Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

Proper exposure in a scene is whatever gives you the effect you want.

As for proper ASA rating to keep noise down to a minimum, you need to test for that. Once you find that rating, then you expose the subject for how bright or dark you want it to look.

 

[Adrian T.]

I think Larry Fong's work in "300" was excellent.

I was extremely distracted by the continuous change in grain structure in "300". Some shots had no visible grain at all, some shots had moderate grain, and some shots were obviously reframed in post so that the grain was monstrous.

I don't know if this is also related to different film stock in use (5212 and 5229).

David, do you have similar experiences with varying grain in your movies?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

"300" was mostly shot on 5229, which is moderately grainy. I think they decided to use grain as a textural element, otherwise they probably could have just digitally degrained the whole movie. It was probably an artistic choice to make it more prominent at certain moments, but maybe not. Not all directors or DP's mind it when the occasional shot gets grainy. Sometimes a shot like that comes up in dailies or in post and the director's response is "oh, that looks cool!" Just like other artifacts, like lens flares.

I've had some grainy shots in my movies, sometimes due to accidental or unavoidable underexposure (sometimes by 2nd unit, not by me -- but sometimes the mistake was mine.) Most of my movies have had minimal grain, I'm generally not a big fan of graininess -- but then, I haven't shot any gritty urban crime movies, for example.

 

[Adrian T.]

Not all directors or DP's mind it when the occasional shot gets grainy.

I'm not opposed to grain as long it's more or less consistent within a certain scene. But when in a dialog scene a medium shot of A with moderate grain is intercut with a close-up of B with excessive grain it somehow distracts me. It's like the two people are not at the same place at the same time.

Anyhow, we don't know if it was a technical problem or fully intentional.

Thanks for this great thread, David.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Consistency in texture is usually the desired goal for the typical dramatic movie, unless you are cutting in flashbacks, drugged POV's, who knows what. It's all a part of the classical Hollywood style where the cinematic tricks are supposed to go by unnoticed by the "average" viewer and be subservient to the narrative.

However, these new "graphic novel" adaptations blend elements of music videos, commercials, and other graphic arts where a discontinuous texture is not uncommon.

 

[Drew Mylrea]

Hi David, again - thanks for the thread;

When a film you shoots gets graded, are you there helping with the color correction? If so, what is the process that you go through and what order do you move through grading (as in - do you establish a look with a wide shot after playing around with colors, etc and then grade all other shots in the scene off of that template)?

You talked earlier about establishing skin tones - when does that come to play in the process and how do you go about manipulating them (not technically, but ideologically what are you looking for / to do?)

Lastly, how long do you typically spend on a grade?

Look forward to hearing all about it! - drew

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally in a traditional photochemical timing, it takes at least three answer prints, usually with two days at least between each print. After that, one or two of the reels may need additional correction, so it's about a two-week process, but each session is only the time it takes to screen the movie.

In color-correction a feature for home video off of a color-timed I.P., it usually takes about a 5-day week in a telecine suite, maybe four days of correction and one day of laybacks to tape. Full 8-hour days in the suite, although the D.P. may skip out now & then if the colorist has a few hours needed to mark edits or make general adjustments.

In color-correction for a feature using a D.I. from a scan of the original negative, it usually takes about two weeks (10 days), and these are eight-hour days, but again, sometimes you can leave the colorist alone for some hours as they do the groundwork, balance shots, etc.

You generally go in shot order, setting the look with the first shots in a scene, but sometimes you need to jump first to a more indicative shot that will set the look for the whole scene, maybe a close-up when the character steps into a certain light, etc. The colorist will save certain frame grabs in a store as you go, to be recalled as needed for matching other shots to, either with A-B switching or doing a wipe or split-screen.

Your comments to the colorist when timing a face are things like "it needs a little more yellow in it", "it's getting too flush, take down some of the red", etc. -- some faces can be adjusted through choice of hue, while other times, you may be playing with chroma levels (some faces just look more saturated than others.) You're basically playing with levels of red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, and magenta, either adding or subjecting to shift the color, and also contrast (gamma), black level, saturation level, etc. It's also helpful to have a frame grab stored of a scene shot in white light when you're timing a long scene shot under a colored light, because your eyes can get tired or used to the odd color and start to filter it out, which tricks you into adding too much of the color afterawhile (you stare at a blue-ish scene for too long and it starts to look normal to your eyes) -- so now and then you want to put up a normal-looking shot as a reference. Same goes for timing a dark scene, it helps now and then to look at a shot in normal brightness.

 

[Miguel "Macgregor" De Olaso]

I think Larry Fong's work in "300" was excellent.



It's almost always cheaper and faster to do slow-motion in post and it almost always looks better (and is harder to do) to do it in camera by shooting at high frame rates.

What? Post slow motion looking good? :w00t:

 

[Adrian T.]

What? Post slow motion looking good? :w00t:

I think you misunderstood David.
He said that it's cheaper and faster in post.
But it mostly looks better shooting at high frame rates.
Chill down, Mac. :tongue:

 

[nzben]

What? Post slow motion looking good? :w00t:

I think in this case David is talking about the slowmotion/speed ramping in 300, as a post effect rather than trying to do it on in-camera. Of course you shoot highspeed on set, then in post ramp faster (and possibly slower) as required.

With some of the ramping going on in 300 it would have been very timeconsuming and costly to achieve totally in-camera. You could also argue from a non-purest point of view that doing in post looks better than in-camera because the in and out points and degree of ramping can be so exact, and creative decisions about where they go in the cut can be made after the fact.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

All I said was that doing slow-motion in camera looks better than doing it in post. As for ramping, there are good reasons to do it in post to material shot at a high frame rate, as long as you don't mind the short shutter angle look of the material when it is converted to normal speed.

 

[Gary McClurg]

Decide to post this here instead of the other thread... Don't Sell your film cameras yet...

Talking about Kodak and Fuji sells... I haven't even thought about it till today... I guess Agfa is dead.... or am I just saying how young I am...

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Jack Cardiff

Jack Cardiff

David,

since you've been dusting off your knowledge on 3-strip technicolor and other arcane, but beautiful, formats of old, I wanted to ask you something. Last night I was, yet again, sleepless and running through my must-watch-at-least-twice-a-year DVDs and watched "The Vikings", photographed by Jack Cardiff in 1958. I have to say I love that film, it was the first one ever that conveyed to me a very strong sense of the amazing power of photography with all its majestic vistas and the amazing colors. But I wondered about a few technical details as well.

Being shot in 1958, I would assume the only stock available was 100 ASA, yet there are plenty of night and low light interior scenes that look amazing, without a speck of grain or noise and without a hint of being overtly lit. How did they manage something so difficult 60 years ago? Do you happen to know the stock used for the movie, and/or any techniques used by Cardiff to make low light situations look like they were shot on contemporary, faster stocks? And what about the color rendition? Blues are very cobalt like, fire renders orange instead of red, blacks have a bluish hue, but all in all, what a wonderful feast for the eyes that photography is. Do you know what the stock, process and techniques used for that film were?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It would have been shot on 5248 (not the EXR 100T 5248 from the 1990's, Kodak reuses numbers...) The first Kodak color negative stock was called 5247 and came out in 1950; it was 16 ASA daylight.

It was replaced in 1952 by 5248, which was 25 ASA tungsten.

A 50 ASA stock didn't come out until 1959, called 5250, and "Spartacus" was one of the first movies to use this new "fast stock". Then in 1962, Kodak replaced it with a finer-grained 50 ASA stock called 5251.

A 100 ASA stock didn't appear until 1968, called 5254. This means that such movies as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "2001" were shot on 50 ASA stocks, which is amazing (particularly "2001".)

The mid 1950's saw the introduction of larger negative formats like VistaVision, 65mm Todd-AO, etc. This compensated for the graininess of Kodak color negative of the day. "The Vikings" was shot in Technirama, which was 8-perf horizontal 35mm (like VistaVision is, and also 35mm still cameras) but with the addition of a 1.5X anamorphic lens to squeeze a 2.35 : 1 image onto the 8-perf negative (which is normally closer to 1.50 : 1). "Spartacus" and "El Cid" were also shot in Technirama, but printed to 5-perf 70mm for release prints, thus calling itself "Super Technirama 70".

Before 5-perf 70mm printing from 8-perf 35mm was an option in the later 1950's, Technirama movies were normally reduced down to 35mm anamorphic (CinemaScope) for release printing, but using Technicolor's dye transfer process. (There was never a dye transfer machine built to do 70mm prints and 8-perf 35mm projection never caught on.) I don't know if "The Vikings" ever got a 70mm release originally.

Anyway, the larger negative accounts for the finer-grained, sharper image, along with the generally harder lighting of the day. And, of course, Cardiff is a great cinematographer.

You can look at a chronology of Kodak stocks here:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/chrono2.jhtml?id=0.1.4.28.14.4&lc=en
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/chrono3.jhtml?id=0.1.4.28.14.6&lc=en

This is a great site to spend some time in, the American Widescreen Museum:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingtr1.htm

 

[ChrisLyon]

Too... much... knowledge!

 

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

With some of the ramping going on in 300 it would have been very timeconsuming and costly to achieve totally in-camera. You could also argue from a non-purest point of view that doing in post looks better than in-camera because the in and out points and degree of ramping can be so exact, and creative decisions about where they go in the cut can be made after the fact.

I'm pretty sure 300's action was almost all shot at high frame rates (between 50fps and 150fps, according to IMDB).

It's easy to speed up slow-motion in post -- assuming, as David pointed out, you don't mind the higher shutter speed in the "normal motion" stuff. Fortunately, the high-shutter look has become a standard in epic action, so it's perfectly acceptable for the aesthetic.

 

[Jason Ing]

"I'll take Cinema for $1000, Alex."

"A highly intelligent, knowledgeable, and talented DP who is also a generous and excellent educator."

"Who is David Mullen?"

"That is correct"

It would have been shot on 5248 (not the EXR 100T 5248 from the 1990's, Kodak reuses numbers...) The first Kodak color negative stock was called 5247 and came out in 1950; it was 16 ASA daylight.

It was replaced in 1952 by 5248, which was 25 ASA tungsten.

A 50 ASA stock didn't come out until 1959, called 5250, and "Spartacus" was one of the first movies to use this new "fast stock". Then in 1962, Kodak replaced it with a finer-grained 50 ASA stock called 5251.

A 100 ASA stock didn't appear until 1968, called 5254. This means that such movies as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "2001" were shot on 50 ASA stocks, which is amazing (particularly "2001".)

The mid 1950's saw the introduction of larger negative formats like VistaVision, 65mm Todd-AO, etc. This compensated for the graininess of Kodak color negative of the day. "The Vikings" was shot in Technirama, which was 8-perf horizontal 35mm (like VistaVision is, and also 35mm still cameras) but with the addition of a 1.5X anamorphic lens to squeeze a 2.35 : 1 image onto the 8-perf negative (which is normally closer to 1.50 : 1). "Spartacus" and "El Cid" were also shot in Technirama, but printed to 5-perf 70mm for release prints, thus calling itself "Super Technirama 70".

Before 5-perf 70mm printing from 8-perf 35mm was an option in the later 1950's, Technirama movies were normally reduced down to 35mm anamorphic (CinemaScope) for release printing, but using Technicolor's dye transfer process. (There was never a dye transfer machine built to do 70mm prints and 8-perf 35mm projection never caught on.) I don't know if "The Vikings" ever got a 70mm release originally.

Anyway, the larger negative accounts for the finer-grained, sharper image, along with the generally harder lighting of the day. And, of course, Cardiff is a great cinematographer.

You can look at a chronology of Kodak stocks here:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/chrono2.jhtml?id=0.1.4.28.14.4&lc=en
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/chrono3.jhtml?id=0.1.4.28.14.6&lc=en

This is a great site to spend some time in, the American Widescreen Museum:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingtr1.htm

 

[Jason Ing]

Thanks for generously sharing your time and wisdom, David. I just wanted to say that I know it takes more then just knowledge and experience to be a good teacher. Teaching is it's own skill and talent. I've read this entire thread, learned a lot like everyone else, and have to say you are an excellent teacher.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks, I try.

 

[Jason Ing]

Seeing that you use frame grabs of dvds as a learning tool (I like to see them in an editing software as well), how visually close are the dvd versions to your original movie version? And, how about any blue ray/hd versions? If I didn't originally see a movie in the theater, I always wonder if I'm watching what the DP really meant to shoot... "Did they really mean to crush all the blacks like that? That's a lot of hot spots. How did they get that look?, etc. etc." Even a difference in tv technology makes a difference; I remember watching Matrix side by side on two 52 inch hdtvs, one a plasma that lost all the detail in the shadows and the other a rear projection that revealed a lot of detail.