Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

[David Mullen ASC]

Hi David,

I have a film coming up that I'm shooting that involves a boy and girl riding bikes. I would like to follow them in a very fluid way. I don't think we can afford a steadicam and definitely cannot afford a real camera truck, but I was hoping to still achieve this in a cheaper way. My thought was to rig a jib to the back of a pickup truck in order to have some stabilization to fight any bumps and still get a fluid way to follow the kids as we ride in front or alongside them. I'd love to hear any ideas you have for creating this smooth and stabilized shot.

Thanks.

Wear a safety harness... that may work if you are going slow in a straight line, but I would worry about inertia throwing the camera side to side when you take turns. And you still have to take some of the vibrations that would run from the base, through the arm, and into the camera, perhaps using your arms to absorb some of it. If you want a handheld-but-smoother look, something like an EasyRig maybe, or an arm with a bungy cord, again with you and everything safety harnessed. At minimal, you could mount the camera to a hi-hat or short legs but use an vibration isolator under the head.

The main problem with not using a camera car is not having that forward platform for shots chasing the bikes. If you don't need to operate the shots, perhaps you can mount the camera to the nose of the car using something similar to a hostess tray or with speed rail. With a beefier speed rail rig, maybe you can even put a vibration isolator and then a geared head with Hot Wheels so you can operate the shot. At some point, however, it may be simpler to just get a camera car so you can operate the camera on the nose.

So whatever you can to make the ride smoother, smoother road, take some air out of the tires maybe, etc.

[David Mullen ASC]

Ideally you could create something on the ceiling to rig off of, maybe a pipe supported by vertical beams dressed into the location. I've also put rows of small lights, like Dedos or Peppers on top of the shelves that run above the bar bottle wall, pointed back at the stools. Sometimes I've laid a row of bare Kino tubes along the sinks under the bar counter or in the trough itself along the bar counter for an uplight. I've also put Kinos or Lunestra tubes behind the bottles. You can dress the set with more light sources, neon signs, table lamps, etc.

[Harry Lime]

Hi David,

I have a film coming up that I'm shooting that involves a boy and girl riding bikes. I would like to follow them in a very fluid way. I don't think we can afford a steadicam and definitely cannot afford a real camera truck, but I was hoping to still achieve this in a cheaper way. My thought was to rig a jib to the back of a pickup truck in order to have some stabilization to fight any bumps and still get a fluid way to follow the kids as we ride in front or alongside them. I'd love to hear any ideas you have for creating this smooth and stabilized shot.

Thanks.

Have you considered suspending the camera from a bungee rig? You could build something like this from wood or metal rail quite easily.
Basically it's a platform made from heavy plywood that is suspended on four corners with bungee cords. Works surprisingly well.

http://www.adorama.com/MT395325.html

http://www.adorama.com/MT395330.html

Here is a picture of none other than Roger Deakins using one. Jolly good show!

http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/Ja...0111_RD_10.jpg


You can also rig up something like this in a mini van and shoot out of the open door. Maybe suspend it from speed rail that is attached to a roof rack.
By the way, the Mazda Miata roadster makes a great camera car..., depending on the condition of the road you may want to use the bungee cord setup, unless you want the camera to be vibrated to pieces. YOu can also deflate the tires a little for added smoothness, but watch your speed!

And I second wearing a harness for safety. Just make sure it's the proper length. You don't want to go over the side and then get dragged along, possibly under the wheels, with no way of escaping because you're tied in.

You may also want to check if it's legal to ride in the back of a pickup truck wherever you are.

[scott william]

Hi David,

Any advice on lighting a movie theater? it's a light hearted scene in which a patron gets 'shooshed' and throws popcorn. I was thinking of using a flicking blue backlight to emulate the projection light spill and under exposing to create the feeling of darkness in the cinema. Do you have any other suggestions?

[Robert Hart]

Regarding the juliansees enquiry regarding kids on bikes in motion. It is probably a bit churlish of me to stick my nose in when the question is addressed to another. That said, if you have a camera operator who can handhold and your camera is as rigged like an ENG camera with sidefinder as you can make it, maybe try the camera operator as pillion passenger on a big heavy touring motorcycle. The images achieved by some of the motorcycle cameramen in the Tour De France and other suchlike telecasts are remarkably smooth. It is the nature of the way they operate that they are already stablised or smooth on one axis, purely because of the rider balancing on two wheels. A loading of two adults on a touring motocycle makes for a fairly smooth ride.

[David Mullen ASC]

Hi David,

Any advice on lighting a movie theater? it's a light hearted scene in which a patron gets 'shooshed' and throws popcorn. I was thinking of using a flicking blue backlight to emulate the projection light spill and under exposing to create the feeling of darkness in the cinema. Do you have any other suggestions?

I would either try to get a real projector playing something in the booth, or use a Joker 800 Source-4 Leko with a narrow-beam lens, though it's hard to wave something in front of that to make it flicker if you see the lens front in the shot. If that's so, you may need to use a 750 tungsten Source-4 Leko so you can attach a flicker box. Last time I had a scene like that, I got the projector room to use the real DLP projector in there for the beam, playing some footage with a lot of cuts in it so that there would be a lot of motivated lighting shifts. Then I bounced some lights into a big white sheet (or the real screen in the widest shot of the audience) and randomly dimmed or waved them around the bounce. Lighting in a movie theater doesn't flicker so much as shifts from side to side or has suddenly jumps in intensity as the scene plays out on the screen and cuts happen. Of course, in reality it would also be shifting in color too but that gets a bit trickier, maybe not worth it particularly since the projector beam should also be shifting in color.

When I used a real projector, I got permission to miss-aim it so that the beam cut closer to the back of the actor's head and towards the lens more to get a better beam and flare in the smoke. But I didn't backlight the actress with the projector beam.

Haze the room lightly to see the beam.

[scott william]

Thanks David, I will look into getting a projectionist to play something for us, sounds like the best option.

[anneso_M]

Hi David Mullen,

here is the video I am interested in getting answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNZJXmcaG4I

It is a mastercard ad (30 sec). Take a couple of seconds to watch the beginning and let me know if you feel the discomfort as much as I do.

What concerns me is the motion blur. I don't know the camera setting. But let say it would have been shot slow-mo, 100fps, 1/200th, 180 shutter angle.

Correct me if I am wrong on any of those points :

*I wasn't on set, but I have a feeling, that first of all, the camera movement were too fast. So even thou you shoot it slow-mo, I think you still need to slow down your movement, specifically when a steadicam is panning all the way around.

*Also, setting wise, your shutter speed must be set on twice your frame rate is, I got that. But, then, if you want to avoid the motion blur, shooting at 100fps, if you set your camera on 1/400th, how much will this impact on your look? I believe in would be more appropriate in this case (and I am not talking about the affect on the light).

*You don't want a soldier ryan, but instead, all the frames to be as sharp as it can get, so could changing your shutter angle help ? By going to let say 240 deg instead of 180 ? Which in that case, will affect the shutter speed too,

A little bit confused I am !

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Best, Thank you

[David Mullen ASC]

It doesn't look slow-motion to me.

Anyway, it's just the look of fast wide-angle panning & moving at 24 fps with a 180 degree shutter angle (1/48th). Closing down to 90 degrees (1/96th) would have increased the strobing... but reduced the smearing. But to some degree, you're just hitting the limitations of such a low motion sampling rate as 24 fps. Shooting it at a faster rate and showing it at the faster rate would help reducing stobing & smearing. It's not unusual to shoot slow-motion footage with an even shorter shutter speed than 180 degrees creates in order to capture more details in motion, like splashing water droplets (similar to the reason why one might use strobes to light water droplets, the shorter exposure time keeps the moving droplets from blurring.) I've seen sports commercials shoot footage at rates like 400 fps with a 45 degree shutter to see every bit of dirt fly up crisply. But that takes a lot of light.

At normal frame rates when there is less blur, the strobing becomes stronger (the "Saving Private Ryan" effect) because a motion was sampled in too few frames. With more blur, the smeariness can look sort of video-ish like 60i footage.

[Yousuf Abbasi]

Hi David
I was wondering if the placement of filters have any effect on image, particularly the distance away from the lens front element. I have a UV filter screwed on the lens, and then a 5x5 Blue filter which comes maybe 5-inches later. And then a 5x5 ND filter which comes 0.2-inches after that. Is it better to have less of a gap between filters? Does it matter?