Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Tom Lowe]

Hey David, I just finished Northfork about an hour ago and thought it was beautifully shot. I loved all of those poetic landscape shots... I watched it on Netflix's Watch Now option, but I was wishing I could see it on the big screen in 35mm. The vast skies with those patches of snow on the barren hills, the almost total lack of saturation -- a visually impressive film.

In some ways the strangeness of the picture and even some of the outdoor photography reminded me a bit of Tideland, though your landscape compositions are better, IMO, and more like expertly framed stills. I don't know if you've seen Tideland but it's a visually interesting picture.

After I watched Northfork I read a few of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It must have felt great for you guys to read that glowing review from Ebert and have him compare Northfork to Days of Heaven in the opening paragraph! Wow.

I'm assuming all those cutaway shots at the very end were you traipsing around the countryside with your camera, AC, and tripod? I also liked that backlit shot of the cows and of course the final shot of the plane taking off at magic hour. Was that legit, or was there any sky replacement or anything? Also, it seemed like you were using a rather tall crane in some shots? What kind was it?

Any of your other pictures you are really proud of? I'd like to check out more of your stuff. I bet you would really thrive with the right picture, David -- a chance to really go to town on the type of stuff that Lubezki and Doyle shoot these days.

[overlandfilms]

David,

Hello and thanks for taking time from your schedule to answer questions within this thread.

A hundred years ago, when I was just getting into filmmaking and TV, I had the priveledge to hang out in George Dibie's smoky little back room at Warner Bros. and talk shop. It was one of a handful of formative experiences that took me from being a young cinema enthusiast into actually contributing to the crafts.

At any rate, your willingness to do this here will certainly have a comparable benefit for another emerging talent.

Being that I do all my work in TV, I'd be interested to know about your practical and creative working style for single-camera film television and what, if any, favorite tricks you employed this past season.

Thanks again for giving back.

[wshultz]

I remember turning down one dumb comedy only to see some big-name DP that I respect take it instead, and then I felt guilty, like I was being a snob or something. .

Maybe he had finally reached that desperation stage! Thanks for such an inclusive answer, David. I feel like I should be paying a fee here.

Does the producer send out scripts to several DPs asking who's interested? I'd like to understand the process a bit more.

I guess appalling movies get made so I shouldn't be surprised that appalling scripts make it through this process. I admire someone with some standards of what they want to shoot when it comes to the level of sex and violence.

[Tom Lowe]

I would also be very interesting in finding out how ASC and other top-level DPs get those scripts. I assume you guys all have agents. What agencies are the best-known in terms of repping DPs?

[David Mullen ASC]

"Northfork" didn't have a post budget for a D.I. or anything -- there are a couple of low-budget efx shots where some extra graves were added digitally in the graveyard, but that's it. No sky replacements -- they really look like that in Montana!

Luckily the local Montana gaffer, J.P. Gabriel, owns a lighting house up in Bozeman and had his own version of a Titan crane, so I had access to a camera crane whenever I wanted. It helped sell the vastness of the Great Plains when you could do a vertical move.

I'm most proud of "Northfork". "Astronaut Farmer" comes out on DVD on July 11, so check that out. I'm proud of all those Polish Bros. movies. "Twin Falls Idaho" is a good example of a small film shot mostly indoors. "Jackpot" too, and it was an even smaller shoot, in 24P HD.

Outside the Polish Bros. movies, although my work in it is not particularly striking, "Akeelah and the Bee" is another movie that I'm proud of.

"Shadowboxer", shot in Philadelphia, is visually interesting but problematic as a movie; some people find it a bit odd, not necessarily in a good way.

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The pace of a show like "Big Love" is similar to the features I shoot, five pages a day on average, so it wasn't a big cultural shock for me except that the HBO TV crews are top-notch, which made things go faster and easier. So perhaps that's the trick I learned: hire good people. Other than that, I picked up some cool bounce lighting tricks from DP Bill Wages, ASC, who does a lot of interesting things with Source-4's into cards, and 2K's bounced into bedsheets. The thing with TV is to get as much advance work done as possible so you can hit the ground running every day. We usually got our first shot off fifteen or twenty minutes after calltime. The AD's are critical to this. Our B-camera crew had worked on a number of Spielberg's movies, which also go quickly, and I pestered them for a lot of info.

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Most DP's get their scripts through their agents, though often/sometimes I get contacted directly and just tell them to send the script through my agent to get her into the loop. I'm with a smaller agency, ever since I did "Twin Falls Idaho." There are some big below-the-line agencies in Hollywood.

[Tom Lowe]

It's lucky for you that on the day you guys were shooting that plane taking off the sky looked so great!

[Ace]

David, I saw Astronaut farmer twice (with different dates). The landscapes and isolate environments were captured beautifully. I thought that the whole concept of this man being "alone" in his quest was translated eloquently through the visual language. Oh and the way that rocket was lit during the night, it was almost Cathedral like! A sense of holiness almost.

Although not directly cinematography related, I am curious to know how that scene was shot where the windows blast and you see the wife get blown back. If I remember correctly it was one entire take.. How was this accomplished?

[David Mullen ASC]

We did a digital split-screen. She was on the left side of the frame with windows behind her head that were blown out wth some air cannons, then she stepped out of the frame and we blew out the windows on the right side of the frame in the foreground with air canons. When she was in the shot, we hit her with a blast of air at the same time. The two takes were combined digitally.

We used the same trick for the shot of the guy sitting at his desk when the brick is thrown through the window to his right, did it in two passes.

[Ace]

Quite an elegant solution. I thought it looked quite natural.. now I know why. No CGI!

[Keith Alan Morris]

Can you recommend a great restaurant while in LA? How about Palm Springs?