Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Erik Vanlenten]

Lately I've been using Schneider Hollywood Black Magics, Tiffen Pearlescents, Schneider Classic Softs, and a homemade black net filter. Not all at once of course...

David,

Awesome, thank you. What would be a recommendation for a soft filter that keeps the depth of the blacks but allows the high key elements of the shot to bloom?



I was getting great soft bloom this week from the DigiCon's (see attached)


Thank you again,

-Erik V.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

DigiCons and UltraCons are supposed to have almost no halation around points of light, just an overall reduction of contrast with an even haze over the image. But of course any filter that is designed to scatter light will create some halation, it's just that the mist particulates in the DigiCons and UltraCons are so finely-ground and evenly distributed that there is less localization around a point of light.

A filter with some additional use of black specks will help restore some loss of contrast from halation, hence the Harrison Black Dot Texture Screens in the early 1980's followed by the Tiffen Black ProMists, etc. Or you have something like the silver specks in a Tiffen GlimmerGlass doing something similar.

Schneider's Hollywood Black Magics are their 1/8 Black Frost (similar to Tiffen's Black ProMist) combined with degrees of HD Classic Softs (HD Classic Softs have smaller patterns of dimples to diffuse the image compared to regular Classic Softs.) They also made a version where the 1/8 Black Frost is combined with regular Classic Softs, called Classic Soft Blacks. And they made a series with a base of a 1/4 Black Frost called the Double Classic Soft Blacks.

Tiffen makes something similar where they combined a GlimmerGlass with a Black Diffusion-FX filter, called the Black Satins.

But it is inherent to any filter that the more halation you create, the more contrast that is lost, so there are limits to designing a filter that can create halation but keep the blacks black. You're better off using the lightest filter -- let's say a 1/8 Hollywood Black Magic -- and then having that point source or practical in the frame be brighter when you want more halation out of it, rather than use a heavier filter but a less bright light in the shot.

 

[Erik Vanlenten]

David,

Thank you very much for the run down on filtration and lighting. I will apply those ideas to my next shoot and see what I can do with this new information.

Thank you sir,

-Erik V.

 

[Humberto Dal Boit]

David, if you would buy one leko source 4 with just one lens barrel, which one would you choose to be sort of an allrounder in your lighting kit. I can't decide between the 50 or the 36 degrees. which one do you use the most? thank you.

 

[Martin Stevens]

I bought a 19 degree Source Four Leko....but the other lenses can be bought separately at a decent price,
so I also have the 50 degree as well. If I could only have one lens for it, it would be the 19.

I love this light fixture.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I use the 19, 26, 36, and 50 all the time. Which depends on what I'm using the light for -- for a ceiling or card bounce in a small space, the wider, flatter, more even beam of the 50 degree is better unless you have to shoot that beam across the room from farther away. For father distances, the 26 and 36 are better. For a hot slash on someone's arm or a piece of furniture, the 26 or 36 is most common. The 19 has such a narrow beam that it is better for distances where it spreads out more. The narrower the beam, the more you start to see an odd faint pattern from the back of the reflector, but usually that is hidden by the overexposure if using it as a hot slash or for a shaft of light.

So I can't imagine not having all four but if you could only have one, then I'd either get the 26 or 36, maybe the 36. With that, you'll figure out all the things you can do with the beam as a bounce or a slash.

 

[Nicholas Matthews]

David, I appreciate your thoughts and so much your willingness to help out younger cinematographers as they press forward!

I'm looking to create shafts of light that look something similar to these on a set. http://lauradayliving.com/pub/editor/image/DAYLY/Crewdson1.jpg, ​http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/006/006TzZ-15256784.jpg, http://www3.clikpic.com/andydb/images/ECOFOTO-shaft-of-light-summer.jpg. The idea is to create a celestial space that has 3 big distinctive beams in a high key space. The challenge is that we will be facing some spacial restrictions and the set is about 30' wide and 20' long. I'm going to try and get about 10' or so from the cyc wall with our set build. The idea here is we're painting the cyc sky blue (which I know will affect the contrast) and then filling it with these set pieces so it looks like a sky background.

Right now I'm planning to key the set with a nine-light booklight with an ultra bounce, unbleached muslin--I've used this before and found it very quick to make adjustments to the output with a nice quality of light. The shafts of light I was considering using either lensless 10Ks if we can get the distance, or 5K Molebeams, although the price worries me. I know with a mirror maybe I could hit one unit into three mirrors or something? Thoughts? I was going to do a subtle backlight for the rest of the set with either a double diffused 5K or something similar and then use sky pans or the new Arri Panels on the background.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Using three mirrors and one light would be difficult, you'd need a big light with a lot of spread, like a 20K, or maybe a big-eye 10K, to fill three 4x4 mirrors evenly, and then there is all that aiming. Plus you'd want the 20K or 10K up high for the angle of the bounce in order to not light up the smoke in the foreground, plus it would have to be well-flagged at the bottom to get rid of spill onto the cyc.

Three bright lights would be better -- three 5K Molebeams or 5K PAR's depending on the spread you want in the beam. There's a small chance that three 750w Source-4 Lekos would be bright enough if the space is not too big and you can key the rest to a lower level to balance. Or you could try creating a cluster of Source-4 Lekos for each beam, but then you'd need 9 or 12 total, in groups of three or four per sun beam. But three or four Lekos together with 19 degree lenses if set-up carefully to be parallel, could look like one beam being broken up by a faint window frame or tree branch.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Nothing to ask...

Just as this thread is reaching the 1.5 Million views, I wanted to say how truly WONDERFUL is how David has allowed for this thread to give his personal time and share his knowledge here...

When I started 25+ years back, NO one would ever answer any questions, on set, in studio, even out in a restaurant, any and most specific professional questions about anything to do in the why and how was answered so vaguely as to leave absolutely no clue of how to really go about it... While David here has been sharing some very helpful information and opinions about the arts...

My hats off to you David, and my respect to you, a busy working Cinematographer and or any other busy working Professional that does this kind of free sharing is commendable...

And I just wanted to say it...

 

[Humberto Dal Boit]

Thank you

 

[Humberto Dal Boit]

90 minutes in heaven shot

90 minutes in heaven shot

Hi David, could you please describe your lighting set up for this shot? Was this shot in studio or location?
thank you so much

 

[David Mullen ASC]

That was a location, a small kitchen with a wooden deck outside the windows. I think I had a 6K HMI on the porch with 1/2 CTO on it, coming through windows with curtain sheers on them, into a room with some haze. She has a daylight 4' 4-bank Kino to her left (frame right) side-lighting her face, plus the ambient fill from the 6K hitting everything in the kitchen and bouncing back.

 

[Douglas Underdahl]

Backlighting.

I think it was Howard Hawks or John Ford who said you can always tell a bad cameraman by the sunburn on his neck.

 

[Nick Morrison]

David, you mentioned on another thread the use of Fog filters in some of the early Star Wars movies (A New Hope, and Jedi).

What Fog filters would you recommend we look into today? If we wanted to replicate that look? Or just explore "Fogs" in general?

My team and I have used Smoque filters, Promist and Glimmer Glass for different degrees of "misty-ness", but its starting to dawn on me Fogs may be their own animal, and I'd love to know more about them, and which ones perhaps to try.

Thans so much!!

 

[Nick Morrison]

David, you mentioned on another thread the use of Fog filters in some of the early Star Wars movies (A New Hope, and Jedi).

What Fog filters would you recommend we look into today? If we wanted to replicate that look? Or just explore "Fogs" in general?

My team and I have used Smoque filters, Promist and Glimmer Glass for different degrees of "misty-ness", but its starting to dawn on me Fogs may be their own animal - and love to know more about them, and which ones you'd recommend we look into!

Thans so much!!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

In general I think you are better off with the modern "mist" diffusion filters, they are better designed to preserve some sharpness -- the older filters sometimes seem to slightly throw the focus off a little depending on how they catch the light. But if you try the lightest Fogs, like a 1/8, 1/4 at the heaviest, you might like the effect. I like the old Harrison & Harrison Fogs, which had a slightly blue cast to the halation.

 

[Nick Morrison]

Lately I've been using Schneider Hollywood Black Magics, Tiffen Pearlescents, Schneider Classic Softs, and a homemade black net filter. Not all at once of course...

David, is Pearlescent you new goto "mist" filter?

Also what do you think of Digital FX (which Ive heard is very lovely and subtle diffusion) and Tiffen's new Satin diffusion? Very curious how these compare to Classic Soft!

Thanks, and Merry Xmas!!!

 

[Mark T Workman]

David, please excuse this question if it has been asked and answered but DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE MATTE BOX and WHY?

I'm still shopping and researching, haven't seen a lot of discussion on this. I'm definitely looking for something I can stack a hard 4X3 matte plus NDs, some EFX filters. I'm currently leaning toward Tangerine but I would love to hear more discussion on this topic from experts! Thank you!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't own gear really, so I'm not the person to ask. I usually get the studio and clip-on 4x5.6 Panavision or Arri matte boxes when I rent.

The only specific thing I ask my AC's to look for in a matte box is that the filter trays touch each other -- I don't like the metal spacers that separate trays in some of the Arri matte boxes because that increases the chance of double reflections. My favorite is the basic Panavision 4x5.6 matte box because it just has a big slot to hold three filter trays. This allows it is use an "ARF" tray, which is a single thick tray with a metal wedge that holds two filters at a slanted angle (Anti-Reflection Filter holder). With the Arri matte boxes that allow you to stack filter trays with no spacers, you can do something similar just by leaning two filters inside the matte box with some tape to keep them from falling out, if you get into a problem with reflections.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

David, is Pearlescent you new goto "mist" filter?

Also what do you think of Digital FX (which Ive heard is very lovely and subtle diffusion) and Tiffen's new Satin diffusion? Very curious how these compare to Classic Soft!

Thanks, and Merry Xmas!!!

I've only used the Pearlescent on one feature but yes, I like it, but I need to see if Tiffen will make me a 1/16th version because I think the 1/8 Pearlescent is heavier than a 1/8 Schneider Black Frost.

I think the Digital FX is just Tiffen's original Black Diffusion-FX minus the black dot pattern, because some 2/3" sensor HD cameras were seeing the black dots due to the higher depth of field. The black dots just help restore some mild contrast loss, which doesn't really matter if you are doing digital color-correction and can adjust the black levels. Yes, both Digital Diffusion-FX and Black Diffuson-FX are extremely subtle -- they were designed to basically not introduce any diffusion artifacts, just soften details invisibly. So they are good when you don't want a diffused look and just need to soften a close-up now and then in an otherwise clean-looking movie. Otherwise, though, I think that makes them a bit boring -- most people use diffusion for a little of their artifacts like halation around points of light.

The Satin filters solve that "problem" by adding a light GlimmerGlass mist filter on top of the Diffusion-FX filter.

So one nice thing would be to carry a set of Satins and a set of Diffusion-FX filters so you had the choice of whether to have the misty halation effect or not.