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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

I believe the 8K Helium sensor and the 6K Dragon sensor are the same shape and size more or less, so if you use the maximum recorded height for anamorphic photography, you have the same degree of reframing ability in post, other than the fact that a higher resolution recording allows more ability to reframe if you are worried about resolution, but you'd have the same loss of field of view either way.

Otherwise, it is hard to say how much "better" the 8K Helium image is for a 4K finish compared to the 6K Dragon sensor -- you can ask yourself if some major motion pictures have shot on 6K Dragons in anamorphic, then why isn't that good enough for a short film? On the other hand, if you have some sort of legal requirement to shoot in 4K, then be aware that the 6K Dragon 6:5 anamorphic recording is 3792 pixels wide. Of course, if by "4K" they include UHD, which is 3840 pixels wide, then I'm not sure 3792 wouldn't be good enough for a 3840 pixel finish...

Personally, I think anamorphic creates its own look, and often that look has some softness from the shallower focus and distortions when you shoot anamorphic at wide apertures, so if super-high resolution is your main goal, then shoot spherical on any digital camera that doesn't have a 4:3 sensor, and if super-high resolution isn't your main goal, then don't sweat the difference between 8K Helium and 6K Dragon on a short film. You'd be lucky to see your 4K short film screened in 4K on a large theater screen with top-notch equipment so to some extent, worrying about resolution to that degree might just lead to heartache... (speaking as someone who has seen his nice photography degraded in various screenings at film festivals.)
 
Thank you David!
This is exactly what I was looking for. I greatly appreciate this!
 
David Mullen ASC said:
I've been using the Panavision 19-90mm lately, it's a decent zoom that doesn't breathe when you rack focus, which is nice. It's not in the category of a lightweight zoom like the 28-76mm though.
Click to expand...

David:

First, thanks for all the time and good info you have given to us Redusers.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/co...wESEAQYASABEgJuvfD_BwE&is=REG&m=Y&sku=1246187


I do mostly travel and documentary work, but also rent to people doing low-budget independent films, shorts, music videos etc. so have been looking at this inexpensive Canon cine zoom that covers super 35.

Obviously for $5225 it isn't in the class of the Panavision but my question is about the t4.4 maximum aperture. I know this is fairly slow, but we are also getting greater sensitivity with the new Helium sensor.

In practice where do you find your typical t-stop for you film and Television productions?
 
Hi David,
How do you deal with colour temperature change when incandescent lights are dimmed? (let's say 2KW and below)
I know you can place gels in front of the light to counter it, but then that changes the output again.
Do you have advice for this?
Thanks...
 
When I dim a tungsten lamp I'm usually fine with it getting warmer. Besides if you are dimming to lower output, why would you be worried about the loss of output from using blue gel?

If you are using the type of lamp that can be gelled, you can use avoid dimming and use scrims or ND gel to darken if you don't want to lower the color temperature.
 
Hi David,

I'm looking at a short film that I shot, and see a "mistake" that I made. Being so familiar with the material, in some moments I anticipated the upcoming action and moved the camera a little prematurely.

For example, the I knew that lead character would start talking about sand and rubbing his hand across the bedspread feeling "sand" that wasn't actually there. (He's suffering from a breakdown and the sand is in his mind.)

So before he says "I need to get away from all of this sand" I started to creep the camera down. It slowly moved from his head to down his neck, arm and wound up on his hand at what I thought was great timing. I felt like I was genius.

However, when watching the footage, it feels a bit odd that that the camera started to move for no real reason at that time.

Can you chime in a bit on the idea of moving the camera in anticipation of what's going to happen next vs. reacting to what's happening in real time?

Thank you so much!!
 
In that case, I don't see that there is a right or wrong answer -- I've seen many films where the camera moves off of the person in mid-sentence and lands on something important, relative to the dialogue. It's sort of like a POV of someone observing the person as they talk but starts to look around at their body language and hand gestures.
 
David,

I think I've learned more about cinematography from you than any other resource. Thank you so much for that. I've run into a few problem situations and wanted to see if I could get your thoughts on them.

1) I'm at a point where I've shot a four $500K features, but two of the main issues I've run into with them is that there is never enough prep and specifically I feel like I never get a chance to see locations enough or early enough. Can I ask if you've ever formalized a prep schedule and approach to preparing for each film / TV show. I think I need to start being more specific about what I need in prep to be successful on a film, even if they don't fully have the money to pay me for all the prep. For instance do you typically outline when you expect location scouts (2 months out), tech scouts (a few weeks out), specific conversations with the director about beats, scenes, and the arc of a film, and then specifically visual conversations with the director and other department heads. Additionally, what sort of tests do you find yourself doing for each project? I often am lucky if I can schedule a camera test, which often has to be done in house (I'd prefer to do a few of them out in a real environment). I know what I need from prep, but I think I don't always do the best job of communicating that to the director or the producers to make sure it happens.

Essentially have you ever formalized your prep schedule and what are the minimum number of days you'll take for prep?

2) If you're on location and looking to create a dusk interior look all day, what are some effective techniques you've used? Obviously there are different looks to dusk, but I'm talking about that time of day after any direct light is gone. I think what makes this look challenging is seeing windows if you're on location.

3) If you're shooting in a skyscraper interior and looking to build up the daylight pushing inside, what sort of techniques do you tend to use that don't feel fake or forced? If you have the money and a pre-rigging crew would you attempt rig off the building from outside with 18Ks and frames or use Joleko's etc inside? Obviously this all depends upon the specific look you're after, but it's always a challenge.

4) If you're crafting an interior moonlight look where you're using no other motivation, how do you deal with lighting from outside without creating hot spots of white in the windows, blinds, or curtains themselves? Or do you find yourself doing a blend of techniques?

Thanks! Sorry for all the questions, but I've been thinking about a lot of these for a while and figured you'd have thought through a lot of them.
 
Nicholas Matthews said:
1) I'm at a point where I've shot a four $500K features, but two of the main issues I've run into with them is that there is never enough prep and specifically I feel like I never get a chance to see locations enough or early enough. Can I ask if you've ever formalized a prep schedule and approach to preparing for each film / TV show. I think I need to start being more specific about what I need in prep to be successful on a film, even if they don't fully have the money to pay me for all the prep. For instance do you typically outline when you expect location scouts (2 months out), tech scouts (a few weeks out), specific conversations with the director about beats, scenes, and the arc of a film, and then specifically visual conversations with the director and other department heads. Additionally, what sort of tests do you find yourself doing for each project? I often am lucky if I can schedule a camera test, which often has to be done in house (I'd prefer to do a few of them out in a real environment). I know what I need from prep, but I think I don't always do the best job of communicating that to the director or the producers to make sure it happens.

Essentially have you ever formalized your prep schedule and what are the minimum number of days you'll take for prep?
Click to expand...

On indie films there is always a difference between the number of prep days budgeted for and the number of days you actually need. I always take the attitude that I will work as many days of prep needed no matter what they are actually paying me for, so if they budgeted three weeks of prep and I need four weeks, I start a week early and just don't turn in a time sheet for a week (my agent would probably not like to hear me say that...) I don't turn in a "prep schedule" request, the schedule is based on what the director needs/wants I have to work around that. But when I interview for a job or in early discussions with the director and producer, I tell them what generally happens and what I need creatively, which is time with the director to talk through the script in detail outside of time spent scouting locations.

You work backwards from Day 1 of shooting. The week before shooting consists of the crew tech scout, usually all day long, the production meeting (usually three or four hours), final department budgets being delivered, followed by the equipment prep and pick-up, director's rehearsals with the actor all week long. The last day of that week is almost all taken up by equipment pick-ups which actually doesn't involve me. But the days before that involve camera prep and any testing I need to do, plus taking the test to a post house and setting up the dailies workflow. So that last week of prep is pretty booked.

The week before that last week is usually made up of scouting and finalizing locations, casting sessions for the director, crew hiring, and department meetings.

So that really leaves the week before those two weeks when it is quiet enough to meet with the director every day to break down the script. I usually request that they schedule three hours every morning for a week at least to go through the script. I want the mornings because by the afternoons, the director is being pulled in a hundred directions with calls, etc. Trouble is that some directors, unfortunately, are not morning people and I might have a meeting scheduled every day from 9AM to 11AM or Noon, only to have the director show up at the office at 10AM or later, take calls, and then tell me we should postpone our meeting until the evening like at 4 or 5PM or later, only to then completely cancel it because, as I warned, they had too many other things to attend to by the end of the day, like meeting actors. Some directors then realize too late that they've blown off all the meetings with me only to try to schedule some all-day marathon script meeting which ends up being too mentally exhausting -- you can really only discuss maybe ten pages of script in detail per day before your brain is fried and you need a break.

So then you end up winging it, maybe getting some discussions in the van rides to locations when scouting, walking around the location, etc. In an ideal world, you'd have time to break down the script in a quiet room PLUS time to walk around the locations with the director and discuss how to shoot the scenes.

In terms of testing, it all depends on what you need and what the director needs to set the look of the show or to solve a unique problem. Some tests are more elaborate than others. My minimal test is to shoot a face and a chart and play with the color-correction, create a workflow for dailies, etc. next level would be to also test filters, next would be to try some extreme lighting conditions to see what the limits of the camera are, etc. Just depends on the show.


2) If you're on location and looking to create a dusk interior look all day, what are some effective techniques you've used? Obviously there are different looks to dusk, but I'm talking about that time of day after any direct light is gone. I think what makes this look challenging is seeing windows if you're on location.
Click to expand...

That's hard to do, of course, because you have to control the level of daylight coming in and flagging off any hard sun coming in, and avoiding noticing a background with hard sun. It's easier of course in overcast weather and even easier if you aren't trying to balance the daylight with interior practical lamps. It may involve ND gel on windows, hopefully you can afford hard gels, but even then you have to watch out of the windows are large because when you look at a window from a raking angle, the ND gel looks heavier than when you look at it straight on.

3) If you're shooting in a skyscraper interior and looking to build up the daylight pushing inside, what sort of techniques do you tend to use that don't feel fake or forced? If you have the money and a pre-rigging crew would you attempt rig off the building from outside with 18Ks and frames or use Joleko's etc inside? Obviously this all depends upon the specific look you're after, but it's always a challenge.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming a situation where you can't put lights out the window. What you do depends on whether you want the room to mainly be lit by window light or by overhead fluorescents and lamps in the office, if you can live with fluorescents lighting the people, then you can ND gel the office windows for balance. If you want the windows to be the source, then you have to expose more for semi-silhouettes or shoot at more of an angle to the windows so you can augment with bounced lighting or use very soft bounces from the ceiling that do not overpower the daylight. In those cases, I often use HMI's like Jo-Lekos, or bigger HMI's, but the main thing is to not flight the natural light, try to imagine what you'd do if you were a documentary filmmaker or if you were shooting for Terrence Malick and couldn't add any lights -- you'd try to get the actors closer to the windows, etc.

4) If you're crafting an interior moonlight look where you're using no other motivation, how do you deal with lighting from outside without creating hot spots of white in the windows, blinds, or curtains themselves? Or do you find yourself doing a blend of techniques?
Click to expand...

Sometimes if you have sheers and cannot dye them gray or use net flags to darken the light hitting them or hide ND gels right behind the sheers to darken them but let the light come in through the gap in the sheers, then you have to add light from inside as if it were coming from the windows. It can be a bit theatrical and fakey but moonlit interiors often seem like a theatrical convention anyway. You can decide also to go for a soft dim look versus a hard shadowy look.
 
Hey David, would you mind elaborating a bit on TODD AO Anamorphics?

My wife and I saw Peckinpah's The Getaway this weekend, and I was surprised at how subtle the Anamorphic "look" was (outside of the aspect ratio). That's when I looked it up, and noticed it was Todd AO.


The film looked like they used a lot of zooms - you think they used rear anamorphic elements? And maybe that explains the restrained, almost spherical look?

I was struck by how traditional the bokeh was (no cats eye that I could see), and almost total lack of horizontal flares.

Just curious.

We've been on a 70's kick recently!

thanks
 
Front anamorphic zooms are a recent phenomenon, so yes, a lot of 70's anamorphic movies like Robert Altman's used rear anamorphic zooms.

The "making of" doc for the first "Mad Max" movie mentioned that they bought some Todd-AO 35 anamorphic lenses (or the rental house did) that had last been used on a Peckinpah movie only to discover that the only prime that wasn't beat-up was the 35mm, which is quite wide-angle in anamorphic (I think they said 35mm...), which George Miller used for most of the movie.

"Logan's Run" was one of the better-looking Todd-AO 35 movies. So was "Dune".
 
Car Reflections

Car Reflections

Hi David,

How do you deal with reflections when shooting cars, especially black cars? You can see reflections so easily in a black car. Stopping down seems to help, but obviously at night that's harder to do when you don't have as much light. At night you can cover things with duvetyne, but during the day you just end up seeing the actual objects in the reflection itself as a giant curved mirror.

Thanks,
- dan
 
It's a real problem... first thing is to start out before you set-up anything recognizing that there will be reflections, that you are shooting a giant curved mirror shape. If you have to use large white diffusions or bounces, you try to have them reflected at an angle and not flat-on to a flatter surface, and you try to make sure that it is a neat white reflection not cluttered by grip gear, shiny c-stands, etc. or crew members silhouetted against it. Some reflections of white shapes could be justified as being from some imaginary white building opposite the car.

You take into account that shiny dolly track might be reflected, maybe you pull it farther back and use a jib arm to get closer (or a longer lens), you put duvetine on the track when you can, etc. You cover the camera with black, maybe you put a large black frame behind the camera, the crew wears black. Maybe you get art department to conceal some shapes with greenery, some props, etc. And for small areas of bad reflections, there is always dulling spray. And the last resort -- paint it out in post (like the occasional boom mic swinging through on some reflective surface on one take because the actor or camera moved to some new position not rehearsed, or maybe the car door opens wider on one take and reflects a light badly.)

But the key is right from the start, from positioning the car to the blocking rehearsal, if not even before that on the tech scout days before, you factor in the reflection problems, you don't wait until after you've set-up the lights and camera to fix them.

On the day, often I've had to tell the AD, the PA's, and other departments that certain areas even though off-camera, are not safe because of reflections in the car. There are a lot of white pop-up tents on location that go up in the last moment that you have to watch out for. This is one reason why if you can predict this problem on the tech scout, the locations department might be able to find alternative areas for equipment staging, cast holding, etc.
 
Hi David!

I’m going to be shooting S16 with ARRI SR3 HS with Zeiss Super Speeds f1.3 and it’s been a while, (a LONG while!), last thing I shot on film was in 92 so any tips on exposure would be great (I’ll definitely be using a light meter).

For this project we’re using Vision3 7207 pushed 1 stop. Depending on who you ask people rate the dynamic range between 14 to 16 stops, what is your opinion? If either 14/16 is accurate are the stops equal above middle grey (7above 7 below)? Would pushing 1 stop shift the range 8 below, 6 above or opposite (similar to shiftING ISO on Alexa)? Most of the filming will be during sunrise and sunset and I’m concerned with capturing enough shadow detail.

Thanks David!

Sebastien

*Forgot to add, we are shooting 1.85 for 2.35 crop. Since we're transferring to DI, grain size would be the same as 1.85 correct (vs 2 perf cinemascope blow up)?
 
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Grain size depends in the degree of enlargement -- on a home video screen where 2.35 is letterboxed, then there is no enlargement so the grain is the same, the 2.35 picture is just shorter on the screen. Most theater screens these days are similar, they use a less tall area of the screen for 2.35, but some do the opposite (which I think they should) which is that a 2.35 image is wider, not shorter. In that case, you'd see the grain more if you are cropping S16 to 2.35 compared to framing for 1.85.

2-perf is larger negative area than S16, particularly if you are cropping to 2.35, so it is less grainy in almost all circumstances.

Push-processing increases contrast and you lose some dynamic range if you combine the push with underexposure, so if you underexpose by 1-stop, and lose 1-stop therefore of shadow information, pushing it 1-stop isn't going to restore shadow information that was never recorded, what it is going to do is make underexposed highlights look brighter by 1-stop. But it's not a linear process, unlike with digital, it may not exactly be a 1-stop loss for a 1-stop underexposure. I usually rate a stock 2/3-stop faster for a 1-stop push, just to give me some leeway. But only push when you absolutely have to if you want the most dynamic range.

With the Alexa, the dynamic range stays the same as you rate it at different ISO's, though outdoors in bright sunlight with few dark shadows, rating the camera too slow may result in a loss of highlight information with no real gain in underexposure information if your darkest shadow is, let's say, only 3-stops under.
 
driving shots

driving shots

hi david,

i have a few questions involving driving shots during the day. the quickest and fastest way to rig the camera from the side is a hostess tray, right? and when doing so, is it just a given that the window will be open and sound will just have to suffer? and along with that or even a speedrail rig, are you a slave to the sun and lighting the inside? you can't rig a 4x4 floppy off the roof and have it sticking out in traffic. you can only rig a kino or quasar inside, but without blocking the actor's (driver's) view. can you only manipulate on a larger scale when using a process trailer? how often do people use process trailers? won't it almost always look like the car is too high when looking out the window? as if the car is 6 feet off the ground?

as always, thanks for your experience and knowledge

- dan
 
Well, a DSLR could be mounted with suction cups almost anywhere...

You'd have to ask a grip if rigging a hostess tray was faster than rigging a hood mount, maybe but it's close to being similar. There's probably a way to rig a side mount using speed rail along the side of the car and leave the windows rolled up... but then you have to be at a strong raking angle to have a lens that close to glass and not be reflected -- you're not going to get a raking two-shot across the front seats without the camera being seen in the glass, but you could get an angle on someone sitting close to the window.

Yes, driving shots means being careful about the angle of the sun to avoid camera shadows. Sometimes for a hostess tray shot, I will tape muslin over the top of the camera and stretched across to the car roof so that if the sun rotates around and hits the camera, you just get a soft shadow on the actor if the sun is toppy enough.

With flags and frames, besides worrying about sticking out into traffic, you need multiple support rigging points so that they don't blow off in the wind from driving.

Process trailers are a problem height-wise of you are surrounded by other cars passing alongside. You can see that the car is higher than normal in "Reservoir Dogs" as they drive bleeding Tim Roth in the back seat. But I only noticed that when I was watching the movie again on TV, for some reason, I didn't catch that in the theater the first time I saw it. There are some process trailers that ride rather low but then you have to watch out for clearance underneath.

Director Gary Marshall said driving shots are the root canal of filmmaking. He's not incorrect. It's a lot of work just to end up with a raking 2-shot of two people talking and driving.

For me, one of the biggest arguments for tow rigs or process trailers is simply that the actor doesn't have to both act and drive safely down a road.

One odd trick you see in a lot of Tony Scott movies like "The Fan" and "Enemy of the State" is that in his process trailer work, he will have a black flag over the windshield or side windows that is reflected only in the upper half of the glass so that the actor's face is clear of reflections and yet there are moving reflections under their face. He also did that for train cab scenes in "Unstoppable". It seems odd when you notice it finally but it works more often than you'd think.
 
David, I noticed you were the DP on several episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, on Amazon!

The show looks terrific - congrats!!

I LOVE the cinematography - are you free to talk about the camera, lenses and filtration you guys used?

Loved the gentle blooming of practicals in so many of the frames - it's adds a gorgeous texture.

Congrats again!
 
Pertaining to your above answer to the daytime driving shots...How do you deal with sun coming straight in through the front or side windows? If you ND them, you get less ambient light (in the in-between moments when the sun isn't direct). So if you're not doing a process trailer (and thus can't rig an HMI anywhere) how do you bring up the interior, but decrease the exterior (for dealing with direct sun).
 
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