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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

David, incredible thread so far. Thanks for sharing all of this great information, makes a lot of sense. I like your symphonic analogy as a way to mix up the "intensities" of the various elements so the end product is truly an ensemble piece for everyone involved.

I was wondering if you had any rules of thumb or general guidelines on how to efficiently shoot coverage of a scene with a single camera, especially for action sequences. I know this is a pretty open ended question, but I'm wondering what a more nuanced approach than wide, medium, close, might be.
 
It's a rather broad question... when it comes to dramatic scenes (or even action scenes) I do sometimes think about whether to shoot it subjectively or objectively, though most movies are a mix of both. Hitchcock is a prime example of the subjective approach -- you shoot the scene from the point of view of the main character and intercut his POV's with his reactions. This creates a strong connection between the viewer and the main character, who are essentially experiencing the scene together, learning information at the same time, etc. The downside of the subjective approach is that you can get so locked-up in the perspective of the character that broader intellectual or social ideas are harder to introduce -- it's hard to create enough emotional distance.

"The Godfather" and its sequels are good examples of a more objective approach to the coverage, though the film follows Michael Corleone mostly. There is a somewhat proscenium approach, a tableau presented in medium and wide shot mostly, that creates just enough emotional distance to allow some satire and political themes to rise in conjunction with the family story. Although there are more subjective scenes, like when Michael shoots the two people in the restaurant.

I remember the criticism of "The Color Purple" when it came out, that it lacked the social context that someone like Martin Ritt or John Ford would have brought to the story, but I think that's because Spielberg made the movie so relentlessly subjective (maybe the book is like that too), almost Hitchcockian, so all you experience emotionally is whatever Celie is going through, so a broader historical or social view is hard to introduce.

As far as action goes, again, following the character and what he experiences is a good starting point, but you also tend to want to emphasize motion and any dynamic qualities to the action through how it is composed, cut, camera is moved, etc. I mentioned this before in the discussion on focal length, but James Cameron once talked about using long lenses for lateral motion and wide-angle lenses for forward & back movement, in both cases to enhance the speed of the motion.

The Hong Kong action films are a good place to start; they make great use of exciting camera angles, quick moves, and quick cuts.
 
Hey David, I was wondering if you are a DLSR buff these days? Certainly some of your shots in Northfork reminded me of stills. With digital cinema cameras heading the way of Red and Dalsa - using DLSR-style CMOS sensors - it seems to me that many DPs might be taking an interest in DLSR photography, to become accustomed to its ways of capturing images.
 
I've been thinking of getting one but keep putting off the purchase for various reasons (everytime you wait, it seems a better model comes out.) I want to get back into still photography again.

I've been shooting HD off and on since 2000, and betacam before that, but that's 3-CCD photography... yes, shooting DSLR and working with the images in Photoshop would be good practice. A lot of DP's that I know already shoot that way (Owen Roizman is an excellent still photographer and often works with a DSLR, I remember a lecture/demo once by Don McAlpine showing how he uses DSLR shots as a previz device...)
 
Yeah a good friend of mine who is a London School of Film MFA guy surprised me about a year ago by saying he hadn't messed around with DLSRs yet. He was really curious about RAW most of all, I think. Since then he's gotten one and is alll into it now. Even a cheap crop DLSR like the Rebel XTi is a lot of fun to fool around with.
 
Where can I find David's online set diaries? I found the Northfork one, but that was all! Are there any others?
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Where can I find David's online set diaries? I found the Northfork one, but that was all! Are there any others?
Click to expand...

Some are in older archives that are no longer searchable, but I did one for "Astronaut Farmer" -- here's the first one:
http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=8238
You have to find my threads titled with the movie's name and "Week 1", "Week 2", etc. scattered around that time frame.

I did a search for "Dot" (which became "The Quiet") and came up with pages for "Akeelah and the Bee", "Astronaut Farmer", "Solstice", etc.:
http://www.cinematography.com/forum...arch_in=posts&result_type=topics&highlite=dot
 
For David

For David

Hi David, I`m a 2nd AC working on a feature tltled "Gothic Tales" Ha ha. Cliche? Not sure yet. I sure hope not. The stories are based on works by Poe and the budget is about 1mil. Were using the F-900.
But, my personal queston is... (I) have a feature that`s not a talkie but a mixture of Sci-Fi/Romance and forgive me for saying but I am desparate to know Christopher Doyle`s lighting - Int. Night set ups - to push that look for certain scenes, and, do you think it`s possible to get that look using a Genesis or Red? or even F-900? Your best guess is more than acceptable. PS thanks for the great films.
 
David,
I was wondering if you know anything about the Kodak 52/7299 HD Scan film. Is it all that Kodak cracks it up to be (ie. able to be rated from 100 to 1000, shoot 56k or 32k with no correction, match any existing stock, etc.)?

Thank you very much for your time,
Charles Taylor
 
ghostcar said:
(I) have a feature that`s not a talkie but a mixture of Sci-Fi/Romance and forgive me for saying but I am desparate to know Christopher Doyle`s lighting - Int. Night set ups - to push that look for certain scenes, and, do you think it`s possible to get that look using a Genesis or Red? or even F-900? Your best guess is more than acceptable. PS thanks for the great films.
Click to expand...

Doyle sort of has two looks that he alternates between -- there's that saturated, sometimes grainy "pushed slide film look" (though he shoots color neg) you see in movies like "Fallen Angels" and "2046" and there's the soft, pastel low-con look of movies like "Lady in the Water" and "The White Countess", although "2046" and "In the Mood for Love" can fall either way (the prints being somewhat more muted than the DVD releases, so people have conflicting impressions of these movies.)

He oftens uses some mild diffusion in his movies, like Classic Softs in "The White Countess", and lately he's been shooting Fuji stocks.

Sure, I think that look can be created using the RED camera; you'd want to do some testing though. Obviously you can try to match his lighting style and unique camera style. Colors, contrast, can be manipulated to come close. But don't underestimate the contributions of the production designer to the look of those Wong Kar Wei movies. Doyle's photography is coordinated with the colors and layout of those sets and costumes.
 
AngusChandler said:
David,
I was wondering if you know anything about the Kodak 52/7299 HD Scan film. Is it all that Kodak cracks it up to be (ie. able to be rated from 100 to 1000, shoot 56k or 32k with no correction, match any existing stock, etc.)?
Click to expand...

It's a very wide latitude stock which is inherently somewhat soft & pastel-looking. I also think it's a bit grainy at 500 ASA, but that's the nature of super low-con 500T stocks, just like their discontinued '63 stock used on such movies as "Elephant" and "Lost in Translation".

I think Kodak should have come out with a slow-speed version, especially for the 16mm market, but then they couldn't claim "one stock for all situations" if there were two versions.

I haven't shot it myself, but some DP's swear by it. Personally, for most types of shooting situations, I find the regular Vision-2 stocks and Fuji Eterna stocks to have enough exposure latitude / dynamic range.

As far as using the Kodak TK box to make '99 look like another stock, let's say '18, I don't know why you wouldn't just shoot on '18 instead then.
 
David, I ran across a really nice copy of your book Cinematography (Third Edition) at Barnes and Noble today. Are you guys working on a new edition, or am I safe to buy the third edition? It looks like it's got some really great practical advice - especially about actual lighting setups.
 
No plans for a Fourth Edition so get the Third Edition, the one I contributed to.

The publisher seems to ask for a new edition every sixteen years or so... the first one was 1973, then the next was 1989, now this one was published in 2005. You can do that with an intro to film technology book (barely) but not a digital technology book. I'm afraid that if I wrote a digital cinematography book this year and published it next year, a third of it would be outdated by the time it hit the bookshelves.

When I worked on the Third Edition, the publisher told us that the book could not get any longer, which meant I had to drop some stuff (like 16mm optical printing, near extinct) to make room for the new stuff (like D.I.'s, special lab processes, expanded lighting section, etc.) But then they asked me if I could cover digital cameras as well as 16mm cameras and I said it was impossible given the book length restrictions - that topic would be its own book. Plus it would get dated so much faster.

Sales on that book trickle in yearly, mostly due to film school purchases. Kris, the original author, thought the book would be dead by now but requests kept coming in, hence the order from the publisher to write a new edition. It's funny because back in the 1980's the original publisher was bought out by Simon & Schuster, who told Kris that they would not renew the contract. So he said that was fine... because Focal Press had just contacted him about publishing the book (which was the truth.) Suddenly when Simon & Schuster realized that some other publisher thought there was a market for the book, they said "uh...no, you can't have the rights back -- because we're going to republish it."

After the Tenth Edition of the ASC Manual eventually comes out, edited by Michael Goi, ASC (I'm writing one small article for it), I get the task of editing the Eleventh Edition in a few years. It's a big job because the digital side of things is evolving rapidly.
 
yeah, trying to write anything about digital/HD cinema technology is crazy, because as you say, even within a few months it can be outdated! heh. i was browsing the shelves at Barnes and Noble and there were all these "digital cinema making" books. but when i opened them up, they have all this detailed information about the XL1, HDW-700, etc... hahaha!

well i'm looking for a simple book to learn the basics of cinematography -- mainly lighting and working with light, with particular emphasis on natural-light, outdoor cinematography. i'm not a DP myself, I'm a director, so it should just cover the basics and not go into too much detail about particular film stocks and such. the directors i admire like kubrick and malick have very strong basic knowledge of photography and working with light, so that is the type of knowledge base i am hoping to build up. any basic cinematography books you might recommend?... aside from the one you worked on, which i will pick up.
 
If you haven't, you might want to read some of the Ansel Adam's books on photography.

If you're interested in natural light cinematography, read Nestor Almendros' autobiography "Man with a Camera", who espouses a very simple, natural approach to filmmaking. I also like the interview book "Masters of Light", which includes Almendros.

Kris Malkiewicz's book "Film Lighting" has a lot of good lighting advice from various DP's.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
If you haven't, you might want to read some of the Ansel Adam's books on photography.

If you're interested in natural light cinematography, read Nestor Almendros' autobiography "Man with a Camera", who espouses a very simple, natural approach to filmmaking. I also like the interview book "Masters of Light", which includes Almendros.

Kris Malkiewicz's book "Film Lighting" has a lot of good lighting advice from various DP's.
Click to expand...

Oh geez, I didn't even know Almendros had an autobiography! It's super expensive, used, but I'm going to get my hands on this ASAP... I loved his brief interview in Visions of Light.

Yes, I have been reading some of Ansel's books at my local library. I need to read more for sure.

Thanks a lot, David.
 
David, thanks for taking the time to do this with us!

I've just started to watch the first season of Big Love (via Netflix) and can see some of the challenges you must face as well with your cast; three lovely ladies, but of different ages and skin types, and craggy Bill Paxton thrown into the mix as well!

Does this present much in the way of challenges in regards to diffusion and close ups, and do you feel any pressure (besides your own esthetic tastes) in dealing with the situation? Or were these issues "solved" by a style or formula from the first season that you now match?

Also, more generally, is it difficult to match up with the look of the other two DP's from season one and do you feel able to make your own impact on the look, while not ignoring the shows established visual style?

Regards,
 
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