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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

Whether it is easier to shoot at night just depends on whether you have to deal with the real sun coming through the window, because you probably want to control that aspect and only have your source coming through. But if the window isn't too large, it's not impossible to set a flag high above the window to knock out the real sun when it comes to that angle.

Otherwise, the advantage of shooting in the daytime is the extra ambience, soft natural skylight that will spill through the window. That's hard to recreate at night, plus you've got to light the view out the window, and even harder, the view in the reverse angle when the big door opens -- that part at least will probably have to be shot in the daytime.

It can work either way, to shoot it at night or in the daytime -- if the window is small, I don't think it matters too much one way or the other. Nowadays, in the winter, half the time you start out in the day and end up finishing the scene at night anyway, so most of the lighting will be artificial.

A light smoke / haze will help silhouette the person with the window behind them, and increase the feeling of dustiness, you just need to control the draft in the room, seal it off.
 
fog or hazer?

fog or hazer?

Hello sir....:)

speaking of haze...I'm shooting a scene this coming weekend and would really like to create some 'atmosphere' in the room. Most of the features I've assisted on, have used fog machines to create this effect, but I don't want to overdo it, and waste time filling the room or waiting for the 'smoke to clear', so to speak.
Will a hazer be enough to accomplish this?
 
Hazers are better than fog machines generally, but since they sort of "leak out" haze evenly and slowly, you may want to fire it up in advance before shooting the scene -- the rules for smoke are always the same: you can't haze only part of a space, smoke wants to move until it fills a space evenly. So there's no point in shooting until the smoke has evenly spread out, unless you want to see drifting clouds in the shot.

But whether that haze is very thin or thick, that's up to you -- either way, it just has to be distributed evenly, which takes a certain amount of time initially. But if the room is draft-free, once it is hazed to the level you like, you only have to add a little to it throughout the day.

Even with a fogger, you want to sort of over-smoke the space and then waft it around until it spreads evenly, which again, takes time initially.

Adding smoke to rooms always adds some extra time to shooting, if you want it to look correct, even, and consistent.
 
Also the shoot will be in London so no hope of continuous sunlight. Any thoughts on how to create the ambient from the window? My guess is a lot of the shots will be reasonably tight and not be wide showing the whole shed.
 
You'll probably want to sneak some big soft source through one or more edges of the window to increase the skylight ambience, plus the main sunlight effect.

You could also use an off-camera soft light from the window direction inside the room as well but it wouldn't play on the walls near the window as believably as a light would outside the windows. But it would work as a soft edge on the person in the foreground.
 
Thanks again David. When we get it done I'll post up some grabs for people to crit.
 
Sure, but you have to keep connections dry and out of puddles, as well as ballasts for HMI's. Usually apple boxes to lift the connections and ballasts above the water and plastic sheets over the top, etc.

You usually put a "rain hat" over the light, just a gel on a 4x4 frame armed over the light at an angle so the rain can run-off. But some lights run so hot that very light drizzle just evaporates off of them.

I'm not an electrician so talk to one of them to get the right details of how to work safely in the rain with electricity & lights.
 
dear david,

I was wondering if you could recommend a book that deals extensively with the creation of a certain look through the means of colour correction, lighting and digital post production ?

thank you for your time.

dom
 
I haven't read it yet (but I am quoted a couple of times in it, so I had to buy a copy!), but flipping through Hullfish's "The Art and Technique of Digital Color-Correction" covers some of this, but it seems geared to explaining post work more than shooting techniques.

I can't say there is one book that goes from A to B from prep, shoot, through post, to explain how to achieve different looks, partly because the variations are enormous once you factor in digital tools, plus there are so many different color-correction systems out there.

As for using camera filters to create looks, "Image Control" by Hirschfeld is a good book.
 
David,

I know this may seem trivial but I was curious, as a fairly young student, how does one eventually get to where you are, especially as a cinematographer. This is broad (and quite possibly has been asked before), I know, but anything would be helpful.

Thanks :)

Peter Mosiman
 
I took the route of starting out as a cinematographer and climbing the budget ladder from no-budget non-paying jobs, rather than work as a crew member and climb the crew ladder, like from AC to operator to DP.

It took about ten years to establish myself and make a living at it --luckily I was supported by my wonderful wife during that time, who had healthcare, etc.

In my case, I worked in Los Angeles shooting indie features. One job led to the next.

My first feature as a DP was a non-paying (well, deferred pay, which meant I was never paid) job. It was for a friend in film school. He managed to get some strange deal where a foreign sales agent acting as producer got a lab and a camera rental house to agree to be co-producers and provide services on deferment. This way, he made a 35mm feature with only $45,000 cash on hand, mainly to buy film stock. But the movie owed all those lab fees, post fees, camera rental fees, etc. on its books and it never returned a profit, and the whole scheme never panned out - the lab actually went out of business a year later.

I did this movie only one year after graduating film school. To make some money, I worked as a computer clerk at a post-production sound company.

The next year after that, I got a call from another fellow graduate who was helping some director put together a low-budget thriller, perhaps to be shot very cheaply on 16mm or Betacam (this was 1993). The director normally made EPK's for studios so he had a lot of connections with video people. But after he hired me, he got two producers who managed to raise almost a million dollars, which was a huge break for me. Their line producer / UPM was less than enthusiastic that this first-time director had already hired a second-time DP to shoot his movie, so I had to work for less than what she paid the crew people just to keep my job, but I pulled it off. Again, this was a 35mm movie, shot in 21 days.

My third movie came a year later, also through the same connection as before, a fellow graduate who was trying to help producers get their first features made. Again, a 35mm feature, made in 18 days for only $200,000.

By this point, I was able to quit the job at the sound efx company because the director and the editor of the second feature started making EPK's to support themselves, and I was able to shoot those.

Then that same editor on the second movie introduced me to the director of my fourth movie, a 35mm thriller for $500,000 going straight to video. The producer of that movie made a living doing these sorts of projects, mostly in the $750,000 range, mostly sold to overseas TV. I ended up shooting seven features for that producer.

So it snowballed from there - various people I met on those movies connected me with other people making movies. It helped that I was very fast, worked very cheap, and could deliver a high-quality image, mainly because I'm good at lighting things.

Then after 12 features, I felt the need to redirect my career away from straight to video fare and I started shooting more indie movies, even though they paid even less. (Funny thing was around this time, Wally Pfister was shooting a lot of low-budget fare for Corman and whatnot and I was thinking... "I don't want to end up like Wally Pfister..." Now if only I ended up like Wally Pfister!) So I shot an art film for the Polish Brothers, who had gone to CalArts when I was there, though we actually met two years after that (Mike Polish was in the art school and I was in the film school.)

That movie, "Twin Falls Idaho", really helped my career move up -- it got into Sundance, I got an agent, I got a Spirit Award nomination. It was made in 35mm in 17 days for about $500,000.

That was feature number 13. By feature number 22, I decided I should join the union because the budgets were now reaching that 2 mil. mark where the unions step in. This was around 2003, which was 12 years after graduation. Now it's 2009 almost, I've shot more than 30 features to date, and two cable TV series. And again, most of the work comes from connections made on previous jobs.
 
David,

Thanks for your in depth reply. It's because of people like you that I don't believe all the stuff I've heard about most professionals being jerks. I hope one day that I can be where you are. Thanks again for the reply.

Peter Mosiman
 
Portable/battery lighting

Portable/battery lighting

Hi David,

In a few days we will be shooting some scenes in a forest.
Obviously no mains electricity.
And due to remoteness we don't really want to drag a generator and HMIs out there.

So I was wondering if there are any battery powered lights which are worth bothering with?

My local hire company says No, but I have read in American Cinematography magazine about films made using LED panels which are battery powered.

All we need it for is close-ups, just to get that little extra "kick".
Obviously we can't do anything for wide shots!

What would you do if you were on a low-budget?

Thanks,
Antony
 
A battery-powered light is a total pain-in-the-a-- to deal with, but if that's your only option, it may be better than no lights at all in an emergency.

I don't have much experience powering daylight sources off of portable batteries other than a HMI Joker sun-gun type of set-up, but if all you need is an eyelight, then almost any of those choices will work, some might be less power-hungry than others. The LED might be a good idea -- HMI's can get finnicky in battery situations.

Some white and silver bounces will probably be more useful for you if you don't have any power.

Also, remembering the old rule that a tree is a tree and a rock is a rock, you may save close-ups that need lighting for a small wooded area near a power source.
 
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