Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Tom Lowe]

haha, good points. I'm still a philosophical die-hard on "realistic," natural-light photography, but you make good points about killing multiple shadows indoors, etc.

As far as the shot we were talking about, I think it's just going to be too complicated for my little show, so there's a chance I will scrap it and replace it with a similar scene in an alpine sierra meadow at sundown.. something that fills the same emotional space and progression of the story.

By the way, since you brought up day for night/dusk for night, I've never been a big fan of that technique. The classic shot that really turned me off from day for night was that night surfing scene in "Point Break"... it looked super unrealistic to me. Basically, there was too much reflection off the water and waves, which made it obvious that the scene was shot in the afternoon and then brought down in exposure/brightness. Did you hate this scene as much as I did?? Maybe they should have piled on a huge stack of pola filters? I'm just really skeptical of day for night.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

What about the day-for-night in "Days of Heaven"? And is night lighting more "realistic" or does it just seem that way because it is obviously shot at night no matter how badly it is lit?

 

[Tom Lowe]

Are you talking about the wine in the river scene from DoH? If so, yeah, it was a little odd. But still I love all the shots in that movie!

I guess the good day for night shots are the ones I probably never even noticed! Do you know some good examples I could check out, David?

 

[Jason Murphy]

As an aside, Tom, have you seen The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat, dp. Benoit Delhomme)? It's an excellent Western, and it has a wonderful nighttime sequence in it in the desert with moonlight and stars. Pretty sure it was accomplished using compositing as mentioned above, but it's gorgeous regardless.

Also, Tom & David - this is a great discussion here. Thanks!

 

[Tom Lowe]

As an aside, Tom, have you seen The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat, dp. Benoit Delhomme)? It's an excellent Western, and it has a wonderful nighttime sequence in it in the desert with moonlight and stars. Pretty sure it was accomplished using compositing as mentioned above, but it's gorgeous regardless.

Also, Tom & David - this is a great discussion here. Thanks!

No, but it has been VERY high on my list of things to see. Is there by any chance an HD version of this?

 

[Jason Murphy]

No, but it has been VERY high on my list of things to see. Is there by any chance an HD version of this?

Not that I'm aware of, sadly. It'll happen eventually, though, I'm sure.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah. You know, I had The Proposition shipped to me by netflix, and I used DVD Shrink to put it on my harddrive. But when I went to watch it like a month later, DVD Shrink had done a horrible job of encoding, with all the motion horribly blurred, so I had to delete it.

Since then I have learned to either use light encoding on DVD Shrink, or no encoding at all. The long and short of it is that I will have to bump this back up to the top of my queue.

BTW, I recently got "The Searchers Bonus Disc" and it was quite good, with a lot of behind the scenes stuff of Ford and Wayne and the picture... it was a good use of netflix. There is a "behind the scenes" doc hosted by some studio WWII-propaganda-style guy that had me LOLing. I ripped it and might have to upload it to youtube.

 

[number6]

As an aside, Tom, have you seen The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat, dp. Benoit Delhomme)? It's an excellent Western, and it has a wonderful nighttime sequence in it in the desert with moonlight and stars. Pretty sure it was accomplished using compositing as mentioned above, but it's gorgeous regardless.

Also, Tom & David - this is a great discussion here. Thanks!

If they had just made that line of trees in the background darker, I could maybe have bought into this.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

Please, anyone else who wants to add to my answers too, please do so...

I’m a big fan of Chris Doyle, particular his work in “Fallen Angels”, “In the Mood for Love”, “Hero”, “2046”. He did some nice subtle period work recently in “The White Countess”, though not as snazzy as his work for Wong Kar Wei. I have one of his still photography books, “A Cloud in Trousers”, which has a lot of what looks like push-processed slides. I think in terms of photographing urban landscapes, especially at night, he’s probably Number One.

A DP’s work sometimes falls into two rough categories, naturalism/realism and expressionism/impressionism. Either they are creating a believable effect… or they are distorting reality for a psychological effect. Or course, movies do both, in the same movie, all the time, but some DP’s lean more one way than the other. People like Roger Deakins, David Watkin, Nestor Almendros, Gordon Willis, tend towards a naturalistic approach grounded in reality, whereas someone like Robert Richardson, Chris Doyle, Janusz Kaminski, Vittorio Storaro lean towards a more manipulated distorted reality, either more operatic & theatrical, or more expressionistic or impressionistic. But I don’t want anyone to take these labeling too seriously – it’s just a loose way of thinking about how one works, sees the world or art.

A lot of this, of course, is grounded by the material being adapted, and by the director’s visual taste too. And you can also see documentary impulses weaving through Robert Richardson’s or Chris Doyle’s work, even while they also can be quite theatrical at times.

I’d love to shoot for David Lynch, Ridley Scott, Terrance Malick… just to learn something from them.

Recent movies with good images… well, the Autochrome-inspired flashbacks in “The Illusionist” were interesting… the faux Technicolor look of parts of “Tears of the Black Tiger”… the long takes in “Children of Men”… the overall mood of “The Fountain”… many moments in “The New World”.

Chinese Lanterns: I use them all the time. I haven’t used too many all at once, though I once lit a running shot through the woods by hanging a string of Chinese Lanterns with daylight photofloods in them. In terms of using a lot of them in a grid pattern in a ceiling, that should work fine as long as there aren’t simpler and faster ways to get a soft overhead light effect. Just depends.

David, man...I'm in love with my girlfriend, but your stock just went through the roof if it's possible for a heterosexual male to love another man. I'm totally kidding. That even made me uncomfortable. Hahaha.

Anyway, I completely LOVE Fallen Angels and all of Doyle's and Wai's collaborations for that matter - as a matter of fact the video Wong Kar Wai did for DJ shadow "Six Days" influenced my first "professional" music video.

There's a shot in Fallen Angels where the main character is sitting in a storefront and the edges of the frame go all liquidy. How was that shot done? I tried emulating it with Super 8 and ran water down a pane of glass when I was in film school, but it didn't have the same feeling.

Could you shed some light on the technique?

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

Yeah. You know, I had The Proposition shipped to me by netflix, and I used DVD Shrink to put it on my harddrive. But when I went to watch it like a month later, DVD Shrink had done a horrible job of encoding, with all the motion horribly blurred, so I had to delete it.

Since then I have learned to either use light encoding on DVD Shrink, or no encoding at all. The long and short of it is that I will have to bump this back up to the top of my queue.

BTW, I recently got "The Searchers Bonus Disc" and it was quite good, with a lot of behind the scenes stuff of Ford and Wayne and the picture... it was a good use of netflix. There is a "behind the scenes" doc hosted by some studio WWII-propaganda-style guy that had me LOLing. I ripped it and might have to upload it to youtube.

Dude, did you forget you were on a forum with other filmmakers. Ripping and archiving stuff is one thing, but I don't know that I'd be advertising doing this and uploading clips. Whatever, it's your thing, but something about that just doesn't seem right.

 

[Tom Lowe]

I was only joking, man.

I would encourage people to rent or buy that Searchers Bonus DVD. It was apparently one of the first-ever "behind the scenes" docs shot for a movie. There are some classic shots of stuntmen flying off horses, the sprawling camp that was set up for the production in Monument Valley, and footage of Wayne and Ford guzzling beers in their on-location saloon.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

I was only joking, man.

I would encourage people to rent or buy that Searchers Bonus DVD. It was apparently one of the first-ever "behind the scenes" docs shot for a movie. There are some classic shots of stuntmen flying off horses, the sprawling camp that was set up for the production in Monument Valley, and footage of Wayne and Ford guzzling beers in their on-location saloon.

Whew. I was thinking you were loony posting that here. :w00t: :angry03: :construction:

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There's a shot in Fallen Angels where the main character is sitting in a storefront and the edges of the frame go all liquidy. How was that shot done? I tried emulating it with Super 8 and ran water down a pane of glass when I was in film school, but it didn't have the same feeling.

I recall that shot being undercranked and step-printed back to normal speed, hence the steppy motion of the background people and the water -- but as for how they got the water to flow the way it did, I don't know. Doing shots of artificial rain hitting window glass is always a bit trial and error, trying different angles & intensity of spraying & dripping until it looks right.

 

[Eryc Tramonn]

I recall that shot being undercranked and step-printed back to normal speed, hence the steppy motion of the background people and the water -- but as for how they got the water to flow the way it did, I don't know. Doing shots of artificial rain hitting window glass is always a bit trial and error, trying different angles & intensity of spraying & dripping until it looks right.

Thanks David, appreciate the time. It is so cool being able to ask you questions. You the man.

 

[liquidigital]

David, I had a question, but I'm going to save it until I do a little more reading. Too much stuff to process

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Ridley Scott's smoked sets

Ridley Scott's smoked sets

David,

Also, if and when you have the time. I just watched Ridley Scott's first film, "The Duellists", and enjoyed it tremendously, forgot what a little gem it is. Astonishing cinematography for my taste. I remember seeing the film back when I was about 12, in black and white TV, and still realizing that every frame had to be "composed" because they looked like renaissance paintings each and everyone. Probably one of the first films that made me realize that cinematography was a conscious and omnipresent art/tool in moviemaking. Then this time around, some 26 years later, I went ahead and watched "Alien" right after it, and marveled once again, at Scott's flare and nack for cinematography. Though his films have a credited cinematographer, it is usually him, or at leasat it was on those two first films, the one that handled the camera and composed the shots. And realized, once again, the extensive use he makes of smoke to add depth to his scenes. What's your take on this technique, provided of course the scene allowss it? What do you think in general of Scott's camera work or eye? Is it a style that works for him because as a director he has already every scene mapped out in his mind or would you change/disagree with some of his options or approach? Some cinematographers whom I much respect claim his camera work to be a bit obvious and manipulative, though I disagree...

Just a question of your very own perception rather than a critical assesment,

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm a big fan of Ridley Scott's work.

Ignoring the use of smoke for the moment, or the stylized cutting/camera movement (of late), if you look at Ridley Scott's lighting philosophy, for the most part, it is grounded in realism -- light comes from real sources/directions (or a source is simulated) and there is very little fill light, and people often go dark or silhouette. I talked to a crew member who worked on "American Gangster" (shot by Harris Savides, a minimalist) and he said that despite truckloads of equipment and a big crew, often they would shoot for days in available light with just a bounce card as the only lighting instrument.

The "painter's eye" comes in how he composes for these light sources, often making them a prominent visual element in the frame.

The smoke is an exaggeration, so to speak, of natural aerial haze, etc. though often I notice when the smoke won't stay still (due to a draft on the set perhaps) he has the characters smoking a cigar or cigarette to justify the drifting haze/clouds.

It's a style that some people refer to "romantic realism" -- sort of an exagerrated realism meant to simulate natural light at its most beautiful or poetic.

 

[jaadgy akanni]

David, do you think it would possible to anamorphicize a spherical lens, perhaps with a filter? I believe such a filter doesn't exist but perhaps one could be designed to give us at least the look of anamorphic glass-with the oval shaped bokeh, you know.
Another way could possibly be to do it by way of software within the camera itself, like a preset that makes the sensor anamorphicize the image seen by the lens. HAHAHA I know I sound a little crazy, but hey!

 

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

I love Ridley Scott's movies too, but we should give his cinematographers their due: John Mathieson for example is a pretty special DoP...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

No, I don't think a filter, other than an actual front anamorphic lens attachment (which would not be optically great -- see the ones made for DV cameras), can simulate all the quirks of anamorphic photography, other than the blue horizontal streak filter that Vantage makes.