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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

Kazu Okuda said:
Hey David,

Im sold on picking up Glimmerglass but was curious as to which strength you would consider a starting point. It looks like a lot of people are saying 1 but a rental house told me 1/2 goes out the most. My plan is to get one strength first and go one up and down from there. I know you've discussed it on here a few times but strength on this particular doesn't seem to have been discussed much.
Thanks
Click to expand...

I bought the 1/2 and recently purchased the 1. But 1/2 is definetly my go-to.
 
Hey David, would you mind elaborating on the tools/methods you use on set to measure color temperature?

Do you use a color meter? White balance off a white card? Or use maybe some other technique?

I ask because this is a topic my team and I have been talking A LOT about.

Even though we shoot RED and have a RAW workflow, it turns out getting the color temperature right AS WE SHOOT has been hugely beneficial. The lighting teams GEL accurately, and our grades generally are MUCH smoother.

However, this is surprisingly undercovered topic, and everyone seems to have a different take, so would LOVE to hear yours!

Thanks SO, SO much.

best
 
Hi David,

I have a couple questions.

1) When art department uses monofilament, how do you hide such "gags." It seems like you would see the filament when front or backlit... or is it just a matter of only shooting wides?...

2) I recently shot a scene where the director wanted a "tilt shift look" for a character who's been drugged. The cheapest quick version I could think of, was putting vaseline on a clear filter in front of the lens. With the longer lens we used, it seemed to just become a Fog filter, but when I tried it on a wide lens, it seemed to read in a much more interesting way. The next day we had a 45mm tilt shift lens. It was only an EF mount version (to work with our FS7), and it didn't seem to change the look as much as I hoped. Do the changes/shifts become more apparent with wider lenses only? Or if it was a higher quality tilt shift lens (PL Mount), would it give more manipulation options... the one production rented only had two knobs for adjustment.

3) If an actor/actress doesn't have great skin... what do you do in close ups? Soft light/ big source can only go so far...

4) How do you keep up the enthusiasm with answering the wide range of skill set questions on this forum?

-dan
 
For I feel a light needs to be read with a color temp meter, I ask my gaffer to do it, but generally I just try to match by eye and monitor, and I avoid lighting a face with more than one type of source for the key, so if I used a Kino for a key light on one close-up then everyone's close-up is done with a Kino so if there is a color bias it is consistent across the shots. Otherwise I try to embrace some of the differences in lights if shooting an urban night exterior or a funky bar, for example.
 
juliensees said:
I recently shot a scene where the director wanted a "tilt shift look" for a character who's been drugged. The cheapest quick version I could think of, was putting vaseline on a clear filter in front of the lens. With the longer lens we used, it seemed to just become a Fog filter, but when I tried it on a wide lens, it seemed to read in a much more interesting way. The next day we had a 45mm tilt shift lens. It was only an EF mount version (to work with our FS7), and it didn't seem to change the look as much as I hoped. Do the changes/shifts become more apparent with wider lenses only? Or if it was a higher quality tilt shift lens (PL Mount), would it give more manipulation options... the one production rented only had two knobs for adjustment.
Click to expand...
I don't presume to speak for Mr. Mullen, but I would suggest exploring options in post that might give you more flexibility for focus/blur/drug looks like this. You can push this to quite an extreme in post. The danger of doing it on the set is that you're stuck with that look forever. If you get exactly what you want quickly on set, then there's no problem.
 
Marc Wielage said:
I don't presume to speak for Mr. Mullen, but I would suggest exploring options in post that might give you more flexibility for focus/blur/drug looks like this. You can push this to quite an extreme in post. The danger of doing it on the set is that you're stuck with that look forever. If you get exactly what you want quickly on set, then there's no problem.
Click to expand...

Nothing truly replicates the look of a REAL tilt shift however.

As someone that owns a full set of tilt shift lenses, and uses them regularly, I can attest to that - particularly when shots are in motion, on a dolly.
 
juliensees said:
Hi David,

I have a couple questions.

1) When art department uses monofilament, how do you hide such "gags." It seems like you would see the filament when front or backlit... or is it just a matter of only shooting wides?...

2) I recently shot a scene where the director wanted a "tilt shift look" for a character who's been drugged. The cheapest quick version I could think of, was putting vaseline on a clear filter in front of the lens. With the longer lens we used, it seemed to just become a Fog filter, but when I tried it on a wide lens, it seemed to read in a much more interesting way. The next day we had a 45mm tilt shift lens. It was only an EF mount version (to work with our FS7), and it didn't seem to change the look as much as I hoped. Do the changes/shifts become more apparent with wider lenses only? Or if it was a higher quality tilt shift lens (PL Mount), would it give more manipulation options... the one production rented only had two knobs for adjustment.

3) If an actor/actress doesn't have great skin... what do you do in close ups? Soft light/ big source can only go so far...

4) How do you keep up the enthusiasm with answering the wide range of skill set questions on this forum?

-dan
Click to expand...

If you can shadow the monofilament, that would help but that's very hard to do -- these days probably you'd just have to paint it out in post if it were obvious.

If you don't have a shift-tilt lens then doing a blurred grad in post color-correction is the best resort. As for the effect when using the 45mm lens, it really depends on your f-stop but also whether your frame had something that showed off that the focus was tilted.

Diffusion filters and frontal lighting are best for dealing with uneven skin, but beyond that, you'd have to resort to post tricks to paint out a pimple, etc.
 
I'm really sorry I'm wasting you time with this question David, but I had yesterday some disscutions with a teacher about the name of a shot size, and the answer of an ASC would solve this "issue". If I have a bottle or a can (not a human being) that fills the whole frame, how is this called? Closeup or Full Shot?
Thanks!
 
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Terms like close-up or full shot usually refer to humans. For a small object, you'd have to describe more carefully the size of the shot, like "entire object is seen but fills most of the frame" or something. You could call it a close-up or an insert of the bottle, as in "close on the bottle" in a screenplay, but that wouldn't describe the actual shot size.
 
Hi David,

I am really enjoying Designated Survivor. I am 4 episodes in and love the feel of the show thus far.

Well Done! Cant wait to see whats in store next...
 
What Camera do you suggest for people, who are interested in Cinematography? Do I need to be extrovert to be a cinematographer? Is this something for introverts? Cause, if you are a DP, you are working right in the middle of dozens of people!
 
I'm a bit of an introvert so it must be OK... I like hanging around people up to a point and then I have to get away for a break. But unless you plan on being a one-man band, you need to be able to work with people.

What camera? Depends on if it's for learning, for making personal projects, or for professional work.
 
Thanks for answering.
Isn't learning and personal projects one group? If you learn with Camera X, you learn also with your or others personal project? I mean a camera to learn with and do personal projects. Nothing for a client. Not a DRAGON for example. Would be an overkill.
 
More or less, depends on how advanced your personal projects need to be. For learning, I won't name specific products but you want something with basic manual controls over everything, and ideally records something a bit beyond Rec.709 4:2:0 8-bit if you plan on doing a lot of color-correction, though for learning, that's fine too.
 
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