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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

Neil Cronin said:
Hi David,
I'm curious what you think about what the role of the DP on a film like Gravity is. Certainly the vast majority of the shots were 100% pre-visualized and shot via motion control devices. How would you imagine and visualize the script when you are staring at an abstract wireframe of the solar system?

And how is that different than, say, shooting something like The Godfather, or 2001?

Thanks!
-n
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Since it has to look photorealistic and match lighting on the actors, there is a lot of virtual lighting with a movie like "Gravity", and lighting is lighting, in some ways it is just a variation on cinematography but working with CGI artists rather than grips and electricians. Obviously it is different working on location with natural and practical lighting, but the aesthetics can be similar, you are still applying your visual taste.
 
Hi David,

I watched Big Sur last night. I enjoy it, found the story inspiring and also sad. The cinematography was very engaging, from scene to scene, probably more so than the story. The fast paced voice overs were dramatic and the editing was terrific. Visually i thought it had a Gregory Crewdson or Edward Hopper feel. I particularly liked the wide shot when Kerouac took Billie to meet Carolyn and the scene played out in that wide from outside the house. Took forward to the next film you do with the Polish brothers.
 
David I have a job coming up this weekend for The Kennedy Space Center shooting Astronaut Heroes of the past. We are thinking of doing a dramatic shot with a astronaut with and helmet on or even holding a helmet. I would like to use a projection to get the reflection of earth in the shield of the helmet. How big of a screen do you think i might need? So I don't have to work the screen in to close to the subject. My goal is to not see anything in the helmet shield but the POV of the earth from space. Also what kind of output would such a screen need to have do you think? We are shooting with The RED Epic & Canon 5D's. Don't want to work higher than 800 ISO 1200 max. What ideas might you have on how to approach this?
 
Thank you on the top 10 filter recommendation

Thank you on the top 10 filter recommendation

David,
just wanted to say thank you on your recommendations on filters!
 
Paulian A. Morris said:
David I have a job coming up this weekend for The Kennedy Space Center shooting Astronaut Heroes of the past. We are thinking of doing a dramatic shot with a astronaut with and helmet on or even holding a helmet. I would like to use a projection to get the reflection of earth in the shield of the helmet. How big of a screen do you think i might need? So I don't have to work the screen in to close to the subject. My goal is to not see anything in the helmet shield but the POV of the earth from space. Also what kind of output would such a screen need to have do you think? We are shooting with The RED Epic & Canon 5D's. Don't want to work higher than 800 ISO 1200 max. What ideas might you have on how to approach this?
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The problem is that the helmet glass is almost like a fisheye lens in terms of its view of its surroundings, so even if you parked a 20'x20' translight in front of the astronaut, it wouldn't fill the helmet reflection. That might be OK in an all-black soundstage with a black image with the whole Earth in the center of it, but most astronauts do not see the Earth from that far away, it would look like they were halfway to the Moon once reflected in the helmet. You're better off putting the reflection in post.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Since it has to look photorealistic and match lighting on the actors, there is a lot of virtual lighting with a movie like "Gravity", and lighting is lighting, in some ways it is just a variation on cinematography but working with CGI artists rather than grips and electricians. Obviously it is different working on location with natural and practical lighting, but the aesthetics can be similar, you are still applying your visual taste.
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David (as basically always) is right. I learned cinematography and lighting (after film school) mainly by working on 3D projects. In the end, it't the same as a mental process, although in 3D you can't fool around as much or experiment, as many things are not really real-time and require complex pre-rigging. You have to plan absolutely everything in your head first, then execute. But you should plan everything in your head first on a set anyway - not "play around" while the expensive set meter ticks away production dollars.
 
Hi David.

I am shooting a short film this weekend and I would love your masterminds input on a a difficult scene I have to light. It is an EXT. HOUSE- NIGHT scene and If have to light a front yard that involves a girl running home avoiding a storm, so I will be needing to apply a lightning gimmick. I will be shooting with cooke S4s, that as you know are a T2, not the fastest lenses. I am shooting with the red epic.

my lights are as follows.

2 800 joker HMIs

1 400 Joker HMI

2 1k tungston lights ( gelled with CTB)

and 1 2k tungston fixture

mole kit

Any input you can offer me is much appreciated.

Thank you so much in advance.
 
Put a lampost in the front lawn, add some uprights on the house, i.e. do whatever you can to make the house self-illuminated, then just use your movie lights for some ambience or a streetlamp pool or rake of light on the lawn, save your 2 Joker 800's for the lightning effect, though they are quite powerful enough, maybe for distant lightning.

I usually get the metal venetian-type blinds from the rental house for larger HMI's for lightning, you slap them open and closed fast and randomly.
 
David, do you ever critique films at all? would love some pro feedback on a very short project. I'm sure you are a very busy guy, but thought id ask. :)
 
A heathen's request for advice. (not presently a RED owner-operator).

A heathen's request for advice. (not presently a RED owner-operator).

Hello David.


The SI2K had its moment of glory before the RED camera family came along and has relegated it to a niche these days.

I am curious if you have had much exposure to the system and if so, what your personal preferences might be in using the system.

About 10.5 stops of dynamic range is claimed and it is fairly honest with some more sensor noise coming through with older camera heads. If there is a lot of dark in the image, the sensor noise seems to be more apparent. If there is even a small area of strong evenly lit surface, this seems to suppress the noise athough the gain does not change.

The cameras here have been requested for a film which essentially depicts a day in the life of a city taxi operator. This will enable fairly convenient in-car camera mounting and also confer a look the director apparently would like to have.

This project will be shot at the time of year here when the daylight is very hard as you would experience in New Mexico and Texas.

Much of it will also be shot at night with the "natural" interior lighting of the taxi being reproduced ( hopefully ), dash light as a constant and leaving the rest to the natural environment as much as possible.

I have been striving to obtain as much true sharpness in images in daylight with the system which now has to compete with 4K and beyond. To that end I have been using strong IRND filtering to allow the Super16mm lenses to be operated in their sweet zones of T2 - T4 where they also confer shallower depths-of-field more closely comparable to workmanlike aperture settings on 35mm format lenses. This confers a green cast which has to be corrected. I have also been trying an Ultracon3 filter with the IRND.

Our environment will likely be the grubbier parts of the city clubbing district and suburban.

Like the RED camera family, the SI2K lifts blue channel noise first when the image is pushed.

For the nights, I have been thinking of using a blue filter on the camera so that video noise in the other colour channels is more evenly apparent if it cannot be avoided. The camera's realworld ISO is about 200 daylight, 320 tungsten at 0db gain. I lose some light whichever way I go, filtering at camera or filtering the light source to favour blue.

Do you know if using a blue filter may make the colourist's task harder if overhead yellowish discharge streetlights come into the mix in the taxi interiors as travelling shafts of light.

I am minded that skin tones will be a torment to reproduce in a natural night environment where lighitng resources may be limited and that a harsher night look might be more plausible. So maybe I should make the dash lighting source a colour in significant contrast to the ambient night lighting which I expect will probably be greenish or olive biased. This clip represents approximately what happens with the IRND1.8 in our hard coastal daylight at about 4-30 early summer. Please forgive the pinkish sky hue. I am a bit red/green colourblind and I pulled the green down a little too far. In the editor it looked okay but the exported file came out a little more contrasted. My human subjects have an olive complexion.

The sun was off about 110 degrees ( right ) from my line to the subject.

Whilst I have a fairly good technical knowledge of the camera, I know only enough to be a danger unto myself when it comes to the making of the images themselves. It will be a low-budget project so the likelyhood of a professional DoP coming aboard may be slim.

The cameras may be mounted in a "live" cab as well as in or around a cab on a process trailer.

Any suggestions as to clues or gotchas that we should be wary of, as well as your personal preferences will be appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5vkIKXr4xY
 
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Filtering a partial-spectrum source like a sodium streetlamp is sort of pointless because adding a blue filter to cancel yellow wavelengths isn't going to shift the color balance towards blue since the blue information is mostly missing, so ultimately the blue filter is acting more like an ND filter. Besides at night you need all the exposure you can get. Even digital color-correction can't really recover missing blue information, you'll mainly just be able to turn the yellow sodium look to a sort of desaturated tan color at best.

I haven't worked with the SI2K before but I would think that a hacked Canon 5D Mk.III recording RAW would get you more dynamic range and better low-light images, plus get you that shallow-focus look you want. Not that I've worked with a hacked Canon either...

For your day work, I think the main thing to watch out for is clipped highlights. Even your test could have been exposed a little darker to keep the hot parts of the face from getting clippy, the UltraCons will help a little bit for the shadows, allowing you to expose more for the highlights.
 
Domenic Barbero said:
David, do you ever critique films at all? would love some pro feedback on a very short project. I'm sure you are a very busy guy, but thought id ask. :)
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I've watched short stuff from other people before, I just don't have a lot of free time to write a long critique, but certainly I would make a few comments.
 
Coming up on 5,000 posts.... :hurray:
 
Alexey Milokost said:
Hi David,
Could you, please, share some basic technics when shooting day-for-night on wide exteriors?
Thanks
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Avoid the sky by shooting against a hillside or something. If not, use a Pola + ND grad to darken the sky and/or plan on replacing it in post.

Shoot in backlight or side light, something that creates shadows, underexpose, perhaps go for a blue-ish tint.

Shoot at a wide aperture to avoid too much depth of field.
 
Post #5000 in this thread. I think I speak for everybody here. Thank you for knowledge and continued generosity David.
 
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