Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[Phil Holland]

David it was a pleasure and honor to meet you on Sunday at the Reduser Party. Thanks for all the information.

[David Mullen ASC]

I am going to be shooting a car exterior ( no talent ), inside a warehouse type space mid next week. The idea is that there is a light up arrow on top of the car... and the shot starts black, and the arrow kicks on and we want to add fill light to look like its coming from the arrow illuminating the car and part of the room. A friend suggested using a very large (20x) silk, and I am wondering what you think. I was thinking a few open face 2k's to light the silk so we can spread the power load. We probably will have to bring in a generator for this. There is a budget, of course it isn't much.Any advice would be greatly appreciated.Thanks!

First thing is to tell yourself that the car is a mirror and will reveal all attempts to light it (unless it is so dirty as to have a matte surface.) You really just reflect things over a car surface more than actually light it, just as you would "light" a mirror. And because the reflecting surface is not as efficient as a mirror, it also darkens what is being reflected into it, the net effect being that if you bounce some lights into a white sheet, for example, though it may look bright and white to your eye, in the car reflection you may see every hot spot, the folds and creases in the cloth, the frame of the white material, the c-stands holding the frame, etc. This is one reason why Fisher lights are so popular for car photography, because it is a neat, clean white softbox with black edges that creates a simple reflection in a car. So you can build your own low-budget version of a Fisher light but you just have to be very neat about it.

If the shot is static, I wonder if you would consider an extreme version of HDR, basically one pass for the sign on the car and a second longer exposure for everything that the sign illuminates, then you can combine them in post to get the sign and what it is lighting in one shot with no additional light. Unless you want some "beauty" lighting on the car, in which case you will have to go with the neat, clean, large softbox approach. Maybe a 12'x20' frame with Full Grid or Heavy Frost, etc. wrapped around the frame itself so you don't see any ties or gaps in the frame (or a black strip all around the hide the gaps) then black shirting all around. Inside should be enough units in a grid pattern to light the material evenly from edge to edge, could be anything, rows of 1K Pars for example, or a lot of nook lights, etc. Or long banks of fluorescent tubes.

[David Mullen ASC]

David it was a pleasure and honor to meet you on Sunday at the Reduser Party. Thanks for all the information.

It was great meeting you Phil, and everyone else in RedUser who introduced themselves to me! Glad to hear that my posts are useful to some people.

[dean merrill]

Thank you for the reply!

I think I want to put some beauty light on it. The arrow is going to be rather small ( 40" x 20" ) . We wont be able to get a fisher light, but I like the idea of running a bunch of kino's behind a large frame with some skirting along the side, with a smaller but similar setup on the front. perhaps Attached is an sketch that I put together... I think I might have some small amount of light on the car and backlight a bit before the arrow turns on.

Thanks again!
~D

First thing is to tell yourself that the car is a mirror and will reveal all attempts to light it (unless it is so dirty as to have a matte surface.) You really just reflect things over a car surface more than actually light it, just as you would "light" a mirror. And because the reflecting surface is not as efficient as a mirror, it also darkens what is being reflected into it, the net effect being that if you bounce some lights into a white sheet, for example, though it may look bright and white to your eye, in the car reflection you may see every hot spot, the folds and creases in the cloth, the frame of the white material, the c-stands holding the frame, etc. This is one reason why Fisher lights are so popular for car photography, because it is a neat, clean white softbox with black edges that creates a simple reflection in a car. So you can build your own low-budget version of a Fisher light but you just have to be very neat about it.

If the shot is static, I wonder if you would consider an extreme version of HDR, basically one pass for the sign on the car and a second longer exposure for everything that the sign illuminates, then you can combine them in post to get the sign and what it is lighting in one shot with no additional light. Unless you want some "beauty" lighting on the car, in which case you will have to go with the neat, clean, large softbox approach. Maybe a 12'x20' frame with Full Grid or Heavy Frost, etc. wrapped around the frame itself so you don't see any ties or gaps in the frame (or a black strip all around the hide the gaps) then black shirting all around. Inside should be enough units in a grid pattern to light the material evenly from edge to edge, could be anything, rows of 1K Pars for example, or a lot of nook lights, etc. Or long banks of fluorescent tubes.

[Will Keir]

David, we need a little clarification on White Balance with the Epic, I could think of no one better than a pro like yourself. Thanks in advance.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...156#post992156

Best,

[David Mullen ASC]

David, we need a little clarification on White Balance with the Epic, I could think of no one better than a pro like yourself. Thanks in advance.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...156#post992156

Best,

I posted something, but in terms of the actual steps to WB the Epic, there is plenty of advice posted already.

As for grey cards versus white cards, it doesn't matter too much as long as both as neutral and you don't clip any color channels on the white card (which is why some people prefer grey cards.)

[Will Keir]

Thanks for taking the time to help out David!

[Brandon J. Garcia]

Well, first thing is don't be afraid of lighting to a deep stop, there's no reason not to. Using a slightly off-white paper will help in a looser shot (like if you see someone's hands holding it) but once you get into a macro shot of paper you'd be exposing for the paper brightness anyway so it doesn't matter too much.

The real question is whether you can physically get the 100mm lens close enough to the paper as the keys are striking it -- at some point, you may have better luck with a telephoto lens with a diopter filter on it, like the long end of a 24-290mm Optimo, etc. It won't be as sharp as the 100mm macro lens however.

Thanks a lot David.
I really appreciate you taking the time.

BG

[SeanBrown]

Hey David, Were you happy with every script you shot? Did you ever sign on to a project with a script you were not sure was the best work out there or even the best the writer/director can do? Thanks
Sean

[David Mullen ASC]

Oh, I've done my share of mediocre movies with mediocre scripts... the funny thing is that when you've just finished a job and have some money in the bank, you get really picky about your next project... but as soon as a job falls through and you haven't been working for awhile, suddenly the scripts start looking better! You take jobs for all sorts of reasons, sometimes it's because you want to work with that director or producer, sometimes it's because the premise is interesting or the shooting style or locations are exciting more than the actual script is.