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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

Ditto to Jing's thanks. I super appreciate your willingness to help us along the path!

Continuing on :-). What do you think of flicker boxes? That is for things like mimicking firelight or candle effect. Do you use them? The ones I've seen are Magic Gadgets.
 
Well, DVD viewing is very different than watching a movie in a theater. Most of my DVD's were supervised by me, color-correction-wise, but the DVD authoring is out of my control, and some of the compression used has been quite awful. I found some terrible compression artifacts in the DVD of "Akeelah and the Bee".

None of my movies have been released on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray as far as I know. If they were, it would have used the same HD home video master used to create the SD downconversions for the DVD versions.

--

I use flicker boxes like the Magic Gadget for firelight & TV light effects, usually more than one. Or I have one light on a flicker box and one on a dimmer being faded up and down manually, both blended through one frame of diffusion.
 
David,

I asked this over in the Lens Test Forum, but I thought I'd ask you directly.

The combined price of the Red 18:50 + 50:150 is $15,000.

A Ziess Standard Prime Set costs about the same.

It's an either or since I have $15,000 budgeted for glass.

I'd like to know which option you would choose, and why... and if you can think of a better way to spend that budget, please mention that, too.

Thanks!

-Thor
 
I prefer using prime lenses in general, so I'd get the Zeiss set, but that's just me. Some people would find the absense of zooms a real problem for certain types of shooting, especially docs, EPK's, etc. where swapping lenses is not an option. So it depends on the nature of your project. For most of my 35mm features, I only use the zoom about 5% of the time, when I need to zoom basically, or when shooting a stunt outdoors. Otherwise, I use primes. But I just did a TV series where we used zooms 90% of the time on our 35mm cameras.

Of course, you could eventually add a zoom to the package later when you get more money, or rent a zoom in the meanwhile.

You have to weigh the fact that zooms give you all the focal lengths and are faster on the set because you aren't swapping lenses all day, versus primes which will be sharper, faster, less prone to flare. Of course, with an 18-50 and a 50-150, you may find yourself switching lenses more often than you think if each set-up changes radically enough from wide to tight.
 
Hi David, I have two questions:

1) When doing pans with nothing in the foreground - say a landscape - is there a general rule as to the relation of: speed of panning/shutter angle/lens length? I ask this because in my limited experience I have found that motion blur, like in 180 degree shutter, just blurs the image rather than helps to smooth it and a high shutter speed and moving too fast makes the images stutter.

2) Are mirrors ever used for odd angles of shooting? I have never read or heard anything about it yet it seems so logical. Naturally these would have to be optical mirrors, not the kind with the mirror surface behind the glass. Could you for instance mount a mirror to the side of a car and conveniently shoot from the back seat?

I think it is really amazing you have time to answer all these questions here! Really appreciated!
 
There was an old rule about safe panning speed for landscape shots. One website says:

http://www.tech-notes.tv/Archive/tech_notes_035.htm
The recommended panning speed for a 35 mm camera running at 24 fr/sec with a 180-degree shutter and a 50 mm lens is 90 degrees in 23 seconds.
Click to expand...

In other words, verrrrryyyy sllllooooowwww....

I've never been much of a fan of panning across a landscape actually, unless the pan ends on something significant, as a reveal.

--

Yes, some DP's carry around a front-surface mirror for angles where the camera can't get into -- and then flipping the shot in post. The mirrors tend to be heavy and expensive when larger.

Read Roy Wagner's article here about using mirrors:
http://www.theasc.com/clubhouse/tricks.htm
 
David,

Do you have an opinion about the Elite lenses?

-Thor
 
Sorry, David.

I'll search this thread next time before I ask.

Thanks for you help and insight!

-Thor
 
David, what would you consider to be the shortlist (10 movies) that every growing cinematographer *must* see? Not that these are necessarily good movies, but that visually you'd consider them necessary for someone learning the craft to have experienced.
 
Yeah, now I have to cut down my 100 titles of "must see" movies... 10? You could get through that list in a week...

Off the top of my head, I'd say:

Silent: Sunrise
B&W Sound: Citizen Kane, Night of the Hunter, Battle of Algiers
Early Color: Gone with the Wind, Black Narcissus, Moulin Rouge
Color: The Godfather Part II, Barry Lyndon, Days of Heaven...

Heck, I already hit 10 and I didn't get past 1979!

Easier to just repost my old list:

FAVORITE CINEMATOGRAPHY BY DECADE

Silent Era:
Broken Blossoms (1919)
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
The Last Laugh (1922)
Nosferatu (1922)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Sparrows (1926)
Metropolis (1927)
Sunrise (1927)
Wings (1927)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

1930’s:
All’s Quiet On the Western Front (1930)
Morocco (1930)
Dishonored (1931)
Scarlet Empress (1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)
Garden of Allah (1936)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Gone With The Wind (1939)
Wuthering Heights (1939)
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

1940’s:
Grapes of Wrath (1940)
The Long Voyage Home (1940)
Rebecca (1940)
Citizen Kane (1941)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Henry V (1944)
Jane Eyre (1944)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Spellbound (1945)
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
Great Expectations (1946)
A Matter of Life & Death (1946)
My Darling Clementine (1946)
Black Narcissus (1947)
The Fugitive (1947)
Out of the Past (1947)
Hamlet (1948)
Oliver Twist (1948)
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Third Man (1949)


1950’s:
Rashomon (1950)
An American in Paris (1951)
Moulin Rouge (1952)
Othello (1952)
Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Night of the Hunter (1955)
Pather Panchali (1955)
Aparajito (1956)
Lust for Life (1956)
Moby Dick (1956)
The Searchers (1956)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Throne of Blood (1957)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Vertigo (1958)
Apur Sansar (1959)
Ben-Hur (1959)

1960’s:
Psycho (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
El Cid (1961)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Yojimbo (1961)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Cleopatra (1963)
8 1/2 (1963)
Hud (1963)
The Trial (1963)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
I Am Cuba (1964)
Dr. Zhivago (1965)
Help! (1965)
Red Beard (1965)
Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1967)
In Cold Blood (1967)
Hell in the Pacific (1968)
Romeo & Juliet (1968)
2001 (1968)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The Wild Bunch (1969)

1970’s:
The Conformist (1970)
Patton (1970)
Ryan’s Daughter (1970)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Devils (1971)
Fiddler On The Roof (1971)
The French Connection (1971)
Klute (1971)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Cabaret (1972)
Cries & Whispers (1972)
Deliverence (1972)
Fat City (1972)
The Godfather (1972)
Last Tango In Paris (1972)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Paper Moon (1973)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Chinatown (1974)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Lucky Lady (1974)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Sugerland Express (1974)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Day of the Locust (1975)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
All the President’s Men (1976)
Bound For Glory (1976)
Network (1976)
1900 (1976)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)
Robin & Marion (1976)
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
The Duelists (1977)
Eraserhead (1977)
The Exorcist II (1977)
Jesus of Nazarith (1977)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Interiors (1978)
Superman (1978)
Agatha (1979)
Alien (1979)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Dracula (1979)
Manhattan (1979)
1941 (1979)
Tess (1979)

1980’s:
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
Raging Bull (1980)
The Shining (1980)
Stardust Memories (1980)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Excalibur (1981)
Pennies From Heaven (1981)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Reds (1981)
True Confessions (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
Das Boot (1982)
E.T. (1982)
One From the Heart (1982)
Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Fanny & Alexander (1983)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Rumblefish (1983)
Wagner (1983)
Yentl (1983)
Amadeus (1984)
Dune (1984)
Greystoke (1984)
The Natural (1984)
1984 (1984)
Brazil (1985)
The Color Purple (1985)
Ladyhawke (1985)
Legend (1985)
Mishima (1985)
Out of Africa (1985)
Ran (1985)
Blue Velvet (1986)
The Mission (1986)
A Room With A View (1986)
Angel Heart (1987)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
The Last Emperor (1987)
Red Sorghum (1987)
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
Baron Munchausen (1988)
Tequila Sunrise (1988)
Tucker (1988)
Born On the Fourth of July (1989)
Fat Man & Little Boy (1989)
Mountains of the Moon (1989)

1990’s:
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
Dick Tracy (1990)
Ju Dou (1990)
The Godfather, Part III (1990)
Hamlet (Zefferilli) (1990)
Henry & June (1990)
Memphis Belle (1990)
Miller’s Crossing (1990)
The Sheltering Sky (1990)
Barton Fink (1991)
Bugsy (1991)
Delicatessen (1991)
The Doors (1991)
JFK (1991)
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
Terminator II (1991)
Tous Les Matins Du Monde (1991)
Batman Returns (1992)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Far & Away (1992)
1492 (1992)
Jennifer 8 (1992)
Howard’s End (1992)
Like Water For Chocolate (1992)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Little Buddha (1993)
The Piano (1993)
Remains of the Day (1993)
Schindler’s List (1993)
Searching For Bobby Fischer (1993)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Legends of the Fall (1994)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Wyatt Earp (1994)
Braveheart (1995)
Casino (1995)
City of Lost Children (1995)
Crimson Tide (1995)
Flamenco (1995)
A Little Princess (1995)
Nixon (1995)
Seven (1995)
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)
The English Patient (1996)
Evita (1996)
Fargo (1996)
Michael Collins (1996)
Amistad (1997)
Character (1997)
Kundun (1997)
Titanic (1997)
A Civil Action (1998)
Dark City (1998)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Tango (1998)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
The Matrix (1999)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Snow Falling On Cedars (1999)
 
What? I totally read all the way to the bottom expecting the 2000s.

What a great list. I need to add a lot of these to my collection. I've seen all of them post 1940s i think once upon a time but need to see them again.
 
David

Could you give us a short sum up of cheap, but good looking lights. Sure you're working with pro stuff mostly now, but what have you used before? And what would you buy as a life time investment?

Cheers
 
Chinese Lanterns and homemade fluorescents are simple ways of getting a nice soft light. Reflector dishes from hardware stores with lightbulbs are useful.

Otherwise, you need to start building up a simple tungsten package, maybe get a used 650w or 1K fresnel as your "movie light" (fresnels produce nice clean sharp patterns). It's nice to have a few lights that have a spot-flood capability and allow scrims to be dropped in. A few simpler open-faced lights are useful too.

Daylight-balanced lighting used to require HMI's but now there are also LED's and compact fluorescents to give you that color temp.

Eventually you'll want a range of lights including something as bright and punchy as possible that can still be plugged into an ordinary 20amp household circuit. That tends to be the 1200w HMI PAR, a tungsten PAR64 1K with a narrow spot globe, 2K tungstens (and 1K Xenons, which are too expensive to own).

You need something big and bright for lighting at a distance, or creating a strong backlight (faking sunlight), or creating large soft lights, you need something small for accent lighting, you need something naturally soft, and you need workhorse lights that can be used for bouncing & diffusing, etc. And a collection of light bulbs of all types.
 
David, what about halogens? Is there any reason to exclude them from a set?
 
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