Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

Since you only had one angle looking right out the door, that's the only one where you'd need to boost the light levels. Truth is that I'd probably use a 4K or 6K HMI for a soft side key light (softened how depends on the space), and 1.2K's bounced for fill, or maybe an Image 80 Kino. I may have used another 6K HMI outside the door for a soft kicker when he comes through the door. I'd also have tried to get the art department to break-up the white columns with some tall plants.

Or I would have scheduled that one angle for when the sun wasn't hitting the background so much. Since the far background had greens that didn't burn-out to white, it's really the mid ground that is too bright, so I wonder if flying some 20'x20' solids over it would have helped take down the brightness.

[David Mullen ASC]

Hi David,

I am due to shoot a feature in the next six months. A good part of the feature is set in a garden. It involves a garden being set up for a garden show with the plants and trees being in various stages of growth. We are thinking of shooting this in a studio and getting all of the plants and flowers made of silk. How would you approach lighting this in a studio? The garden will be around 40 foot by 40 foot. We may blue screen the sides or erect walls or hedges to contain the shot. Obvioulsy I need the ability to achieve different looks. I'd really appreciate your feedback.

Cathal

If you want this to look realistic, you want to recreate a very soft blue-ish overhead skylight and then warmer hard sunlight. Having some trees or architectural items that break-up the sky in theory (if off-camera) will help not having to recreate a single source effect of one hard light covering the whole backyard because that's very hard to do. But if something could logically be breaking up the sunlight, then you can have pools of hard sunlight from a couple of units.

I'd suggest using daylight fluorescents for the soft overhead effect, maybe from banks of 6'x6' blanket lights, or lots of Image-80's or Lumapanels. Then I'd set the camera for something like 4300K so that the overhead light was somewhat cool, then use strong tungsten units for warm sunlight, perhaps with 1/4 Blue on them for midday light, then warm them up more and more for the sun setting. For a sharp sun, you may need to use a 20K, for strong backlight where the shadow pattern isn't an issue, then a 12-light Maxibrute may work, maybe with some spot globes.

You may want to review my posts on shooting "Manure" where I did a lot of faking daylight inside. I used a mix of daylight Kino blanket lights overhead plus some HMI balloon lights, then 12-lights for the warm sunlight. However, since the movie was timed so warm and desaturated, you don't see the blueness of the shadows compared to the warmth of the sunlight:





If you do have some sky in the background, I suggest overexposing it -- I had to pound that sky backing an 18K HMI on a stand to get it to look hot since it was painted a medium brown.

[Cathal Watters]

David,

What an amazing set! The image is really beautiful. Thanks for the really helpful solid advice. I am looking forward to reading your Manure blog and seeing the finished film which looks incredible.

Really appreciate it. Cathal

[David George]

Thanks for the reply David! I'm really inspired by the amount of care you are able to put into your work. I shot my 2nd feature last fall - 2 Alexas with Optimo zooms and old Zeiss standard speeds - I've been noticing the varying levels of halation on Smash and was wondering what your approach was - good to know - and always motivated I think. The scene where Ivy has her breakdown I though was really amazing. The golden light with the multiple mirror reflections and that overhead view of her waking in that angel costume. In episodic television you don't see that kind of emotive cinematography all the time. The visuals had a real presence of their own. How quickly do you guys have to work? On the feature that I shot we were averaging 4-5 pages per day and it felt like all we could do to get really solid images on screen, much less some of these more esoteric things. How do you find the time and energy to keep up with everything?

[David Mullen ASC]

We have to average about 6 pages a day in episodic TV, which is not easy when you have musical numbers to shoot within that schedule. We also stick to a 12-hour day.

It's always the same problem, if you take more time on "x" you have to subtract some time on "y", and probably drop "z". TV crews, mine in particular, are very fast and efficient, which makes a lot of this possible. Those dressing room scenes were always easy to light because the lightbulbs around the mirrors do 99% of the lighting -- but a room wrapped in mirrors is time-consuming in other ways that counteract the time gained from not having to do much lighting. And some of those rooms are not only tiny, but even though they are sets with some pullable walls, as soon as you pull a wall, you see it missing in one of the mirrors, so that doesn't help much.

One advantage in TV work is that half the time you work on existing sets that you return to once an episode, so you get a lot of chances to light the same space over and over again and learn what works best -- there is less time spent figuring things out.

And the more that the directors can give me advance warning of complicated set-ups that need a wall pulled or a special piece of equipment, the more likely that we can get it set-up in advance. Since we don't alternate DP's on the show, I don't have any pre-production time spent with the director, so I rely on the AD and the director to tell me what they have planned, and the best boys who go on the tech scouts. But there is also a certain amount of winging it on the day, so it helps to be fast and flexible, on everyone's part.

[Matthew J]

Thanks David for the advice on equalizing inside/outside light last week. You made me feel much better about what I told the director what I thought we'd need to make the outside not so hot when you mentioned 4-6k HMI's, because that's what I told him from my gut. Now, does that mean I'll have those large lights on his next shoot? Probably not, but I have a much better idea on how to minimize the issue via the art department and more careful planning!

So this is what I am wondering now. How do you approach the 180 rule? The director and I from this last shoot really wanted to push the 180 line more and more so we get more of the room in a scene, keep a scene fresher, and allow the talent more freedom to make the scene come alive. But I kept running into the issue with the director saying, "I don't think that would cut" (which that applied to more than just the 180 rule, but that's a whole another question I have.) So how do you work with directors when it comes to blocking, and framing shots so the audience is not confused? Are you the type (and it may depend on the director that you are working with) that stays on top of the director for visual direction of the line? Do the directors you work with have a good sense of that, or none at all?

For example, we had a scene in a soup kitchen where two characters start with one walking up to another and then sitting down and having a conversation. We shot it with a wide from one side, creating the line and then moving in for OTS's. At one point I wanted to jump the line for a wide shot from the other side that he could cut into later in the scene for variety and then could either switch back to the OTS's on the original side of the line, or switch to new OTS's on the "wrong" side of the line. Maybe I was just crazy, or the fact that I've seen it done and it didn't seem weird to me that made me want to try it--though we didn't in the end.

I want to be more daring in this aspect and help the directors I work with explore more since it's easy to work yourself into a corner by staying on one side of the line. So along with what I kinda asked above how you approach it, do you have any books, articles, etc. that talk about this and any movies where the director & dp did a good job beautifully crossing the line?

Thanks,

Matthew

[David Mullen ASC]

You have to learn if things will cut or not and tell the director. Now sometimes a more conservative script supervisor may disagree and you'll have to convince both of them, but in general the script supervisor should be your collaborator in helping the director regarding the 180 rule.

In general, the line mainly matters in intercutting close-ups of people looking at each other. Otherwise, as long as people aren't confused, then you can do what you want (and if you don't mind them getting confused, then it doesn't matter, cross the line as much as you want.)

For example, if two people are established sitting in the front seat of a car, one driving and the other is a passenger, you can pretty much cover them from any angle, no audience member is going to be confused as to who is driving and who is the passenger and who they are talking to. At that point, the only argument for keeping the line in close-ups that will be intercut is that it will create a stronger emotional bond between the characters if the eyelines are tight to the lens and have the correct screen direction.

But as for cutting to a new wide shot in a room that crosses the line, go ahead, it's a wide shot.

Look at this scene from "The Shining". Kubrick shoots a wide shot from both directions that are dead opposite angles in order to stay symmetrical to the room, so people cross the line. But in the close-ups, he picks a line to match the reverse angle close-up to:









You look at the first two shots where the 180 line is crossed and it's clear who is talking to who, there's no confusion and the two shots intercut fine.

[Kemalettin Sert]

i guess jack is talking to himself on that sequence..he s looking at the mirror actually

Mr.Mullen Did you test anamorphic lenses on Red Epic? Do you think you ll shoot anamorphic movie in future (on digital)

[David Mullen ASC]

I haven't tested anamorphic lenses yet on an Epic. It would be fun to shoot a project that way.

[Carlos Reyes]

David,

Advice that one reads all over the internet and hears from a lot of people in regards to getting into the industry and learning the tricks of the trade is to get on sets and ask a lot questions, "pick the crew's brains." This summer I will have the opportunity to be on set of an independent feature in the budget of about 10 million dollars, it will be my first time on a "real" set. I think this is a great place to learn a lot of things I haven't had access to yet in my experiences filming. Not too big, not too small. My question is how does one approach a DP, first AC, gaffer, etc to ask things without getting in the way or being annoying? I know I will be learning a lot by observation, and I know the answer to my question varies depending on the individuals. How do you deal with interns/PAs/other crew members approaching you and what do you think is the best way to establish some sort of communication?
I know you hear it a lot, but sincerely I want to thank you for your on going dedication to the filmmaking community. I have learned a lot from your posts here and the Roger Deakin's forum, and subsequently watching films you have worked on trying to keep in mind the information you post.