Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

In ACM October 2008 Lubezki laments when we was given HD Dailies only for "Burn After Reading": In HD you can't... judge focus.
Why does he say that? Do we need 4K now to judge focus?

He may mean that compared to projected 35mm prints on a screen, it's hard to judge focus in HD dailies viewed on a monitor. 1080P projected on a large screen should be sharp enough to see most problems but even then, some things may be slipping by.

[Michael Lindsay]

Shot an insert with the Red. Used a tungsten light and a green gel pack on the other tungsten light. Could not get the Red to read the green, kept looking very blue. I know the clients can color correct that easily but you know how commercial clients can be! How could I get the Red to read the tungsten light and the green light? Didn't have any HMI's in my package. Thanks.

Despite this seeming impossible with Reds green sensitivity. I've seen this. I suspect Red has an uneven green sensitivity .

Despite having seen a green screen end up with a blue tinge it still keyed a treat (better than anything else I've used).

Michael

[Sarah C.]

Does this green issue have to do with the in-camera interpretation of the Bayer-Pattern Imaging Sensor?

~Sarah

[Deanan]

Despite this seeming impossible with Reds green sensitivity. I've seen this. I suspect Red has an uneven green sensitivity .

Despite having seen a green screen end up with a blue tinge it still keyed a treat (better than anything else I've used).

Michael

I've seen a couple of cases of customer footage regarding this and in each case it was because WB was set too high or too low. White balancing to something white in the shot fixed the balance.

[Seth Iliff]

Mr. Mullen,
I was reading earlier you're explanation of Roger Deakins' night lighting in No Country. You suggested to just not putting yourself in that situation, but what are you're thoughts on day for night.... the most recent example I can think of being, The Proposition. I really enjoyed those huge nighttime landscapes. Do you like this effect?

[David Mullen ASC]

I grew up in the desert and when you are away from any other light sources, a moonlit landscape can seem like a day-for-night effect in a movie, other than the dark sky and stars. It's just that a lot of viewers don't have that personal experience of seeing large areas of desert illuminated by a full moon.

I posted these before, but here are some real night shots I took with my Nikon under moonlight, shot with a tungsten preset for a blue cast, underexposed by about two or three stops:





And this was exposed longer in the same moonlight:



So you see that daylight and moonlight are rather similar.

The main problem with day-for-night, besides the dark night sky, is if any other light sources appear in the frame, like car headlights, a flashlight, campfire, etc.

[Matthew Greene]

That last one is pretty awesome in making your point.

[Charles Angus]

I have noticed that before myself - odd how our perception of night is so different.

[Dj Joofa]

odd how our perception of night is so different.

Some of the color shift at night happens because of the Purkinje effect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_effect

[Matthew Greene]

Thanks joofa, that's new to me. I've had pretty good results at lighting realistic ext. nights although I've never lit large areas, just small ones. All this info is good to know to have the know how when it comes to making decisions.