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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

Hi David,

You mentioned half soft frost. That's in a 4x4 frame right? Or do they make a larger size in a frabic for a butterfly?

BTW, have you shot anything for Richard Brandes lately?

Bob
 
David,

Long time listener, first-time caller. I have a question about lighting/controlling light on exterior shoots. I have read all the recent posts about overheads and bounce, etc. and they have been very helpful.
I have slowly progressed from being a DP on tiny, no-budget video projects to HD features with small budgets (under $100,000). So I have become really good at using reflectors, foamcore and Flexfills in exteriors to shape light and control contrast, but I don’t have any experience using overhead silks or nets, nor do I have much experience in using HMI’s or gelled tungstens for fill in an exterior situation.
Here’s my question: how do you decide whether to control contrasty sunlight by flying an overhead silk (or Half Soft Frost as you suggested) vs. reducing the contrast ratio by filling in with lighting instruments or reflectors? Or do you use both simultaneously? What is your methodology when faced with a contrasty exterior?

Thanks!
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Half Soft Frost comes in large shapes for big frames, 12'x12', 20'x20' -- it's sort of a thin shower curtain material.

On 4'x4' frames, the closest thing would be Opal.

I talked to Richard a few months ago but haven't worked with him in awhile.
Click to expand...

That's why I didn't recognize it. We've always just called it "Shower Curtain."

Richards a good guy. My wife and I worked on "Devil in the Flesh" with he and Kurt.

Bob
 
Todd Norris said:
Here’s my question: how do you decide whether to control contrasty sunlight by flying an overhead silk (or Half Soft Frost as you suggested) vs. reducing the contrast ratio by filling in with lighting instruments or reflectors? Or do you use both simultaneously? What is your methodology when faced with a contrasty exterior?
Click to expand...

It's hard to speak in the abstract because what if the story called for a certain harshness? Then the problem would be what to do about overcast days when there wasn't enough contrast.

So you've first got the issue of context, what's right for the scene.

Second factor is continuity, is there so much coverage over so many hours that you will be better off reducing the directionality of the sun with a silk? Is the sun going in and out of clouds so much that you want to even that out with a silk? Will the actors want to stand for several hours under the full sun?

Third is believability -- with a thin diffuser like Half Soft Frost, the light still looks directional enough and bright enough that it doesn't look like the actors are standing under something. But with a silk, it definitely looks like the actors are under the shade of something. Can this be justified? Could they possibly be under an off-camera tree or building or hill shadow? Or are they in the middle of a flat open expanse where it may look a bit odd for them to be under a silk? Also, if the actors get a stop or so darker under a silk and you open up the compensate, what happens to the background? If the background is a line of dark trees, that could work out to be an advantage, to overexpose them a little, but what if it's a white building?

Fourth is about making the actors look good. Perhaps you've got some middle-aged actors that simply won't look very good under harsh overhead sunlight. Can you shoot all of their close-ups when the sun is lower?

Fifth is practicality -- can you even fly a big silk? Can you keep the rigging out of the shot? Is it too windy for a silk?

Sixth is camera / actor movement -- does the silk cover them for the length of their walk? Does it need to? Sometimes I'll clip leafy tree branches to the edge of the silk frame so that you see that leafy pattern pass over them as they step under a silk.

Last is "do I like the hard sunlight?" If so, I'd probably just stick to using some weak fill if needed and keeping the directionality.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Almost anything can be used as an eye light. Sometimes the fill acts as an eye light too.

I used to tape a Kino MiniFlo to the mattebox for a specific glint, but lately I've been using a LitePanels Micro.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify on anothers post...by eyelight do you mean 'catch light'...are they the same thing, different word?

FLASHLIGHTS...

Any words of wisdom on lighting scene with a flashlight only...is it tricked mostly when the light is off-camera or are they specially designed torches or just very bright torches?

Thanks in advance... =)
 
Nowadays with fast film, lenses, and bright flashlights like by Surefire or Streamlight, you can shoot fine with them. You may want to increase ambience and bounce though with some off-camera lights adding the what the flashlight is giving you as it pans around a room.
 
David,

Thank you very much for your informative answer regarding exterior lighting. I am now armed with a series of questions to ask myself in any exterior situation. This thread really is an invaluable resource.

Thank you so much!
 
Lace behind the lens

Lace behind the lens

Hi David,
Glad to see you on REDUSER. I've had the pleasure to communicate on the Cinematography website.

I know in the history of cinema many different items have been used behind the lens to create various effects. Probably the most famous recent one would be Henri Alekan in Wings of Desire (silk stocking).

Some friends have mentioned using lace on the corner of the lens to give a garment depth in an interview setup - as opposed to using lights.

Have you used any of these methods/materials and, if so, could you elaborate on the specifics of the application and the ideal result?

Thanks for your time.

Pierre
 
Hi David,
Sorry to ask another gear question, but what do you think of the light produced by "softlights" (such as the Mole 2551 softlight) as opposed to bouncing into bead, using frost gel or outfitting with a chimera?
 
Hey David-
I often put so called Clear or UV filters on my SLR lenses to protect the front element from wear and tear (much easier to replace a $10 filter than a $300 lens.) Is this ever done with PL primes? Or would a feature camera crew just give me funny looks?
Thanks,

-Harry
 
Pierre Robichaud said:
Hi David,

Some friends have mentioned using lace on the corner of the lens to give a garment depth in an interview setup - as opposed to using lights.

Have you used any of these methods/materials and, if so, could you elaborate on the specifics of the application and the ideal result?

Thanks for your time.

Pierre
Click to expand...

I don't really understand what you are describing so I can't comment, unless it means putting some lace in front of a light hitting some clothing to provide some texture and pattern to the surface.
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Hi David,
Sorry to ask another gear question, but what do you think of the light produced by "softlights" (such as the Mole 2551 softlight) as opposed to bouncing into bead, using frost gel or outfitting with a chimera?
Click to expand...

Small soft lights like the 1K Mole or the 2K "Zip" have their uses, but they are not particularly soft as sources.

The softness of any light is based on the size of the source (and if shining a light through a diffusion frame or bouncing, the area of the material hit by the light becomes the "source") relative to the distance to the subject. In other words, a 4'x4' frame of diffusion may produce the same softness of light as a 20'x20' frame of diffusion much farther away if from the point of view of the subject, they seem to take up about the same relative area in their field of vision. The main difference will be fall-off -- the closer diffusion frame will have a more dramatic fall-off in exposure as the subject moves closer and farther from it. That's one of the problems you get when lighting a set for daylight. You may put a big diffusion frame outside of a window and get a soft effect similar to natural skylight, but as the actor moves closer to and farther from the window, they will change more radically in exposure with the diffusion frame source than in real life with natural skylight, which is a bigger soft source much farther away. If you are outside and lit softly by an overcast sky, you don't get brighter just climbing a ten foot ladder. But if you are outside under a silk with the sun shining through it and you climb a ten foot ladder that reaches the silk, you will get visibly brighter.

So the face of a 1K Mole softlight, which is something around 1'x1' maybe, is not a very large shape and thus not a very soft light. But up close, at least it doesn't have the specular quality of a hard light. With egg crates on them, at least it has some directionality, hence why they can occasionally be useful. But in general, they aren't soft enough for my purposes.
 
dudeguy37 said:
Hey David-
I often put so called Clear or UV filters on my SLR lenses to protect the front element from wear and tear (much easier to replace a $10 filter than a $300 lens.) Is this ever done with PL primes? Or would a feature camera crew just give me funny looks?
Thanks,

-Harry
Click to expand...

Generally you don't leave a protective filter over a cine lens all the time, you just take good care of the lens, and you only put a protective filter in front if there is a chance of the lens getting hit with something during the take.

However, if these are your own personal lenses, you can do whatever you want with them to protect them. In general though, you want to use the least amount of extra glass in front of a lens because extra glass will increase the chance of flares and ghost reflections.
 
Hi David !

We have a project going on with RED which should be shot with anamorphic lenses. Can you give me please any advices regarding which lenses would fit the RED sensor in 4KANA mode....

thx a lot

Rainer
 
Any 35mm anamorphic PL-mount lenses would work on the RED. They certainly all "fit" because the area used on the RED sensor for anamorphic 2.40 is smaller than the 4-perf 35mm anamorphic format. So there's a 1.5X crop factor to compensate for -- i.e. if you'd normally use a 50mm anamorphic lens for a scene, you need to use a 35mm anamorphic lens to get the same field of view on the RED camera in 4K ANA mode.

So the problem becomes finding short-enough focal lengths for really wide-angle shots.

Remember that you get 2X the field of view with an anamorphic lens over a spherical, so the 40mm anamorphic is a commonly used wide-angle lens in anamorphic photography, similar to using a 20mm lens in spherical 35mm. So generally you may occasionally use a 35mm anamorphic (similar to a 17mm in 35mm spherical photography) for really wide-angle shots, but the 40mm is more popular -- meaning you'd want to find something like a 28mm anamorphic lens for the RED camera to get a similar field of view.
 
Thx David. I'm not a DP, but the DP of the project was asking, because the RED sensor is 16:9 size. So we were searching for lenses which are using the full sensor to get the full resolution. As I see for example the panavision anamorphic lens is designed for a S35mm sized frame which is normally not 16:9 or 2:1. Are there lenses which are designed for a 16:9 or 2:1 plane? So if we use "normal" anamorphic lenses we would record a wider angle because the sensor is horizontally longer than S35 because of the aspect of the red sensor?

thx
rainer
 
Hey David.

I don't meam to be sycophantic but I think you work is outstanding.

I like the way you seem to stick to fairly bold lighting and colours. By this I mean good directionality and contrast ratio's but also the vision, when NOT to light something. This for me is the difference between lighting and illumination.

OK, got that out of the way. What I would like to know is how much you set the colours in your projects 'in camera'. Do you tend to create the colours with gels on the lights on set, or in post? If it is the former where do youo get your inspiration?

Mike Costelloe
 
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