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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

Shawn Nelson said:
David, I'm sorry if this was already covered (but I dont think it was).

What are your preferred focal lengths for dialogue: master-ots-cu ? Ignoring space constraints (say you're on a set with moveable walls or a big field or wherever).
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Sort of depends on how much you want to compress distances or exaggerate sizes of foreground to background.

But assuming that you don't want an obviously stylized effect, I tend to favor the middle focal lengths -- I try to shoot the wides indoors on a 27mm or 35mm, the mediums and overs on a 40mm or 50mm, and the close-ups on a 65mm or 75mm.
 
Peter Mosiman said:
David,

If you have the time, I was wondering if you have the time to check out my most recent piece. Even though its not that big of a deal we won Best in Festival and Best Cinematography for DePaul University's Premiere Film Festival.

The main reason I want you to watch it is to spark a discussion about the differences of natural and artificial lighting - which do you prefer, how hard is it to rely on natural light in the real world, etc. I have heard many different opinions and there are great arguments for both and of course reasons for shooting both. Still, I find it to be an interesting topic of discussion.
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Your short film looks beautiful!

---

We've already discussed this many times... yes, natural light can be wonderful, but it can also be the wrong mood for the scene or the wrong light for the story point (if the writer was very specific for some reason), and it can be fleeting and changeable, so you have to factor that into the shooting style and schedule. I mean, you can scout an abandoned building with a director and fall in love with the way that the sun falls through the back windows and have the director say "I love it -- we'll shoot out seven page climax here!" and that climax is scheduled to take two FULL days to shoot, all in that space. Now what do you do when the light is only right for a couple of hours in the morning, assuming the sun is even out on both days? What do you do when the sun climbs over the top of the walls and falls straight down into the room from the missing ceiling? What do you do when it disappears completely and you run late and it's Hour 14 and the sun set four hours ago?

This is why it's important to learn to FAKE natural light as believably as possible, or to know when you can't fake it, so you can tell the director "we have to shoot these shots at this specific time of day, but I can control the sunlight on these other times of day for these other shots, and we'll save certain close shots for the end of the day and I'll light them to match." Because if the scene needs 72 set-ups by the time it's done, you can't tell the director he can only get 3 set-ups in the right light and you can't shoot anything else there that will match and be cuttable.

That's the whole problem with continuity in movies, that no matter how long it takes to shoot a sequence -- hours, days, months -- it all has to end up looking like it took place at the same time.

I've been shooting on a soundstage lately and was walking outside from the parking lot to the set, and walked past an office in the morning and noticed the blinds on the windows and thought "I bet inside there is a lovely blind pattern on the walls from the early morning sunlight." And then ten steps later I thought "it's too bad that the real sun keeps moving because even while shooting multiple takes of the same set-up, the sun would move on each take and the pattern would change then finally disappear."

So sometimes you can capture or take advantage of that natural effect and other times, you have to consider recreating it if you really want it.

But all of this ignores the question of whether the natural light is even appropriate for the scene, dramatically or logically, story-wise. Maybe the early morning sun falling through blinds is the wrong mood for the scene. Maybe it has to intercut with an exterior scene that was shot in overcast light. Maybe it's even a night scene that was scheduled to be shot during the day and you'll be tenting the windows anyway.

Finally, realism and naturalism are not the only visual styles for movies. Artificiality and theatricalism are not always inappropriate.
 
David,

That was a wonderful response.

I've been shooting on a soundstage lately and was walking outside from the parking lot to the set, and walked past an office in the morning and noticed the blinds on the windows and thought "I bet inside there is a lovely blind pattern on the walls from the early morning sunlight." And then ten steps later I thought "it's too bad that the real sun keeps moving because even while shooting multiple takes of the same set-up, the sun would move on each take and the pattern would change then finally disappear."
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I think like that quite a bit but not on the same scale yet...just about how much I truly appreciate beautiful light falloff on people's faces or sunsets (which I know you love).
I can't wait till my thoughts are consumed with lighting techniques and stuff of which you were talking about. It's enthralling that you are still so consumed with passion about cinematography. I hope to be the same way.

Thanks for the inspiration and the invigorating posts.
 
David,

I have a couple of questions which would be great to hear your opinion on them.

How would you go about lighting a ball on a budget? I'm mainly talking about the wide shots as the closer shots could be cheated, naturally.

The difference in terms of dof between 35mm academy and a 1/2" chip camera is 2 stops right? I just wanted to confirm this because I would need to even out the dof differences as much as possible between a 35mm and a 1/2" chip camera which will be inter cut.

Thanks for your precious collaboration.
 
David (and anyone else),

Do you perform lighting tests on talent prior to principle photography? If so, what process do you go through and what are you looking for?

Thanks for your shared knowledge.
 
David, I am doing Night for Day scene for a low budget feature. Should I use Day for Night Cooling Filter (Tiffen) or avoid it completely and fix in post. Any advice will be really appreciated.

Thanks
 
Mike S. said:
How would you go about lighting a ball on a budget? I'm mainly talking about the wide shots as the closer shots could be cheated, naturally.

The difference in terms of dof between 35mm academy and a 1/2" chip camera is 2 stops right? I just wanted to confirm this because I would need to even out the dof differences as much as possible between a 35mm and a 1/2" chip camera which will be inter cut.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, the difference in DOF between Super-35 cine and 2/3" video is 2.5 stops and between Super-35 cine and 1/2" video, it's more like 3.75 stops, but let's be optimistic and round that to 3.5 stops.

On a budget... I'd light a ballroom with a s---load of Chinese Lanterns. Of course, I'd still need a generator probably to power that many lightbulbs. Assuming you want a soft toplit chandelier look, not a spotty look like from stage lamps (Parcans, Lekos).
 
Joon said:
David, I am doing Night for Day scene for a low budget feature. Should I use Day for Night Cooling Filter (Tiffen) or avoid it completely and fix in post. Any advice will be really appreciated.

Thanks
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I haven't used that filter, which seems to me to just be a blue filter with some LowCon or something added to it.

I'd be conservative, use a blue filter on the Red and just underexpose a little, like 1.5-stops, and figure on darkening further in post. I'd also use Polas and ND grads if it helped darken certain things, and I'd use enough ND in order to shoot a wider apertures and reduce depth of field. But if the Cool Day for Night gives you the look you want, then go ahead and use it. Just don't go nuts with the underexposing. I think you need to do a little just to make sure you are holding information in your brightest areas.
 
Tyler Black said:
Do you perform lighting tests on talent prior to principle photography? If so, what process do you go through and what are you looking for?
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Sure, I've done them, usually to test out a certain make-up/hair approach they want to try more than to test lighting, but I do that also when given the chance.

I've only once done a thorough test of an older actress in prep to make sure she was happy with the lighting approach, since she was nervous about being shot in HD.

But I do tests all the time for specific things someone wants to see, like a certain effect or unusual technique.

You do learn a lot about a certain face through lighting it everyday, over time, but one problem is that faces can change daily and what worked one day doesn't always work everyday because the actress didn't get enough sleep or something.

The other problem is one lighting technique may fix one problem with a face only to make another area look worse. For example, filling in from low may hide bags under the eyes but make their nose or neck look worse.
 
David,
I heard an opinion that a polarizer filter affects skintones in an unpleasant way, I've never seen this, have you?

Second question, if you're using a polarizer, an ND and a classic soft, what's the order in the matte box? I was thinking (in order of outmost to closer to camera) pola-cs-nd.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Unfortunately, the difference in DOF between Super-35 cine and 2/3" video is 2.5 stops and between Super-35 cine and 1/2" video, it's more like 3.75 stops, but let's be optimistic and round that to 3.5 stops.

On a budget... I'd light a ballroom with a s---load of Chinese Lanterns. Of course, I'd still need a generator probably to power that many lightbulbs. Assuming you want a soft toplit chandelier look, not a spotty look like from stage lamps (Parcans, Lekos).
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Thanks for the advice David.

At 3.5 stops it will be very hard, if not impossible to match. The 1/2" chip opens till f2.0 so it would mean shooting with the 35mm too closed down which would not only produce too deep focus but may start getting in the way in terms of brightness for an interior. But we will have to use the 1/2" chip for some shots no matter what. I wonder if as long as I keep the use of the 1/2" chip limited to the wider shots, meaning shots I would use a lens wider than a 28mm on the 35mm camera, the deep focus shots of the 1/2" chip would not pop out or be too obvious? I mean, wider lenses even in 35mm have a deeper focus range anyways. What do you think? Would the 1/2" shots still stick out as a sore thumb?

About lighting the ballroom with china balls, yes I do want a softer look, but the main problem I see is that the normal (non professional) type of china balls are limited to 100w bulbs which I don't see working for the wide shots. For closer shots they are a very viable solution, but for shots where you see the whole room I don't think they would work. Specially that they need to be so close to the subject and in a wide shot they would have to be too high. They would have to be above the chandeliers, which I will probably want in the shot too. The room is about 4843 ft², so it’s a pretty sizable room. How many 100w china balls could possibly take. Seems like a lot.

I will not know how much ambient light the chandeliers and other practical lights produce until I scout the location myself next week. I have only been sent pictures and data so far.
We will be shooting ASA 320 in there.
 
You can put 500w Photofloods in the large Chinese Lanterns if you use a porcelain socket. Not having seen the location, I can't tell you other easy methods -- perhaps if the ceiling is white, or can be covered in white, and there's a place to rig or hide big lights to bounce off of it, you can do that.

Another method is just a bunch of light bulbs on strings -- enough of them in a grid pattern, it becomes like one soft light because of all the multiple points of light. The soft daylight look of the Africa sets on "2001" was created by thousands of lightbulbs in the ceiling.

Yes, in a wide shot, deeper focus is not as annoying because you expect to see everything in focus, nor is it in a tight close-up or insert where the depth of field drops off a lot anyway. It's the medium shots where it looks more obvious.

But if the EX shots are fast cuts, it may not be as noticeable either.
 
Hi David,
There has been much talk of lens being hard to focus on Red One and thus need to be collimated. If one were to buy a set of Zeiss, Leica or Nikon 35mm prime lenses would these need to be collimated for the Red, and does the camera have to be with the lens for them to be adjusted?

Thanks

Gregory
 
Any lens has to be at the correct flange depth, whether you do that by adjusting the back-focus for every lens while on the Red camera... or getting them all shimmed or corrected to be at the same standard flange depth so that you shouldn't need to back-focus. I'd ask that question though to a lens person like Matt Duclos.
 
Shawn Nelson said:
David,
I heard an opinion that a polarizer filter affects skintones in an unpleasant way, I've never seen this, have you?

Second question, if you're using a polarizer, an ND and a classic soft, what's the order in the matte box? I was thinking (in order of outmost to closer to camera) pola-cs-nd.
Click to expand...

I've heard that too, that polarizers can make skin look dead by removing the sheen. However, on "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", the whole movie was shot with a Pola to take the sheen off of the skin, which looked too shiny on the F900.

I think the problem is overrated but it does exist, Polas do make skin look different in texture.

Not sure about the order anymore, I used to know. Polas are usually in the back since they are in the rotating rear stage as a round filter. But as for diffusion and ND, I don't remember... too many years of camera assistants doing the work for me.
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Second question, if you're using a polarizer, an ND and a classic soft, what's the order in the matte box? I was thinking (in order of outmost to closer to camera) pola-cs-nd.
Click to expand...

You want to put the diffusion filter behind the ND so that it's less prone to flaring because it receives less light.

For the same reason, Polas also theoretically need to be put in front of the diffusion filter. But they're usually placed in the bellows behind all the other filters.
 
United States of Tara rocks! keep up the good work David. Also, your film jennifer's body opens in Aus soon. will make sure i see it.
 
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