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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

Well, that's a problem -- the faces -- because whether you add the warmth in post or with a filter on the camera, it affects everything in the frame including faces. Not really a trick around that short of painting people's skin blue-ish so that it becomes normal after the color-correction.

Though another idea might be to forget skintones in the wider shots, let them go orangey, but float a blue gel on a frame over them in close-ups to reduce the amount of warmth.

Unless you want to tediously track hand-drawn or oval windows in post over every face to shift the color separately from the background.

Grads darken the sky, or whatever they are over, they don't darken the ground (unless they are covering the ground.) Generally that's OK because the sky is hotter than the ground anyway.

But if you want a more subtle color shift without the brightness shift, one trick is to sandwich a colored grad with an ND (grey) grad going the opposite direction (upside-down compared to the first grad) so that they blend from color to grey instead of color to clear.

Grads though won't work in every shot, they tend to only work in wide static shots with a constant horizon line, hopefully above the actors heads.

You may want to compare two Mars movies, "Mission to Mars" and "Red Planet". "Mission to Mars" spray-painted a constructed outdoors landscape set reddish and then used copper-foiled reflectors to fill-in shadows with copper light (they also timed the image in post to look more orangey, and they did a lot of sky replacement). "Red Planet" shot out in the desert with sepia-ish or tobacco-ish filters.
 
Thanks for sharing your ideas. I'll try some of them and see wich of them work best. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. It's one way or the other. I'll post some results when I have them.

If you don't mind me asking I have a few other question about lighting a scene. This are two scenes from The Curious Case of B.B.

BenjaminButtonNightScene.JPG


BenjaminButtonNightScene2.JPG


Everything in the picture is clear. Do you know how they did the lightning? Did they also light the entire scene and underexpose the camera and then add the highlights? Is my camera capable of doing these kinds of scenes you think? I have a canon hv20 and it's 0.3 lux.
 
Looks like an HMI outside of a window throwing a sharp pattern in the room with a softened light for ambience / fill, that could be anything, another bounced HMI for example. Or it could be a single HMI shining through the window with some curtain sheers on each side, parted in the center to allow sharp light to fall but also soft light from passing through the sheers.

Yes, it's a bit underexposed.

Sure, you could possibly get a similar lighting effect with your Canon if you had the right lighting instruments, though you'd have more depth of field than the Viper in this case. Maybe a 1200w HMI PAR outside the window would be bright enough, depending on the size of the window, the size of the room, and the distance to the actor.
 
David, I just wanted to followup on two pieces of advice that you shared. First, Quality Light Metric did a great job cleaning and calibrating my Minolta Color Meter II. $98 plus shipping and it took only a few days. Now I am running around testing the color temp of every light source.

One of the things I tested was the color temp of oven-safe parchment paper. You had mentioned that there might be a color shift in addition to a reduction in luminence and diffusion. The color temp is essentially the same as the light source. 3200K Pepper is 3170-90 with the parchment. Similar result for a CFL at 6000K. So it looks like parchment paper can be a good cheap substitute for heavy diffusion (i.e., a PA can run to a Safeway rather than try to find a theatrical supply).

Thanks again, Mike
 
Streutker said:
Will the light of one 500watt HMI be same as two 250watt HMI's?
Click to expand...

Could be, more or less, though you'd have a double shadow unless they were blended with some diffusing.

The thing about your examples is that it could be done day-for-night if you used a 4'x4' reflector outside the window to throw the hard pattern of light straight across the room -- either a mirror board for a super crisp source, or the shinier side of a normal silver foil reflector for a harsh but not crisp light (backing up the reflector will help make it look more even and sharp, less spotty.)
 
Day for night would be ok but then I would not be able to place a fixture just like in the first example picture. Or am I mistaken about that? I really like that contrast.

The reason I ask all this is because I also want to film a scene in a dark room. The room is lit by moonlight shining trough the windows. In the room there is a bed with someone sleeping on it. Next to the bed is a table and on that table I want to place a fixture like the lamp in my examples. So there will be 3 colors in the close up shot of the person lying on the bed : The moon color, the blue ambience color of night and the glowy orange-red like color from the fixture. I think it will make a nice picture. ( There will also be a television in the room, but I don't know if I will turn it on. Otherwise there will be 4 different colors. I have to test that out yet.) And b.t.w. there also will be a shot of the room in full glory ... my wide angel lens adapter will come in tomorrow!

I recently found a Lee filter supplier nearby that suits my needs so I bought the following filter:

TokyoBlue071.JPG


I wanted to use this filter to raise my ambience dark scene level in a test scene I did last night. Well ...I did not understood the diagram in the picture but now I understand. The diagram and the color you see is based on the 3200K tungsten light. So when i place this filter in front of my light kit it will produce the exact same color on a white wall as in a picture. But as the diagram show, it will only use 35% procent of all light produced by the work light. So I ended up with a useless dark picture. I need another filter to raise my ambience level. I need filters with a high transmission since my worklights ain't that strong.

So I came up with this for the ambience:

CabanaBlue715.JPG


And this as moonlight:

MistBlue061.JPG


And then underexpose the image a bit and then maybe do a little color correction in post.

Do you mind sharing your thoughts on this?
 
David, I wanted to thank you for recommending "Prince of the City". When I saw the running time of the only version available on Blockbuster on-line I was a bit scared but both me and Michelle sat captivated through the whole ~330 minutes.

I felt the perspective jumps were a bit harsh at times, but I really liked the cinematography and the use of non-normal lengths. What a good example of the non-normal effect, thank you David. I wonder if the shorter version avoided some of these jumps or if there were new ones.


Unlike "Prince of the City" only half to 2/3'rds of our movie would be non-normal. Still, I am concerned with having to shoot in a way that would lock us into a specific cut, at least for the sections where we'd transition from normal to wide or telephoto. I see the ability to gradually move wider and wider as the scene calls for it as an incredibly powerful tool that I would have a lot of use for, so I consider it completely worth the hassle. It is however a bit intimidating knowing that you will lose a lot of freedom in the editing room. It sound like an insane amount of fun though.

I feel confident since I edit a lot and I wrote a shooting script just as I see the movie edited in my mind. But the only solution I can see is hiring someone like you with ample pre-production time to get our minds synchronized to a very high level.

Do you have any tips?
 
One idea may be to shoot a "photoboard" --- storyboards using a DSLR and some stand-ins (or your actors) using the correct focal lengths you plan. There are programs that allow you to put text and dialogue balloons in the picture and lay the photos out. I think I once used something called "Comic Life", a comic book software.

But as for coverage, I'd give yourself a little wiggle room so you can shorten a scene if necessary.
 
Streutker said:
Day for night would be ok but then I would not be able to place a fixture just like in the first example picture. Or am I mistaken about that? I really like that contrast.
Click to expand...

You can always make a daytime room darker, maybe with ND gel on the windows, and you could put a brighter bulb in the practical fixture. So it just depends on the space. If your lights are not bright enough to be gelled blue, you may have no choice anyway but to try day for night.

I wouldn't get too wrapped up over exotic shades of blue gel, for the most part, the basic blue series would work fine: CTB (Color Temperature Blue). The advantage to CTB gel is that is comes in 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, Full strengths, so if one strength cuts down too much light, you switch to the next lighter strength. Plus these gels are so commonly used that you can find scraps and partial rolls if you look hard enough.

It's simple: the deeper blue gels cut more exposure than the paler blue gels do. There's no trick around that, no special blue gel that is somehow a rich color blue but doesn't cut the light as much as some other similarly deep blue gel.

If your lights aren't bright enough to get the shot and day-for-night is too bright... then your choices are either to get brighter lights or knock down the level of the daylight.

For the softer blue effect, you can try daylight flourescent tubes or compact flos. You can put two or three daylight compact flos in a large Chinese Lantern to get a soft blue-ish light (blue-ish if you set the camera to tungsten balance of course.)
 
Alright, thanks for your advice. I really appreciate your time and effort. I'll order some of those CTB gels and start some test shoots. My local hardware store has some of those dispenser fluorescent tubes with cables and plus and all ... I tested one and they were green to the eye so should be blue when using Tungsten white balance. I'll use some of those too. If it looks good I'll post some results.

First finish my day at work ! Damn , can't wait !
 
Hi David,
I am a first time caller, long time fan. :)

Question I have is,
I will have my first steadycam with the Red Camera.
Can you suggest a rig that would be lightweight and mobile to use with a RED camera.

The rig set up will be around the Actioncam - Red Edition.
http://actionproducts.ch/actioncam/red-edition.html
 
May I suggest the GLIDECAM V-25 system. This works rather well as a camera stabilizer for the RED ONE camera.

Regards,
Martin
 
Hi, I remember that you recommended a few times in the past FFN 6ºX12º 1000w par cans for accenting night exteriors and for Richardson-style glowing light pools.

I was about to order a few par cans for upcoming shoots, but I found some strange inconsistencies among them. GE brand FFN spotlights claimed an amazing 400,000 lumens output, whereas other brands (of the same ANSI coded light) claimed 30,000 lumens.

I noticed other GE brand par lights had similarly inflated output. My guess is that other manufacturers quoted output in lumens, GE in candlepower, but they were both transcribed as lumens. I honestly don't even know what those measurements MEAN so I figured I'd ask just how bright these things are in relative terms.

Compared with a spotted 1.2kw fresnel or PAR64 1.2k HMI with no lens, how bright is the FFN? My guess would be 1/4 as bright at most; is that about right?

And have you used the dichroic (daylight) FGN lights: http://www.usedledlighting.com/view/1812/dichroic-par-64-1k-bulb-fgn ? B&H claims these output an incredible 70,000 lumens (2/3 of the 1.2kw HMI). How bright are they really? I want to do that Kaminsky-style interior where it's lightly hazed and there are these beams of blue light coming through the window. I'm assuming we're dealing with 4ks or bigger or even xenons (or jokers housed in lekos) in those cases, but would something like this work at all? We don't need as much stop as I'm sure he had to play with, but is it even very focused or do I need a brighter and tighter beam?

Thanks as always!

Edit: Is there anyway to get a fogger to behave like a hazer? What if I put a fan in front of it to disperse and cool the smoke?
 
Making it as a DP

Making it as a DP

Hi David, thanks so much for this thread. I've learned more in the last few weeks reading it piece by piece than I ever thought I could.

My question is:

How does one "make it" as a DP? I have a good reel, but I am still finding it hard to get hired on projects, outside of no-budget student short films. What do you suggest to do to kickstart a career?

Thank you for your time and for sharing.
 
Thought I would share with everyone. I asked David for a bit more clarification on his process for meeting with directors to plan a film. Here is his response:

---------------

It partly depends on how the director wants to prep as well, but generally the way it goes is that we have a meeting to discuss broad stylistic issues, color schemes, etc. and how it relates to the narrative, we talk about what the director wants to see from the movie. Then the next meetings we go through the script page by page. Maybe we start at the top, or maybe we jump around.

I take notes, maybe the director does to, and at some point, the question comes up as to who wants to write up the shot lists. Depends on whose notes are better. Sometimes I type the lists, filling in the blanks, making sure it looks reasonable, and then the director edits the list. At some point later, I start to rearrange the list in shooting day order instead of script order.

Now if the director wants to go further and storyboard some of those scenes, then that's fine, the question is who will draw the storyboards and from what notes.

I find that it's hard to have more or less than a 3-hour meeting each day. All day long is too much, and under two hours and you never get anything done. Try to schedule the meetings early in the morning before the director gets busy, and try to get him to not take phone calls during the meeting.

Bring whatever DVD clips or artwork you want to show him.

If you start to run out of time, talk through the scenes by schedule order so that at least you are caught up for each week before it happens. And over-plan the first few days to make sure they go like clockwork.

---------------

Thanks, Mr. Mullen! Always appreciated.
 
Policar said:
Hi, I remember that you recommended a few times in the past FFN 6ºX12º 1000w par cans for accenting night exteriors and for Richardson-style glowing light pools.

I was about to order a few par cans for upcoming shoots, but I found some strange inconsistencies among them. GE brand FFN spotlights claimed an amazing 400,000 lumens output, whereas other brands (of the same ANSI coded light) claimed 30,000 lumens.

I noticed other GE brand par lights had similarly inflated output. My guess is that other manufacturers quoted output in lumens, GE in candlepower, but they were both transcribed as lumens. I honestly don't even know what those measurements MEAN so I figured I'd ask just how bright these things are in relative terms.

Compared with a spotted 1.2kw fresnel or PAR64 1.2k HMI with no lens, how bright is the FFN? My guess would be 1/4 as bright at most; is that about right?

And have you used the dichroic (daylight) FGN lights: http://www.usedledlighting.com/view/1812/dichroic-par-64-1k-bulb-fgn ? B&H claims these output an incredible 70,000 lumens (2/3 of the 1.2kw HMI). How bright are they really? I want to do that Kaminsky-style interior where it's lightly hazed and there are these beams of blue light coming through the window. I'm assuming we're dealing with 4ks or bigger or even xenons (or jokers housed in lekos) in those cases, but would something like this work at all? We don't need as much stop as I'm sure he had to play with, but is it even very focused or do I need a brighter and tighter beam?

Thanks as always!

Edit: Is there anyway to get a fogger to behave like a hazer? What if I put a fan in front of it to disperse and cool the smoke?
Click to expand...

You're getting into Gaffer territory here, I'm not really qualified to discuss individual models of bulbs types. But keep in mind that PAR64 globes are tungsten, there is no HMI PAR64 -- there's a 1200w PAR 64 "firestarter" that is tungsten and there is a 1200w HMI PAR, but it's not a PAR 64.

Of course, I could be wrong. I've just never heard of an HMI described as a PAR 64.

A multi-bank PAR64 unit like a Maxibrute could be globed with dichroics for a daylight-balance -- it would put out a lot more heat and be less power efficient than an HMI, but with spot globes, you can get a good shaft of light effect. Dichroics tend to fade over time, so the look gets warmer compared to an HMI.

As far as making a fogger behave like a hazer, I guess a little fan wouldn't hurt but the fogger still spits out fog in bursts or squirts, clumps, not leaks it out as an even haze. Plus it makes noise when it spits, so you can't just let it run during a sound take, though you tend to turn off hazers too for sound reasons, though if it's far enough away, you can leave it hazing most of the day. But certainly I used to do a lot of movies with foggers and just dealt with it, spending most of the day wafting smoke with a flag to even it out.

You really should make friends with a lighting rental house and just go over there and turn on some PAR's, take some light measurements, etc.
 
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