Shadowboxer

[David Mullen ASC]

I've found in general that on union shows there is a greater effort to be done in 12 hours because of the overtime (which starts before 12 hours technically.) This can sometimes be a curse as well as a blessing, i.e. the plug gets pulled at 12 hrs. when you could have finished in a few more shots. But on other union shows, it doesn't seem to matter -- we go 18 hours despite the costs.

 

Anyway, overtime pay is better than no overtime pay, obviously...

 

I don't mind putting in the occasional longer day to make the scene better or get it done -- what I mind is when it was avoidable if we had simply started out the day faster without delays. Like losing three hours just to get a wig approved, only to have it rejected again after dailies and having to reshoot those scenes again with a new wig. THAT'S what pre-production is for, and considering we had 11 weeks of prep on this film, there's no excuse for that not being taken care of earlier. When I did my stock tests, art department gave me painted panels to test for various locations, but I was told that there would be no hair and make-up tests needed.

[Max Jacoby]

When I did my stock tests, art department gave me painted panels to test for various locations, but I was told that there would be no hair and make-up tests needed.

I remember Eduardo Serra telling me that the producer of 'What Dreams May Come' told him that there were 2 things he could spend as much money on he wanted: one being filmstock, the other one being tests. I wish all producers thought like that!

 

I think we've all encountered producers who by trying to save money short term only ended up spending more long term. And they never seem to learn...

[David Mullen ASC]

WEEK SIX

 

Started the week at a bar called The Bleu Martini. Since it has blue neon behind the bottles at the bar, plus small pinspot lighting, I decided to use Kodak 5218 pushed to one stop in order to preserve the natural ambience of the bar. However, with two cameras running all the time on long lenses, and some action, I ended up lighting the room to T/2.8-4.0 split at 800 ASA rather than shoot wide-open (besides, the 180mm E-Series lens is T/2.8 max anyway.) Used Kino bluescreen tubes on some of the background walls and as an edge light. A few tungsten spots from Dedolights, plus some Kino 55 tubes as soft fill. It?s amazing in dailies how deep a blue the background gets with the Kino bluescreen tubes ? it?s a pretty strong effect (maybe too strong from some?)

 

For three days after that, we were at a 19th Century Tudor-style stone mansion. Used a Dino on a Condor with 1/2 Blue to light the exterior, plus tungsten spots on the building from below. What?s nice about the Dino is the control over exposure since you can turn off individual bulbs. Again, used pushed Kodak 5218 for the wide night exterior shots, T/2-2.8 split at 800 ASA. Inside, I used Fuji F-500T rated at 320 ASA. Had one day exterior that I intended to shoot on Fuji F-64D but by the time the actors came out of the make-up trailer, the clouds socked in and I had to switch to F-250D (rated at 160 ASA.) Then, would you know it, it got brighter again. But then we ended up shooting the last shot at dusk. Luckily it was an ECU so I could light it with an HMI to a decent stop and not see any background landscape. Last shot at the mansion that night was Helen Mirren?s picture wrap. I?m sorry to see her go. It was a steadicam shot that went from outside the mansion at night, across the parking lot, through the front door, and into the foyer. Lit the interior to a T/2.8 and the exterior to a T/2.0, letting it be a stop under compared to the interior. 40mm C-Series on the steadicam. Lit the large foyer with a 10K through a 6x6 Light Grid in the next room, sidelighting the foyer. Unfortunately, T/2.8 is wide-open on the C-series lens. Had a delay on shooting when a major lightning storm passed overhead, so I brought down the condor and let the storm pass.

 

Ended the week at a restaurant. Luckily, the background dining area had this big header beam, so I hid two 2K open-faced lights on a pipe rig behind it and bounced them into the high ceiling, getting a T/2.8-4.0 split at 320 ASA. Tables also had little lamps. Foreground action was at a bar, which I uplit by laying bare Kino tubes in the trough behind the bar. Moved to an apartment location. The gaffer, Kevin Janicelli, brought out a unit they use for the sets on ?The Sopranos?, a long tin box with a row of household bulbs at the back and an eggcrate in front, sort of like a Kinoflo effect but brighter (total of 2K in wattage.) Basically an upscale version of a bat strip. I rigged it on the back wall as a soft backlight. I liked the unit so much I hope I can find one in L.A. or get one built.

[Alvin Pingol]

Hello David, I would just like to say thank you for keeping us posted on your progress. I always enjoy reading your updates - can't wait to see the finished product! :)

[David Mullen ASC]

WEEK SEVEN (FINAL)

 

We wrapped after a three-day final week. A total of 32 full shooting days, plus two half-days shooting b-roll material the week before production, so let?s say it was a 33-day production. Spent most of the last two weeks using two cameras, trying to stay on schedule. It?s funny because originally I was told that there was only five days budgeted for a b-camera and no budget for a second unit. I told them that at some point, we?d need a second unit to get all of the odd shots of the city the director wanted, and I told them that five days wasn?t enough for b-camera. Low and behold, by the last two weeks I hear that they are bringing in a b-camera crew for the rest of the show and a second unit for the last two days ? I don?t even have to ask, it was so obvious we needed it. I was lucky to get Richard Rutkowski from NYC to come out and shoot the second unit material.

 

This being my second anamorphic feature, but the first with a lot of night interior and exterior scenes, what did I learn? First of all, I should have made a greater effort to light and shoot at T/4, which I did more of towards the end ? partially because the director kept asking in the last minute for me to shoot the scene at 48 fps, i.e. now I?m at an T/2.8, which is wide-open on some of the C and E-series lenses. I found though that the Primo anamorphics are great at night, with minimal veiling and glare other than the classic blue line from strong lights, which they are as bad as any other anamorphic lenses for. But their contrast and sharpness are great for night work, plus they are T/2.0 lenses.

 

I also found the 250 ASA daylight stocks to be a lot more useful for day exteriors than I thought. We?d have many days that started in full sun and suddenly the clouds would sock in, dropping me to a T/2.8 on the slow stock, which is tough on anamorphic plus gives me no ability to overcrank the camera. So I shot more outdoor scenes than I planned on Fuji F-250D rated at 160 ASA.

 

But I can see why Dean Semler, using anamorphic lenses, shot all of his interiors for ?The Alamo? on Vision-2 5218 pushed one stop. I did this for a couple of scenes, rating 5218 at 800 ASA and pushing it one stop, and found that I could preserve more of the natural look of the location?s lighting and/or work closer to a T/4, or at least, between a T/2.8 and a T/4. There is some graininess from this technique, and little more contrast, but when combined with the larger anamorphic format, it's not objectionable.

 

I did shoot one scene mostly wide-open, at T/2.0 or a T/2.0-2.8 split, to keep the background city lights well exposed, and it had an interesting look but it was way too much work to throw at the focus-puller when you only have time for two takes generally before you move on.

 

Really enjoyed working with my Philly camera crew: Dave Taicher (operator), Michael Leonard (1st AC), Leon Sanginiti (2nd AC), Dan Cook (loader), and David Wittlin (camera intern), plus the various b-camera people that came in went, in particular Kate Butler, who pulled focus many days when I was on b-camera (because we couldn't find a b-camera operator.) I also was glad I could bring my Key Grip from L.A., Brad Heiner and his best, Rick Young. And my gaffer from NYC was first rate, Kevin Janicelli. The electrics were all Philly local, as well as the grips, and they were great. Tomorrow I get on a plane for home and I can't wait! I've been out here in Philadelphia more or less for five months (long, long prep...), my longest period away from home ever.

[Jayson Crothers]

Congrats on wrapping David! I wrap my feature in Arizona in just a few days and will be returning to LA after being gone for six weeks; it's a nice feeling to know you'll be sleeping in your own bed soon, isn't it?

 

Can't wait to see the film; any ideas on when they plan on releasing it?

[Tenolian Bell]

Sounds cool to have your second anamorphic feature under your belt. Now I have a great reference and base of knowledge when my anamorphic shows come.

[Leon Sanginiti, Jr.]

Hello, I have been reading this thread for some time now, and I just wanted to respond. First of all, congratulations to David on the completion of "Shadowboxer", it was no easy task, that is for sure, I should know, because I was the second AC on the job.

 

First, let me tell you...for those of you who don't personally know David, and those who only know him through his postings, I have to let you know that it was a pleasure knowing and working with him. His knowledge on certain aspects of cinematography is definitely mind blowing. The man can pull out dates on when certain film stocks were introduced kinda like David Copperfield can pull cards out of thin air. He is a quiet, extremely focused individual, who has a lighting style that can rival any DP who has many more years on him.

 

Now with that said, let me tell you how this guy, along with the rest of the camera department, was challenged to the max every single day on a shoot that was chock full of events that would have sent any other DP storming off the set, pulling his hair out in disgust.

 

Read his diary, and then read it again, CLOSELY. If he was able to put every single challenge down, I'm sure that cinematography.com would need an extra server or two to support all of the info. We were up against an above the line group that was, to put it in a single word, UNPREPARED. OK, so maybe a single word doesn't do it justice...how about inexperienced...or uncoordinated...or just plain unaware of the mechanics of film making. Every single day we were up against something that was out of our hands. Now, most of us here have been in similar situations, and with enough years of experience, I am sure one can say he has "seen it all"...but I am talking about situations that even us so called "vets" were shaking our heads.

 

There was no prep. At least no prep where prep was needed, and I mean that the camera department had two days to get an anamorphic show off the ground, including making sure that all of our lenses were up to speed (no pun intended). I've done shows with little or no prep before, but this was, as we have coined a phrase on the show, "Crazy Talk". David had a much longer prep time...but as he mentioned before...no matter what decisions were made during prep...no matter how he labored on storyboards and tests, and logistics, it all went straight out the window when it came time to shoot. When we started to set up a shot...the question that he was always confronted with was "How many minutes?" Poor David..."how many minutes David? How many minutes?" His answer almost always had to be "ten minutes...or fifteen"...God forbid he said "twenty"...he would be looked at as if he had two heads. One night we were shooting a rain exterior...complete with lights on condors, a huge rain tower, and lots of other equipment scattered about. When it came time to do the reverse, and everything had to be moved to the other side, David was literally followed around by someone hanging on his shoulder asking how long and if it can be done faster. That was the only time I saw this quiet guy flinch, and luckily our gaffer came to the rescue and scolded the guy by saying "hey it takes longer for coffee to perk over at craft service! Give us a break!" It was like that for many days.

 

However....the show was completed. And I must say, from what little bit of the dailies that I saw, it looks fantastic. This due to a guy who was pressured, pushed and challenged, and still was able to pull it off. His artistry shone through, and that's what mattered.

 

David, it was a pleasure working with you. From all of us here...your camera department in Philadelphia, I must say thank you.

 

Leon Sanginiti

Camera Assistant

[John Pytlak RIP]

B) If filmmaking was only just about filmmaking. :rolleyes:

[David Mullen ASC]

The more I shoot, the less I second-guess other DP's. I mean, so many decisions are based on getting the shot done quickly, like:

 

"What lens is on the camera?" "The 100mm." "That's fine, we'll shoot the insert with the 100mm. Pan that light over here... OK, I'm ready!" People on the outside think every decision made is carefully thought out. Instead, it's more like orchestrated chaos. It's just that as you get more experienced, the better your snap decisions are. Sometimes ... other times, I find myself driving home that evening kicking myself for not coming up with a better approach. I was working in this one huge bedroom, for example, where every camera position and lighting position was not based on what looked good, but on what wasn't going to be reflected in the giant mirror that was hung along one wall. Why didn't I just put my foot down and have the art department replace the mirror with a painting rather than let myself get trapped like that? Well, I was trying to be true to the art director's vision of the room. But with two cameras rolling, one handheld, on a semi-action moment (a childbirth) the mirror was just a nightmare and tilting it didn't help. And it was a period mansion so I wasn't allowed to rig anything.

[Wendell_Greene]

When we started to set up a shot...the question that he was always confronted with was "How many minutes?" Poor David..."how many minutes David? How many minutes?" His answer almost always had to be "ten minutes...or fifteen"...God forbid he said "twenty"...he would be looked at as if he had two heads.

It's been my experience (which I thought someone of David's caliber would be exempt from-- surprise, surprise!) that producers will give key make-up more time to work on an actor's face; never once questioning how long it will take to apply the foundation or the mascara, than they will allow a DP to light an entire scene!

 

Thanks again, David and Leon for your candid comments.

 

Two heads... reminds me of a hilarious "Mike's Hard Lemonade" spot I saw a couple of years ago of a man starting to grow a second head out of his neck... must have been a DP. :D

[Leon Rodriguez]

David, Congratulations on wrapping your feature. Thanks especially for reporting in all that wonderful detail on the making of Shadowboxer. I've saved them all to re read when it comes out. It's like having a guest pass to be on the set with you. Thanks a million, we all grow a lot from this.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Hmm, I thought I was the only person who had those kinds of problems. I have actually been asked: "How long?" "How many minutes." To be fair though that happens in every job I've ever done, especially post.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

On a feature film shoot, you'll always be asked how much time you need for the next set-up because it affects several other departments -- especially what the AD does with the actors -- send them into "holding" or send them back to their trailers. Trouble is, the AD never wants to hear the truth so you always end up underestimating the time.

 

"Ten minutes" is code for "don't send the actors away because it will take twenty minutes to bring them back to set". Saying "ten minutes" keeps the actors and the director from running off and making a half-hour's worth of phone calls.

 

The problem was that I always needed to give a 5 minute warning in order to get the actor back on set no matter what -- but it always took 10 minutes to get them back. But if it was a 10 minute set-up, that means I'd really be calling "ready" before I even started working, so that doesn't work either. Anyway, I busted my ass so many times to be ready only to wait for the actors. I remember one morning when we arrived to a new location and I was ready to shoot in 45 minutes (and I said I needed 45 minutes) but then waited another hour for the actors. Every ten minutes the hair and make-up people would pass their estimate and add another ten minutes, so it wasn't like I could move on to another shot because I kept being told that they would be ready in ten more minutes, so I had to sit and wait. And because of turnaround issues, we couldn't precall the actors to make-up and then often they might be a half-hour late. But of course, the crew had to all be there on time. So at the end of the day, you run around like crazy to make up for the time lost in the morning.

 

I'll add that this problem is really in regards to the female actors, who often need an hour or so in the make-up chair. A male actor could often be a half-hour late but be ready to shoot in ten minutes so it was not as big a deal. So this is a warning if any of you go shoot a feature with a bunch of actresses who are worried about their make-up. And I'll finish by saying that this never applied to Helen Mirren, who never took much time in make-up and was always on time, never fussed over how she was looking, never complained about her lighting, etc. ("I stopped worrying about that stuff years ago...") A beautiful woman, a real pro, and a joy to work with!

[Mitch Gross]

A good AD knows to ask "How long?" and then leave the DP alone for that time. If there is a trust and understanding built up on set then the AD knows he can take that time estimate and work with it. I gentlmanly let the AD know in preproduction that I try to be very good with my estimates and work with him/her, but to please not have an assistant keep bugging me about it. As the time of my estimate approches an AD can ask me how I'm doing with something like, "five minutes out--can I start bringing in the talent?" but that should be the extent of it. Sometimes things take longer than expected and I'll apologize and ask for more time. If they keep bugging me with someone following me around on set I'll put up with it until wrap and then ask for a quick production meeting where I will explain that it is very disruptive to my work and actually makes things go much longer with the distraction. Usually this works things out. But sometimes it is an obnoxious and nervous producer who is pestering me, so I really have to be careful how I say it!

 

Thanks for the great diary David.

[David Mullen ASC]

There was no problem with the AD, Tom Fatone, but with getting the actors and director back to set when each set-up was ready. His hands were tied, so to speak. This required a lot of political manuevering, sometimes announcing loudy an inaccurate set-up time just to keep them from going back to their trailers (and for some of our locations, the trailers were blocks away.)

 

As for the pestering, that never came from the AD but from the UPM when on set. We had three huge days at this one location that required us to work 14 to 16 hours each day just to get the work done. The AD and I both knew this but we were told that we only had three days and no one would cut the scenes down (in fact, they kept adding scenes.) On the first day, the UPM ran around re-arranging the call sheet trying to "hurry us up" and asking us to simultaneously light three locations on the estate at once, moving night exteriors from the next day, etc. It was a mess. In the end, we worked 12 hours the first day, but 18 hours the next! On the final day, the director decided he didn't want to work over 12 hours, our actor was going to leave after 12 hours, so they finally added a fourth day to the location.

 

As I told the UPM, "look we have 'x' amount of work here to do and whether we do three 16 hour days, or 12 the first, 18 the next, etc. the amount of work is still there -- it doesn't matter how you slice up the pie." Rearranging, running around, etc. wasn't going to make us go any faster. We had stunts, squibs, gunfire, lighting up a two-story mansion and estate, lighting a Steadicam shot that ran through both stories of the mansion at night, etc. Due to safety, it can only go SO fast. There was simply too much work scheduled for the location -- the AD told them that, I told them that, but they were firm about it being only three days at the location... until the director and actor basically cut the third day short and forced a fourth day there.

 

It's just one of the typical situations where the AD is forced to come up with an unworkable schedule because they have "x" amount of money so can only budget for "x" amount of days -- yet any attempt to drop scenes or locations from the script is pointless because just before the day we shoot, all those scenes get returned to the schedule -- yet the schedule doesn't get any longer! And yet, it DOES, because we end up adding two days in the end to fit these scenes back in.

 

We were also told that there were only five days budgeted for a b-camera crew and no budget for a second unit. Yet in the end, we had maybe 12 days of b-camera and three days of second unit. It's just one of those things where no one wants to believe the bad news early on until it's too late.

 

Actually, I had a pretty good working relationship with the AD department.

[Max Jacoby]

Trouble is, the AD never wants to hear the truth so you always end up underestimating the time. 

A film I did last summer involved lots of car rigs, which obvioulsy take their time. The 1st AD kept on asking literally every 2 minutes: "How much longer?" until the focus-puller told him: "I'll be much faster if I don't have to answer you every minute"

 

That kept him quiet for a few days. :P

[Mitch Gross]

I hate it when the UPM shows up on set and starts cutting the AD off at the knees. It almost never works out well and becomes some sort of unseemly powerplay. I had one guy who assigned this poor PA to shadow me at all times with a walkie, even noting for the Production Log when I would go to the bathroom. That got ugly and I had to put a stop to.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Fascinating read, David!

[Alex Lindblom]

Thank you David. For taking us on this journey with Shadowboxer. Great stuff as always.

[Jarin Blaschke]

Thanks, David. This is madness I can relate to, but not for several weeks! On my last shoot, it really slowed things down to have someone literally stand over me, with a watch, literally counting down the seconds. Un-f-ing believable. And why? because that same department was too incompetent to mobilize people to the second location that day. And then when we got there, we couldn't get in. We had full permission, but the shooting day was changed to the 5th of July. So, we had to change the scene to an exterior. Because of someone else's incompetence, I have to look like the jerk at the end of the day because I can't light the scene in 5 minutes. So yes, I can relate - but that was only eight days - not seven weeks!

[Hunter Hampton]

And I thought all of this stuff only happened to me because I was dealing with people with less experience in film production (including myself). Good to hear this stuff happens to you too- it was a relief to read this (and I learned things too). Thanks for taking the time to do these.