Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

Two quick questions about film:

What's the difference between pushing a stop and printing a stop brighter? I imagine pushing a stop involves soaking the negative in one of its baths for a longer amount of time to wear off more of the emulsion and printing a stop brighter just means exposing the answer print twice as long, but are both methods used and what's the advantage of each grain/contrast-wise?

Lastly, I was messing around with my (very) old Nikon F and I noticed that when I removed the viewfinder/pentaprism/light meter assembly that the ground glass was a fully 3D/stereoscopic image. What gives? This is the most entertaining thing since I looked at my lcd monitor through a linear polarizer and waved translucent objects in front of it.

You're asking about underexposing one stop and then either push-processing by one stop to restore the density of the negative to normal, and thus printing at close to normal printer light numbers... versus developing normal and thus getting a thin negative and then using lower printer light numbers to compensate.

Either way you get more grain. Pushing increases contrast though and at higher printer light numbers, you get better blacks in the print (though as you push more heavily, you get an increase in base fog level.) Printing up a thinner negative, you get weaker blacks and thus it looks less contrasty.

You get a little color shifting with push-processing and some colors can look more intense.

Can't answer the second.

[David Mullen ASC]

If you were going to buy a 2/3" Scarlet, which would you buy, the fixed version, the one with the mini primes and which primes would you get, or one with either a PL/Nikon/or Canon mount?

Depends on my budget and what I plan on using the Scarlet for. One reason to get the Scarlet with the fixed lens, besides the price and that it's ready to shoot faster, is for a "b camera" in a tight situation like a car interior.

But for general filmmaking, it depends on if you feel you can live with the speed of the fixed zoom and the range of focal lengths.

Recently I was at my old film school and talking to the equipment cage people and they said they got some EX1's and EX3's and in retrospect, they should have gotten more EX1's than EX3's because then with the savings they could have gotten an extra EX1 and most students were just using the stock zoom on the EX3 anyway, they weren't taking advantage of the interchangeable lens option.

[Shawn Nelson]

David, I see you didn't comment on NAB. One thing I'd like to mention, I seem to recall you saying part of your problem with HMIs is that there aren't good small fixtures, well check out the new little HMIs by Dedo light. I saw their 200w, 400/575w and 800/1200w fixtures and was really impressed, amazing little dedo-type fresnels.

[Felix C]

Thank-you David for your repsonse.

[David Mullen ASC]

David, I see you didn't comment on NAB. One thing I'd like to mention, I seem to recall you saying part of your problem with HMIs is that there aren't good small fixtures, well check out the new little HMIs by Dedo light. I saw their 200w, 400/575w and 800/1200w fixtures and was really impressed, amazing little dedo-type fresnels.

I've been very busy shooting in Chicago and missed NAB and most of the talk.

Yes, Dedo HMI's look interesting to me, as well as these new Litepanals LED fresnel-type fixtures.

Trouble is that many rental houses don't carry them, or any odd fixtures, so it's a separate rental, which line producers don't like.

[Tyler Leisher]

In your opnion, What's more important for a TV/Film Director

1) knowing how to tell the story in post production and understanding how the post process works including color grading and finishing.

2) Knowing about how cameras work, lenses and lighting to get a certain mood and how to stage shots to give the most emotional impact?

I understand its important to know both, but is there an emphasis I should focus more on?

[David Mullen ASC]

You have to know both.

Assuming the script works, directing involves telling stories using cinematic tools -- shot size, shot movement, composition, use of light & shadow, editing, and sound design. Not to mention knowing acting and performances.

So a director's responsibilities are in prep, shooting, and post.

Now in terms of post, I'd say that a director has to understand editing and sound design, they don't necessarily have to become experts in grading and mixing, not at the same technical level as a colorist or mixer.

A director Alexander Mackendrick once said (a bit paranoid perhaps) that a director has to understand just enough technology to know when the technicians are lying to him. He also said that directors are easily seduced by technology partly because technical problems are easier than human, emotional problems are to deal with, so being obsessed with technology is a way for a director to avoid his primary responsibility: dealing with actors.

But from a practical level, filmmaking is still garbage in, garbage out -- how you shoot it can't entirely fix a weak script, how you edit and grade it can't entirely fix bad performances, bad shot design, bad lighting.

On the other hand, you can't really know how to cover a scene properly if you don't know editing.

But if you are asking whether you need to know how to grade an image on a Mac using Apple Color, etc. there are a lot more important things to learn as a director than that.

[Antonio Forjaz]

Hi David,

I have to do a green screen, slow motion shot, of a beer bottle cap flying/twisting in the air, for a TV commercial. Any pointers how I would shoot this? Light this?
I have my RED, I have a Green Screen, I have the RED zooms (18-50 and 50-150), and I can rent some lights. How/what would you suggest I go about shooting this?
Thanks again.

[David Mullen ASC]

Unless you want to deal with synced strobes (never have tried this) I suggest you get a lot of light, preferably daylight balanced (such as HMI's), though the greenscreen itself can be lit with Kino greenscreen tubes -- you want a deep stop when shooting small objects to hold focus plus you want to shorten your shutter speed a bit to get crisper per-frame motion so you see the flipping cap clearly. In terms of lighting, I'm sure some soft backlight would be nice on a metal cap...

[Antonio Forjaz]

Thanks David for the tips, will let you know how it turns out.