Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Joe G.]

"This is kind of broad, but what are some of the rookie "mistakes" that low-budget productions and student productions most often make, that you think they don't have to?"

In addition to David's advice concerning the camera...

BAD SOUND -- Sound is as important as image. Every location should be checked out for background noise. Get a GOOD sound guy with a good mic(s) and setup.

SHAKY CAM -- God I hate shaky cam. Anything more than a few seconds, say when an explosion goes off, is too much.

NOT ENOUGH COVERAGE -- This will kill you when it comes time to editing. You will suddenly have continuity errors that you hadn't expected.

BAD ACTING -- What more can I say about that?

BAD SCRIPT -- You either have a good script or you don't.

May the force be with you.

[David Mullen ASC]

David,
Today I was watching 'Atonement' again and after your posts on filtration it leapt out to me how filtered the early parts of the movie are, so I took some screen caps and was wondering if you'd give your opinion on what filters they likely used.

The American Cinematographer article (Dec. 2007) says that the early scenes used a 10-denier Dior black stocking on the back of the lenses, except for a few shots when a bright window caused too much flare, then they used some Classic Soft filters. Later WW2 scenes he started transitioning to lighter Black ProMists instead of the Dior net.

You can see the effect of nets more clearly in these frames from "War of the Worlds" (in this case, the net was on a filter frame in front):

[Shawn Nelson]

The American Cinematographer article (Dec. 2007) says that the early scenes used a 10-denier Dior black stocking on the back of the lenses, except for a few shots when a bright window caused too much flare, then they used some Classic Soft filters. Later WW2 scenes he started transitioning to lighter Black ProMists instead of the Dior net.

You can see the effect of nets more clearly in these frames from "War of the Worlds" (in this case, the net was on a filter frame in front):

Oh wow, thanks!! I was able to find that article in their free online archives
http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynam...ment/page1.php

[Shawn Nelson]

How would I attach a stocking to the rear of a PL mount lens? Also this article talks about stretching further for the long lenses...how do you know how much to stretch a stocking? trial and error based on desired look?

[David Mullen ASC]

It's a bit hit or miss, which is one reason why I have never put a net on the back of a lens myself, and it's probably the reason why Kaminski started putting them on filter frames in front of the lens -- simpler to take on and off.

Panavision made some rear holders for the nets for "Atonement" which helped -- the old method was to glue them on with fingernail polish, which rental houses hated. Plus if you needed some un-netted shots, you sometimes had to spend the money for a second set of lenses that were clean on the back rather than peel-off and then later glue back on, the nets.

You basically have to shoot tests.

To some degree, nets are an example of the classic method of diffusing -- throwing out-of-focus areas over in-focus areas -- but in other ways, the behave somewhat differently than a glass diffusion. When you use a longer lens with a glass diffusion like a Classic Soft, you are not only enlarging the clear areas between the lenslets that blur the focus, but you are enlarging the lenslets themselves. But with a net, a long lens tends to enlarge the gaps between the net pattern more than the fine threads of the net which blur the image (though they enlarge too), so the effect can look more subtle on a long lens -- however, this tends to be more true of a front net, not a rear net. Rear netting tends to look more consistent between focal lengths because the rear element is a bit more consistent in size between the lenses -- the lens "sees" or light passes through a more consistent area of the net pattern, whereas in front of the lens, the wide-angle lens and the telephoto lens enlarge or shrink the area of the net that the image is being passed through.

But as I said, the complexities of net diffusion have tended to make me avoid them. The real problem with nets is that you can't get them in precise degrees of strength, they tend to be all or nothing -- partly because the lightest net ever made is still a fairly visible level of diffusion, so it's hard to get four strengths of nets, let's say, in even increments of strength, where the heaviest one is still fairly subtle.

Which is another reason why some people using nets will switch to Classic Soft filters for other scenes when they need more control.

A great use of nets on the back of lenses (in this case, anamorphic lenses) was "Snow Falling on Cedars":

[Andrew Wilding]

Hi, Monsieur Mullen -

How important for you is it that Ambient, background light levels remain consistent during a scene? I've taken to shooting everything at night and merely faking daylight through windows, etc, to keep everything consistent from cut to cut. It is no doubt my preferred way to shoot - somewhat akin to working in a studio. Of course you cant schedule every scene with windows to be shot at night time - Is blocking out the natural light coming through the windows, and blasting hmis through in its place the best option? I do most of my shoots myself as a one man band and rigging up stuff to block out natural light is a bit of a chore. Do you find that if the strength of the key and the fill ratio remain consistent, that you've got some leeway in the background, ambient light levels? Might it be alright to shoot a scene over several hours, discounting the natural light changes and focusing on retaining a consistent light on the actors? I imagine that the slight differences in ambient light might bother only cinematographers, and not the majority of people watching the film, especially when moving from a wide to a close up, etc. What are your tolerances for slightly wavering light levels, shadows crawling across a room as the day drags on, etc?

Sorry for the rambling form of this question, Mr. Mullen - I really need to get to my coffee already.

Thanks,

Andrew Wilding

[christopher witzke]

David,

Just in case you have not heard it enough.... thanks for your continued input and and advice. I really look forward to every post.

cheers!

[David Mullen ASC]

How important for you is it that Ambient, background light levels remain consistent during a scene? I've taken to shooting everything at night and merely faking daylight through windows, etc, to keep everything consistent from cut to cut. It is no doubt my preferred way to shoot - somewhat akin to working in a studio. Of course you cant schedule every scene with windows to be shot at night time - Is blocking out the natural light coming through the windows, and blasting hmis through in its place the best option? I do most of my shoots myself as a one man band and rigging up stuff to block out natural light is a bit of a chore. Do you find that if the strength of the key and the fill ratio remain consistent, that you've got some leeway in the background, ambient light levels?

I think you answered a lot of your own questions. Continuity of ambience within a sequence is important, but that doesn't mean you can only do it using artificial lights, it just means you have to keep an eye on it -- if you are using a lot of natural ambience during a day interior and it disappears as the sun goes away, you have to replace it, or find an angle or shot size where you don't notice that it has changed.

Often you plan your coverage in a real day interior so that you end the day shooting the shots easiest to fake with lighting, like some close-ups near a wall, inserts, etc. You try to capture the natural light in the angles where it matters the most (usually looking towards the window or when the person is near the windows, or wide shots.) You sometimes set aside one angle of tighter coverage that you know you can fake with lighting without much compromise, and then it's just a matter of recreating the feel of the room in natural light as best as you can.

Now just because ambience is important doesn't mean that every angle in a day interior has to be lit to the same contrast ratio. Depending on the subject's distance and angle to the source, the contrast may be naturally different -- we expect someone facing window light to be a bit flatter, someone with their backs to the window to be shadowed, etc.

Part of the terror and fun of using a lot of available daylight in an interior is chasing the light -- it's a pain in the a--, sometimes you get screwed, but when it all works, it can look great. So it's a bit of a risk that you have to calculate. For example, you may be faced someday with a location full of windows on the top of a skyscraper and have to shoot it almost like a day exterior, with very little ability to create the daylight artificially. I was watching this movie "Class Action" shot by Conrad Hall (not "Civil Action", also shot by Conrad Hall) -- the one with Gene Hackman -- and there was this law firm location on the top of a skyscraper where they probably faked one office interior on a stage but the larger lobby area was shot on location, and basically they had to use mostly available light -- but it looked stunning to see the real sun rise and set in this glass room overlooking San Francisco, with the fog rolling in.

[Roberto Lequeux]

Kurosawa then started applying that technique to interiors. "Red Beard" is probably the most famous example of that -- he used telephoto lenses and sets lit to deep stocks (sometimes f/22) to hold focus, requiring the the sets be built at one end of the soundstage and the camera be at the other end, so he could shoot a scene on anamorphic lenses in the 300mm to 500mm range. See:





Also a 300mm lens, if it focuses close enough or if you use a diopter, may allow some extreme close-ups of a face.

That is so awesome to hear! It is so fun to hear they went though all that trouble in such an acclaimed movie. As soon as I got my first camera I found myself shooting long focal lengths as much as possible. I then had some whiner in an other forum tell me I didn't know what I was doing (fair enough) and that I was obviously only doing it for the shallower DoF, when all along in my mind I knew I was going for that compressed look.

I really love what it does to an image. I wonder if I am right to think of it as a way to bring your content to an other dimension given the extreme perspective difference to the human eye. Also, with enough room and hopefully a bit of focal lengths to pick from to make it easier you can frame anything you want just the way you want it. Just gotta get the budget for the sets! Achieving this "story telling dimension" with wide angles sounds quite hard though much more feasible budget wise. I guess with the right lenses you could avoid distortion. But still, close ups would just never look anywhere as pleasing, to me...

Could you share your opinions on going for this "other world" effect I am talking about David? And would you prefer going wide or long? More importantly, if you would, do you feel you could marry the two in a movie? And if so, would there be some sort of story pattern or mechanism that could justify the switch, or call for it?

I also love how you can to confuse the audience and hide the spacial reference to a particular piece of action, be it a fight or anything else you wish to cloak... a phenomenal trick to have available when it is called for.

[David Mullen ASC]

I think you can come up with whatever visual game plan you want as long as you've thought out the groundrules and have based it on the themes of the story. There is no right or wrong choice here, though there may be a practical and impractical choice.

Look at Lumet's "Prince in the City", which has some subtle visual elements in it -- scenes are often either shot with long lenses or wide-angle lenses to deny the viewer a "normal" perspective. Also, the movie is more visually cluttered and busy in the beginning and gradually everything gets stripped away until scenes seem to be taking place in near empty rooms.

I don't personally have a preference one way or the other, though I feel that you have to be careful with oddball focal lengths because they are so stylized. You don't want a super wide-angle look for a "funny" shot if the shot isn't really funny, then it's like a forced joke.

There are issues to consider with focal lengths, like tracking forward and back (as opposed to laterally) doesn't look very good with very long lenses -- it can just look like a bouncy zoom shot. And focus -- if you can't afford to light up the interior and stop down, the backgrounds on long-lensed close shots are so soft that they become abstract. Which may be cool, but it can also negate the reason to be in a certain location since you can't see it in most of your shots.

When I did "Manure" all on soundstage, the art director and director suggested I use long lenses so that the unrealistic background elements would be thrown in softer focus. But it turned out that the longer lenses magnified the background details, killing the forced perspective effect. So we actually used wide-angle lenses when possible to shrink the background details in size, and then long lenses for the close-ups where the background would just be completely soft. So lens choice is a tricky thing in terms of how it represents space.

In the case of Kurosawa's movies like "Yojimbo" and "Red Beard", sets were often designed with the anamorphic telephoto lens in mind. Kurosawa built an entire village with buildings for "Red Beard" but on a long lens, it's mainly seen as a stack of rooftops in the background of scenes. But it's a very graphic shape.