thread on dvxuser. It said it helped the characters feel more dominant in the frame or something along those lines. Now that I have started doing this I struggle to put the camera above head height as it looks a bit odd now. In what situations would you place a camera above an actors head aiming downwards? And im not just referring to creating dominance within a conversation etc.

Well, it may be odd to shoot a close-up from a high angle unless the person is looking up or it's the point of view of a taller person, but certainly it's done in wide shots to create a feeling -- a high wide shot of someone alone in a library studying might create a lonely feeling, for example.

- Rim lights; how do you normally do these without a. the light being in shot and b. not creating a strong backlit halo effect? I know it seems like the answer should be pretty straight forward but i still struggle to get it right and to know even when its the right shot to have a rim light.

I'll use soft edge lights to create some separation, like tonight I had a scene in a dark bar and in the close-up of a woman with dark hair, I had a soft back-edge light on her hair to separate her from the dark background.

I'll create soft edge lights if motivated by a window in the background. Again, it's a matter of taste. Rim lights can also bring out texture like sweat on someone's cheek, if that's important... check out "Crimson Tide", that movie goes to town with soft rim lights.

- When creating a soft key on an actor is it common to try and make a larger soft light depending on the size of the source it is meant to be simulating? EG. If the light source is meant to be coming from a window from outside would a larger soft light produce a more realistic effect rather then a 650w with diffusion on it?

Sure, a 650w with diffusion on the barndoors is not going to feel like the light from a 6'x6' picture window. Of course, we often create soft sources that are much softer than what the practical would create, just because it looks nicer -- candlelight is a classic example, candle flames are actually a rather sharp source.

-Lastly. How do you normally light a scene where 'pools' of light hit the actors rather then the entire environment being at a similar exposure. Like a few scenes in jennifer's body especially within the house which is under development, the actors are well exposed but there are plenty of darker areas without light spill. Is it normal for you to light these scene's a bit more exposed then what the final scene should be, then let cc take care of darkening the image or do you light how you envision the scene to be in the final product and risk creating shadow noise(on digital shoots)

I generally expose conservatively and darken further in post, you can get into trouble with a lot of underexposed footage. I mean, I will use very little fill light if I want dark shadows, meaning I light for the contrast I want, but in terms of the overall exposure, you can always make things look darker in post.

The one caveat is when you are trying to balance with some natural lighting element that is very dim, like a candle or flashlight, that's when it's hard to not underexpose, you don't have as much flexibility to light to a higher level and then just darken it in post because you might overpower the natural source in the shot.

 

[william lan]

Hi David,
In today's digital shoots, 'film look' and 'film latitude' are often referred. Does this mean that 'film' is superior to 'digital' in these 2 aspects? What are the maximum 'film latitude' and 'digital latitude' today?