Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Rasberry]

The classic car chase sequence in "Bullit" comes to mind to. Great action choreography matched with tense music soundtrack and the emotional suspense of hunter vs prey scene line.

 

[Julie K]

police lights

police lights

Hi- I have a question about the split-frame strobe problem with the rolling shutter. I'm shooting a low budget film on the Red and we have several scenes with police cars and their flashing lights. I can't really find any solution on Reduser for this problem-- is it just a matter of finding a way to afford a D21 for those days? Is there any way around this problem with the Red?

 

[Kenneth Elkington]

Hi- I have a question about the split-frame strobe problem with the rolling shutter. I'm shooting a low budget film on the Red and we have several scenes with police cars and their flashing lights. I can't really find any solution on Reduser for this problem-- is it just a matter of finding a way to afford a D21 for those days? Is there any way around this problem with the Red?

Well you can always lower the shutter speed if a problem presents itself, but I don't even know if lights on police cars rotate fast enough to cause any perceptible rolling shutter problems.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's just hit or miss with the RED -- I haven't had too much problem with flashing police lights with the RED and most viewers don't notice an occasional split-frame during a flash of light. The sensor protection dark spot in the center of the hot lights was more obvious than any split-frame problems, and that was easy to fix in post.

I would say that you should try to find police cars with the older revolving / spinning red/blue bar lights rather than the modern flashing strobes.

"Southland" must shoot ambulance and police lights all the time on the RED and no one seems to be complaining about occasional split-frames.

 

[Felix K.]

Hey David, I'm not sure if you saw my post on the last page; I somehow manage to end up on the last post of the last page

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Hey David, I have a question regarding cine-lenses. Why are they so much bigger than photographic lenses? I saw Cooke lenses this summer for the first time up close and they are huge (as you of course know). I understand that a bigger diameter on the front glass would allow for more light being "funneled" in. That is kind of logical to me. But why does my Canon EF 1.4 50mm for 300$ lens allow for as much light (for the same image circle it "projects" on) as an equivalent Cooke T 1.4 50mm lens?
Thanks for answering!

Matt Duclos or Evin Grant could answer this better than me, but there are a couple of reasons for the larger size of cine lenses. One is the need for a larger focusing ring with a longer barrel rotation, since most focus-pulling on cine-style Hollywood narrative productions is done through measurements. Still images don't require focus racks and visible adjustments/changes during a shot, whereas moving images do, so how the focus rolls and shifts, how quickly the barrel rotates, how much rotation it takes to go from minimum to infinity, all affect the look of the focus shift. Also, any side-to-side shifting during focusing (or zooming with a zoom lens) has to be optically corrected out. As I said, with still photography, you don't see "live" focusing so all of these problems don't apply. Plus the larger barrel and longer rotation allows for larger focus marks that are spaced farther apart. It's hard, for example, to find a mark for 6'4" and then pull to 6'7" on many still lenses.

I also assume that in designing out some of the optical distortions that only can be seen during movement and while focusing is partly responsible for going with larger optical elements.

But there is also a desire for a certain standardization of front element sizes to make using matteboxes, focus attachments, etc. easier, and thus perhaps whatever focal length lens needs the largest front diameter is roughly determining the general size of the whole series of primes in a line-up. But that's just a guess on my part.

 

[Felix K.]

Thank you, David! Sounds all very convincing

In conclusion the 20x lens of my Canon XL2 is kind of a joke because it only has a motorized focus ring which is very sensitive. A few millimeters there are a huge change for the focal distance.

 

[Joe G.]

I haven't dealt with the strobes, but I did figure out a post production fix if you find it necessary.

Take the offending "split" frame out (trash), and create a new frame with a morphing software by combining its previous frame and its following frame. This should give you a brand new frame very similar to the one you deleted. You can then fake a strobe on that frame, and it shouldn't be noticeable what you did.

The option to use a D21 or F35 sounds even better though, if you can. Is D21 CCD?

 

[Shawn Booth]

Aloha David -

about to shoot a scene lit entirely by black light with 4 LCD TVs in background as well. Curious of any exposure issues, head recommendations or any other concerns I might be faced with.

My apologies for the broadness of the question, any thoughts/knowledge will be helpful and as always, much appreciated.

Thank you kindly.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The option to use a D21 or F35 sounds even better though, if you can. Is D21 CCD?

No, the D21 has a CMOS sensor but it has a mechanical spinning shutter due to the optical viewfinder.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Aloha David -

about to shoot a scene lit entirely by black light with 4 LCD TVs in background as well. Curious of any exposure issues, head recommendations or any other concerns I might be faced with.

My apologies for the broadness of the question, any thoughts/knowledge will be helpful and as always, much appreciated.

Thank you kindly.

I haven't shot in blacklight since film school, but Roberto Schaeffer did a scene in blacklight on his Red feature for Tim Blake Nelson (Leaves of Grass) and I saw it over at PlasterCity -- it looked great. He sort of did what I did in film school, which was to mix a bit of deep-blue-gelled light into the blacklight so that the faces had some full spectrum source on them, but it had the purple-blue hue to it. Otherwise, I believe he used Wildfire fixtures for more output. Luckily with digital, you can see the exposures you are getting.

Your regular blacklight tubes from party stores are really weak, I had to bunch a lot together back in film school and use 500 ASA film at T/1.3 just to get an exposure in 16mm. As I said, I mixed this with some deep-blue-gelled lighting for a fake blacklight look on the skin, so the real UV light was reacting to the fluorescent paints and whatnot in the scene but the face had a bit of non-UV light on it.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

Hey David, not a question, just a shout out. I did a big 3 camera Red shoot this weekend in a partially constructed warehouse...after seeing Jennifer's Body I thought it'd be great to throw up visqueen everywhere (like you did in the construction candle scene) and it looked awesome! We (me and the DP Ryan Walters) decided on 4mil as it seemed to be a great blend of partially translucent with still some good heft to it. We shot part of it where the visqueen was diffusing natural sunlight and it made for gorgeous soft light then part of it during the night where lights were shining through it. Anyways, visqueen is my new best friend

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's fun stuff...

 

[Ryan E. Walters]

Hey David, not a question, just a shout out. I did a big 3 camera Red shoot this weekend in a partially constructed warehouse...after seeing Jennifer's Body I thought it'd be great to throw up visqueen everywhere (like you did in the construction candle scene) and it looked awesome! We (me and the DP Ryan Walters) decided on 4mil as it seemed to be a great blend of partially translucent with still some good heft to it. We shot part of it where the visqueen was diffusing natural sunlight and it made for gorgeous soft light then part of it during the night where lights were shining through it. Anyways, visqueen is my new best friend

I'll also add to that shout out- for one of the scenes that took place in a large empty warehouse floor we ended up lighting with 3 1k par cans for the key's / kicker's from the second story- man those lights have a lot of punch! They were very useful to have on set.

 

[Matt W.]

A couple questions about how many lights you might use in a given set up, if you don't mind:

On a lot of low budget and film school stuff I've shot I've used a lot of distinct lights for a given scene, largely because we rarely have the stop to use a few big soft lights and back them up, as might be easier. We usually work with a few circuits or a small generator.

I know a lot of low budget (made for TV style) movies are shot with a single big key (10K tungsten softbox or 6K HMI or something) and just a lot of bounce for fill. I realize this is an unfair question, but for a given interior on Jennifer's Body or something, how many lights are you using--just a range, maybe for a high key scene in a living room or bedroom. Do you have one fill (base exposure) light bounced off the ceiling (or a kino camera-side or something or maybe practicals installed on set to provide base exposure), one back light, one key, and then fine tune it with background lights, lights going through cookies or windows, etc., are you using a lot of distinct sources, or is it even simpler than what I listed? Again, I know this varies tremendously, but what's your starting point? And if there's substantial camera and figure movement, how do you mitigate inverse square issues you might find in a small enclosed space?

Semi-related: When lighting a night exterior, specifically one lit exclusively by "moonlight," what's your general game plan? I like 3/4 backlight at key, a soft sidelight 1-2 stops under key and to keep continuity between shots by having the sidelight's relative position feel consistent but move the 3/4 backlight at whim, and then fill as needed, but this can be very slow if there are a lot of set ups (moving HMIs takes forever)--and it's a light-hungry look. Is it common to front light night scenes? How would you hide the obvious fall-off? Would you use a background light? In these cases, are camo nets useful? Just wondering what your approach in general would be given access to say, a couple or three HMIs (and a few kinos or whatever) and diffusion/camo nets, etc. for a variety of night exteriors, standard coverage from XLS to MCU.

Lastly, I just watched the trailer for Shutter Island and I know Richardson is using toppy backlights and exposing for the bounce, but I can't quite figure out how he does it. What units does he use? 650s? Firestarters? And how come the bounce looks full spectrum, not the color of the table it appears to come off of? Surely he must use some fill or the backlights would be too bright and the bounce too varied in color. I just can't figure out how he manages such great set ups sometimes.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Fall-off isn't always a bad thing, sometimes it's a good thing in a small room so that a soft light lights a face but not the background so much. It's also realistic -- the soft glow from a table lamp has a lot of fall-off.

How many lights I end up using just depends on the needs of the shot, but my general philosophy is that the effect when looking at a frame should be of one dominant source, effect, key, whatever (could even be a backlight)... and all other lights feel secondary to that dominant light. For this reason, I don't use hairlights much, I tend to feel that either a backlight should be really strong, from a powerful source, or not at all, or be really soft and barely visible, more for separation. I don't like generic backlighting so much, unless the show is meant to look sort of glossy, glamourous, and high-key.

I do like motivated soft edge lights, as if from a distant window or practical in the frame.

I watch the rehearsal and think about where the light should be, for the most interesting effect to create the right mood or make the actors look good, then I try to move the practicals or the actors' mark towards sources in the room, or I find practical lamps and bring them into the room, so I have a source coming from the direction I want, then I might augment that with a soft light from that direction.

Now I may or may not use fill - sometimes I just put a white card on the opposite side of the soft key and bring up the shadow side of the face that way. Or put a white bedsheet on the floor or on a wall to bring up the ambience. If that's not enough, I may bounce a weak light into that white surface. Lately I've been using low fill with a 4'x4' beadboard near the floor with a tweenie or 300w light on a pancake on the floor bounced into it, sometimes dimmed down.

Now if a backlight is going to be very strong, then I consider that my key in the room and I turn it on first and see how it makes the room or actors look, and then I might just augment that with a little soft light into the shadows if the natural bounce is not enough. The other day on stage, I had a 20K outside of a window and the only extra light I used was some white cards to catch the backlight and bounce it back again.

 

[scott william]

David, I just read your theory about learning cinematography “Watch movies, read about movies that I watched, shoot movies and try out what I learned by reading and watching movies, repeat as often as possible,” posted in the off topic thread. Just wondering what you watched and learnt from for your current work on ‘United States of Tara?' and what are you studying now for your next project?

 

[Matt W.]

Thanks for the helpful advice. I think I've been over-lighting things; the one dominant source approach and use of bounce for fill makes sense for most scenes, thought video (which I use) seems to like more fill than film. The stuff I've seen that you've shot (all pretty recent, admittedly) looks really awesome, by the way--a lot of moody stuff but never overdone, like there's a basis in a certain look in each movie and you never expand beyond that to the point of inconsistency, but there are a lot of varied and evocative lighting and compositions within that look's particular confines.

 

[Andrew Wilding]

David, I was curious as to what, if any, the benefits of using a larger light in lieu of several smaller lights aimed at the same space? Are multiple shadows unavoidable? Or if say 3-4 1.2ks are pointed at the same object, either bare or through diffusion, would it be distinguishable from a single 4k pointed at the same object?

Im looking to invest in a stronger light than what I have, and I'm wondering if it wouldnt be smarter to instead buy several joker 800's or arri 1.2ks. That way they could be either used as one source or split up into individual sources. Possible? Pros and cons?


Thanks Mr. Mullen - Hope you will have time to answer!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

David, I just read your theory about learning cinematography “Watch movies, read about movies that I watched, shoot movies and try out what I learned by reading and watching movies, repeat as often as possible,” posted in the off topic thread. Just wondering what you watched and learnt from for your current work on ‘United States of Tara?' and what are you studying now for your next project?

Since this is the second season for me on "Tara", it's been more a matter of refining the look than creating it from scratch, and even last year, I was tweaking the look of the pilot shot by someone else. So there wasn't much research to do, per se... The look is mostly naturalistic and gentle, but since we shoot half on soundstages, the challenge is making day interior sets not feel like sets, so I'm keen on recreating different times of day and quality of light and keeping the overall effect as if the light was coming from the windows. For inspiration, I watch a lot of movies shot by Roger Deakins...

However, I like to push some scenes towards a heightened look, more like what someone like Janusz Kaminski does. I use very light diffusion on the show (I alternate between a Schneider Hollywood Black Magic filter and a Tiffen GlimmerGlass) and I like getting the sunlight effects very spotty and hot on parts of the set or the actors' bodies to get a bit of halation. And there is one particular new setting we have which is a bit mysterious, story-wise, which allows me to stylize the look more -- I have shafts of sunlight through smoke in dark rooms, sort of a faded golden patina, etc. Everytime we shoot on that set, everyone tells me how gorgeous the lighting is, sort of Ridley Scott-ish, but it's mainly because the story allows me to push the look in there.

What's nice about shooting a series over two seasons is how much you can keep tweaking and improving the look of scenes shot in the same rooms -- it seems every two weeks we find ourselves back in the same kitchen or bedrooms, so I'm always looking for ways of keeping it interesting for myself. Of course, the downside is repetition, you end up doing certain things over and over again, simply because the windows and the practical sources are in the same spot.