Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Ramesh Jai]

I don't believe in that -- the point of making a movie is to tell a story well, not to automatically maintain lighting continuity. That's a technical issue that shouldn't supercede creative issues. Audiences don't go to movies to see perfect lighting continuity, they go to see a captivating story or because they like a certain movie star, whatever.

There are two reasons why you might change the lighting when you move in closer, though the intent is to not be obvious about it.

One, the positions of the lights in the wide shot may have been compromised in order to stay out of a complex moving shot -- in other words, you couldn't quite light the room the way you wanted to because of the camera move, meaning that some of the lighting unit positions were merely chosen because there was nowhere else to put them that was out of the shot, so you rely on the tighter coverage to fix any mistakes in the look caused by this compromising, especially if you are attempting to simulate natural sources.

Two, when you change shot size significantly enough, you change the level of information that the audience is seeing. In a wide shot, a high light (which may be so high in order to get out of the camera's view) may produce unattractive bags under the actor's eyes or not enough light in the actor's eyes, or make a scar or fold in the skin stand out... but in a wide shot, the defect isn't noticable. In a close-up, it may become very distracting for the viewer, so you adjust the light, maybe lowering it a little or softening it a little, things you couldn't do in the wide shot because there was no room. You wouldn't leave the distracting bit of ugly light on the face just to mechanically maintain lighting continuity. That's like saying you can never adjust the positon of props and furniture in the frame to get a better compositon in the tighter angles, that everything must stay exactly where it was even if it makes a boring composition, or a distracting one.

In other words, NOT cheating the lighting or the positions of things in the frame may actually produce a shot that looks like a mistake, even though it actually matches the widest shot perfectly. It may throw the viewer out of the movie rather than drawing them into the movie.

Also, sometimes directors are in a hurry to shoot, so the DP will light the set only as good as it needs to be for a wide shot. But if he knew that the lighting also had to be good for tight details that weren't visible in the wide shot, they may take more time lighting the wide shot, and have to resort to elaboarate rigs to hide and mount that extra light -- when if they could have just fixed it for the closer angle only, the solution may have been very simple and fast, like bringing in a small eyelight to clean out the bags under the eyes.

Continuity is a tool like anything else in a movie... and you use it when it benefits the scene and you manipulate it or ignore it when doing that instead would make the scene better. We're talking about narrative fiction here, not a cinema verite documentary where changing the location through lighting or adjusting the furniture may be construed as "dishonest".

The trick with cheating is just to maintain the feeling of the wider shots in terms of mood, contrast, color, direction of light, while adjusting it to benefit the subject in the frame and the story point you're trying to make.

If you can light a wide shot of a room perfectly so that all closer angles can be taken without making a change, obviously that would be ideal, but it doesn't always happen.

What if the director wants a character's face to look like it is being lit by the flickering light of a TV set in a dark room, and wants to dolly 180 degrees in an arc, showing the TV set and then the actor sitting in a medium shot? In the wide shot, you may hide a small light behind the TV set or a piece of furniture to suggest the key from the TV set, but it may be too hard and projected-looking to be completely believable. IF you have a chance to shoot a close-up of the actor, you may wish to bring in some softer lighting rig that more accurately creates the effect of the flickering glow from the TV set, but this rig would not have fit in the room in the wide shot.

And what if the point of your film was to create a romantic ambience where the lead actors look stunningly beautiful in their close-ups? And what if you had to cast actors who were attractive but not quite as glamorous as the scene required? Or perhaps this is a flashback and the 40-something lead actors are having to play themselves as 20-something college students, so careful close-up lighting is needed to hide the real years visible on their face? It would be self-defeating to your own project to insist that the lighting in their close-ups had to be the wide master shot lighting with no changes, if the end result was that they didn't look convincingly younger for the scene.

Thank you David. You have been very elaborate in your answer. I also see you have a lot of passion (I guess every film maker has).

Ok. I see your POV. What I am against is when you cut from a LS to CS and the intensity of light seems to have changed. For me that doesn't work.

I think that has more to do with the DOP's experience. Will take your views into account when I am filming next (in a few hours).

Would you ever (or any experienced person in your field) consider coming down to Ghana to lecture on lighting?

We have a film school here and though we have experienced lecturers the students feel that people with field experience can enlighten them more. I am a past student of that film school.

A long shot but I tried...

[David Mullen ASC]

Sure, I'll go anywhere I'm invited to lecture if the film school is picking up the expenses, and I'm not working at the time -- but if it's a smaller school without much of a budget, they may find better ways of spending their money than bringing some guest lecturer in from the U.S. I'm not "worth" spending too much of a film school's yearly budget on, not for a one-time lecture.

The key to cheating lighting on close-ups is to maintain the intensity, direction, color and contrast of the light while usually adjusting it to be a little more flattering or more realistic actually (i.e. usually softening the key light.) A wide shot where all you could do is put some 216 on the doors of a 1K, in the close-up, you could use a Chinese Lantern or a Chimera on the 1K or some other larger, softer light coming from the same direction and set to the same intensity.

The other rule is that the more you change the camera angle when going from wide to tight, the more leeway you have in cheating the lighting. For example, if the closer shot was at a right angle to the wide shot, although that's a more extreme case.

If you are just jumping in from a knees-up shot to a chest-up shot on the same line (which would be an awkward cut, by the way) then the lighting can't change much, if at all, because the two shots are too similar. But if you were cutting from a knees-up shot to a head-and-shoulder shot that was also 45 degress shifted to one side, you have enough of a visual change in background to cheat the light more on the tighter shot.

[Ramesh Jai]

Sure, I'll go anywhere I'm invited to lecture if the film school is picking up the expenses, and I'm not working at the time -- but if it's a smaller school without much of a budget, they may find better ways of spending their money than bringing some guest lecturer in from the U.S. I'm not "worth" spending too much of a film school's yearly budget on, not for a one-time lecture.

The key to cheating lighting on close-ups is to maintain the intensity, direction, color and contrast of the light while usually adjusting it to be a little more flattering or more realistic actually (i.e. usually softening the key light.) A wide shot where all you could do is put some 216 on the doors of a 1K, in the close-up, you could use a Chinese Lantern or a Chimera on the 1K or some other larger, softer light coming from the same direction and set to the same intensity.

The other rule is that the more you change the camera angle when going from wide to tight, the more leeway you have in cheating the lighting. For example, if the closer shot was at a right angle to the wide shot, although that's a more extreme case.

If you are just jumping in from a knees-up shot to a chest-up shot on the same line (which would be an awkward cut, by the way) then the lighting can't change much, if at all, because the two shots are too similar. But if you were cutting from a knees-up shot to a head-and-shoulder shot that was also 45 degress shifted to one side, you have enough of a visual change in background to cheat the light more on the tighter shot.

I will talk to the school about it. They always get sponsors to pick up the tab. However if you don't hear from me on this issue, it means they didn't get sponsors.

Alternately, (alternatively?) could you recommend any DVD's etc. which tutor on lighting? Thanks once again.

[David Mullen ASC]

First you have to factor in how long Magic Hour will last -- if you are in northern Sweden, for example, it can like that for hours, but if you are in Southern California, maybe fifteen minutes. This affects how much coverage you can hope to achieve, or how many takes you will be able to get. Unless you have a game plan for faking more angles after the light has gone completely, or conversely, when the sun is out, then you have to keep things pretty simple and short. Using more than one camera can help.

Since that time of day tends to be low in contrast, you generally don't need lighting, except maybe very weak light into the eyes (could just be a bounce card). The only argument for artificial augmentation, like some soft lighting on a face, is to smooth out the differences as the natural light changes and prolong your shooting for a few minutes. But honestly, it's better to capture as much of the natural ambience as possible. The other argument for additional light is if you were shooting a face against a bright backlit sky to balance out, rather than go for a silhouette effect.

Generally I figure the light should feel under key, at least one stop underexposed overall. Maybe two stops for more of a dim twilight feeling, especially when it is juxtaposed against some evening lighting coming on. Then the twilight can get much more underexposed in relation, because you have some bright highlights in the frame from lamps coming on, windows, etc.

Grads and Attentuator filters can sometimes help keep the sky down while letting you expose more for the ground.

Whether you want the Magic Hour to be golden, blue-ish, or neutral is up to you and the look you want to achieve.

[Tom Lowe]

In terms of shooting around magic hours, it makes sense to me to try to do stuff without too much dialog, and if their is dialog, make sure the actors are very well rehearsed for it. Then try to do the scenes in masters/oners, or have two cameras rolling. If you try to go for coverage during a sunset or sunrise, the light changes so fast (in California, as David pointed out) you will probably have a hard time matching the shots in post. Even ten minutes can see massive changes in light when you are outdoors.

[Adrian Correia]

David - I have a question...latest episode of Big Love. Bill goes to visit his brother in prison after he confesses to the police to poisioning Alby Grant (sp?)....a small visiting center with overhead flourescent lighting.....slightly cool, blue/green color of the lighting...white walls, but great contrast! How did you achieve this....negative fill and skirted overhead lighting? Is that color tone achieved entirely in post? Just I have short in August shooting on the HDX900 in similar conditions and this is close to what the director is talking about. Thanks!

[David Mullen ASC]

That was shot under a 2-tube flourescent shop light that I had the art department hang; it was just ordinary Cool Whites. I shot a grey scale under white (tungsten) light just so that the dailies would leave the green in.

I didn't really do much more than that -- I kept the practical close to the actors so that the wall whites would fall-off a little in brightness, and I used a small Kinoflo with the same green color for an eyelight. That's about it, very simple lighting, almost all practical. I may have had another small Kino for a soft edge light.

[Adrian Correia]

thank you sir!

[Ramesh Jai]

Hi David,

I am about to shoot two TV commercials. Both interiors.

The client has asked that the commercials be 'bright'. Does using more light = bright? OR have you used minimal lights and still had a 'bright' image? Any tricks?

BTW I am shooting with a Sony DSR570P. I have access to 4 x 800W and 3 x 2K.

Thanks.

PS. The HMI's that imagewest.tv are selling, anyone used them before? Any good? Thanks.


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[David Mullen ASC]

Brightness is a function of exposure. You make real sunlight look as dark as moonlight (day-for-night) so what matters is how you expose your light.

Assuming you want to shoot at 0 db, you need enough light to expose normally for your particular camera, whatever that level is. Any more, and all you will be doing is stopping down the lens / shortening the shutter / using minus db / using an ND filter in order to keep the exposure normal in brightness.

So you don't necessarily need a lot of light for a "bright image", just whatever gets you the image you want for the gain level / f-stop / shutter speed you plan on using. You could manually set your camera to 0 db & f/2.8, let's say, and whatever is the normal shutter speed (1/60th?) for your camera (NTSC? PAL?), and then light until you get the look you want.

You should ask what they mean by "bright" though. They may mean "evenly lit" as opposed to having hot highlights.

One argument for using more light, even if it means switching in some ND to compensate, is if you are filming in a day interior with a bright background and want to balance more between the inside and outside, though using ND gel on the window will allow you to keep the light levels inside lower while still balancing for the windows.

I once did a low-budget movie where the Gaffer begged me to light a scene by himself. It was a night scene in an office so all I said is "make it moody like it's the middle of the night with just a few lights on".

I come back and he's managed to simultaneously overlight the office -- lights were everywhere, he must have used thirty units -- but the key level was so LOW that I could barely get an f/2.0. So this is a case where a guy thought "dark" meant "use lower light levels". But darkness is more a function of contrast, not light levels. I didn't have time to relight the office so I just knocked down what I could to increase the contrast. But when the dailies came back, the office looked exactly like he lit it -- overlit-looking. And then he complained that the lab and the colorist had incorrectly transferred the footage. But they hadn't -- THAT'S how it looked on the set. As you can imagine, I never let this gaffer light anything unsupervised again.

If you overlight a scene and the key level is only an f/1.4, and you shoot it at an f/1.4, it will look overlit, just with very little depth of field. And if you underexpose it instead to compensate, it will just look overlit and underexposed.