My next job is a change of pace

[Adam Frisch FSF]

It's not a sharp light, which may be fine, but you'd have to gel it for 3200K to match the rest of the stage lights, plus the expense of the thing is probably prohibitive. Part of the problem is that it is a wide set with a semi-low ceiling that can't support a lot more weight and has no greenbeds, so you couldn't easily get a high, downward hardlight floating over the set -- it would have to come from the edges of the set, and thus be a lower light.

 

I'm curious to look into a series of Molebeam projectors and see what I can do with those.

 

Sounds like a job for a full Super Wendy. 140K of tungsten punch in a relatively small package.

 

http://www.panavision.com/product_detail.p...=278&cat=60

[timHealy]

You'll be happy to know that Caleb Deschanel, ASC suggested the same thing the other day when I ran into him at the L.A. Film Festival... great minds think alike...

 

It's possible, sure, but it would be hard to adjust its angle once it's way up there on the ceiling, and it would be like playing pool to hit it at the right angle from the ground to hit the subject, plus it would probably be a 4'x4' mirror and thus only hit one small area -- and it's a big space. And I'd be a bit nervous to have a lot of heavy glass mirrors way up in the air over the actors, all season long.

 

 

If I remember correctly, Earth to the Moon created a zenon mirror rig to replicate the sun on the moon, but I think they had more space and it was more than one zenon and may have been an array of mirrors. I get the impression that your stage may be too small. I know the best boy from that job and can inquire about the specifics if you like.

 

best

 

Tim

 

 

 

A full Wendy would be a great choice if one had the space to bring it way back from the set. This stage may be too small and the ceiling may be too low. A full Wendy would also involve some serious rigging to be able to pan and tilt. Plus a thousand amps or so to run it and you'll lose a bulb or two everytime it is switched on.

 

just my 2 cents

 

best

 

Tim

[Hal Smith]

I've used color in stage lighting to establish sunlight. I don't know about the applicability of my experience to video and film but I've discovered that using a gel like Rosco R18 Flame from a bright single source through a window, doorway, etc. contrasted against conventional stage coloration area lighting "inside" helps to motivate sunlight. It isn't the brightness that says "sun" to the eye but the color contrast.

[Michael Nash]

If I remember correctly, Earth to the Moon created a zenon mirror rig to replicate the sun on the moon, but I think they had more space and it was more than one zenon and may have been an array of mirrors. I get the impression that your stage may be too small. I know the best boy from that job and can inquire about the specifics if you like.

 

That was 21 xenons if I remember correctly, pretty much every one that existed in the country at the time. Focused on a specially cooled convex mirror (to keep it from exploding from the focused heat), backed with flame retardant material to keep the light from igniting the rafters, in a blimp hangar in Tustin (?), one of the largest indoor spaces available. Not exactly the same thing as a warehouse in Santa Clarita. ;)

 

The thing with From the Earth to the Moon was an attempt to get a single light source far enough away to cast a single shadow without the spread of a closer source, and get enough brightness out of it. You could theoretically use a convex mirror closer in with units that aren't as bright or hot, but the beamspread would be more pronounced.

[Rupe Whiteman]

It's not a sharp light, which may be fine, but you'd have to gel it for 3200K to match the rest of the stage lights, plus the expense of the thing is probably prohibitive. Part of the problem is that it is a wide set with a semi-low ceiling that can't support a lot more weight and has no greenbeds, so you couldn't easily get a high, downward hardlight floating over the set -- it would have to come from the edges of the set, and thus be a lower light.

 

I'm curious to look into a series of Molebeam projectors and see what I can do with those.

 

... Watching through the dvd on King Kong: for the daylight interiors of the ship cargo-hold (where the animal cages are) Lesnie used xenons angled at rows of moveable mirrors to create strong hard-light coming from the top of the set. Perhaps something like this is feasible?

 

Congrats on the gig and I look forward to reading your observations through the project.

 

Rupe Whiteman

Edited July 3, 2006 by rupe w

[Paul M. Sommers]

I also shoot a TV show (Cold Case) and i will be interested to hear how your transition goes. I don't get the benefit of 2 DP's, so I'm always prepping shooting and posting a show. It's a hydra of a process, best of luck.

 

Paul M. Sommers

[David Sweetman]

I also shoot a TV show (Cold Case) and i will be interested to hear how your transition goes. I don't get the benefit of 2 DP's, so I'm always prepping shooting and posting a show. It's a hydra of a process, best of luck.

 

Paul M. Sommers

 

Hey, sweet I was on Cold Case the other day as a lowly extra coming out of an exploding mine. Were you there that day? I was trying to get the names of the Director and DP, but never could. It's kind of sketchy trying to strike up conversations with the crew as an extra. In an INT bar scene I was close enough to find out they were shooting 29, skip bleach, with nets behind the lens, and can't wait to see how that turns out.

[Bill DiPietra]

Congratulations, David. I'll have to check the show out...

[Guest]

Any comments David on the content of the show?

 

So you know Caleb D, geez that guy shot the number two movie on my list, The Black Stallion.

[David Sweetman]

Hah, thanks, but it's hardly grounds for congradulations...they'll take just about anyone, and there's some...ah, interesting folk working as background, to say the least.

 

I don't know who the DP was, but it definitely wasn't Caleb, it was a younger guy. I think it may have been Eric Schmidt. As for the content, what I saw looked pretty good but I've never seen an episode of the show before...though people were saying good things about it.

[David Sweetman]

Hey, I just saw crew parking in SC for a shoot abbreviated B.L. - sounds suspicious, Mr. Mullen are you on the show this week?

[David Mullen ASC]

Hey, I just saw crew parking in SC for a shoot abbreviated B.L. - sounds suspicious, Mr. Mullen are you on the show this week?

 

No, I start next week -- but I don't think there are any location shoots at USC.

[David Sweetman]

I mean Santa Clarita, isn't that where it shoots? I'm back up here for school which is why I saw the sign, crew parking was like 1 block from my appartment.

[David Mullen ASC]

I mean Santa Clarita, isn't that where it shoots? I'm back up here for school which is why I saw the sign, crew parking was like 1 block from my appartment.

 

Yes, the main stages are in Santa Clarita, and they were shooting at a house today in Newhall.

[Noelle Kale]

First congrats to you David. I've been away a looooong time. I just left a post in the gen. discussion area - my hubby and I had some tremendously great things happen and one not so good. The Emmy noms - good the breast cancer - bad. I'm fine now.

 

We moved to Burbank recently from Vegas (our careers needed for us to be here) and our son has chess club in Santa Clarita. We love it there, beautiful.

 

Is there a lot of outdoor shooting?

 

Take care and be sure to get lots of rest. Best, N

[Noelle Kale]

PS Akeelah was great!

[David Sweetman]

Santa Clarita. We love it there, beautiful.

grrr...I can't stand santa clarita...from the pointless islands in the middle of the road so you can't turn in any direction, to all the fake green to disguise the death and decay of the desert, to the kind of folks who walk straight up to me and condemn me for smoking when I'm sitting by myself enjoying an occasional cigar...freakin' santa clarita is the bane of my existence. But other than that, it's alright I guess. The two bastions of hope I've found are the free concrete skatepark down sierra highway and the sweet cigar shop on the old road.

[David Sweetman]

David.

David

just realized these weren't directed at me, which is a relief in sense, I thought that was wierd. But Mr. Mullen certainly does deserve congratulations. Forgive me for stealing the response. Perhaps a bit more context next time would prevent some of us slow-minded Davids lurking around from becoming confused.

 

I also just got Akeelah and the Bee to work in my dvd player, and the movie is fantastic. (I love the wide shot of the kid throwing the basketball)

[Jesus Sifuentes]

thats awesome sir! any way you can post some photos of your lighting setup? that would be awesome.

[Sean Azze]

First congrats to you David. I've been away a looooong time. I just left a post in the gen. discussion area - my hubby and I had some tremendously great things happen and one not so good.

 

 

Damn - too bad you have a hubby. I'd have to say you're probably the most attractive member on this forum (I say probably because you're just a close second to Phil Rhodes :lol: ).

 

Anyway, I don't know you but glad to hear you've overcome the ailment in your life and welcome back to the forum!

[David Mullen ASC]

I have yet to receive permission to "blog" about the production of the show, so I'll just give you a vague update...

 

There have been a lot of challenges on the show, one in particular has been dealing with this large backyard "day exterior" set on an indoor soundstage. So far, my solution, which seems to be working, has been to reduce the overall level of the spacelights overhead (which have some half-blue ones mixed into white ones) and then combine that with as much intensity as I can get out of spotted 20K's and Molelinos (like Dinos) on high parallels, usually as a backlight from across the soundstage.

 

I've been trying to get a three-stop difference at least between the "sun" and the "shade", shooting in backlight, and exposing for the shade. And rather than light the faces in the backyard scenes with extra units (other than the overhead spacelights), I have been using large bounce cards and small white cards too from low to just reflect some of the "sun" back into the faces. This seems to look fairly realistic, or at least, as far as I can make it. The trick has been to get the dailies colorist to let the dailies look bright enough, since he's under a rule that he can't allow any clipping in the transfer, so I won't be able to burn up any highlights or edges until later tape-to-tape timing.

 

The only problem I see is getting sick of the "sun" always backlighting a scene in every angle... yesterday I tried shooting the reverse angle in front light with just a single 20K for a crisp hard sunlight look. Seemed to work fine but there are limits to shooting in frontal hard light with a cast that I'm supposed to make look good all the time. I could go for an overcast look I suppose, with just the cool overhead spacelights on, but these scenes are intercut with scenes shot outside in the California sun, faked for sunny Utah. So sunny seems to be the right look for the interiors.

 

When shooting inside the house sets with this backyard as a background, I haven't been able to get the view out the windows as hot as I want to, but I've been coming close, mainly by spotting all my lights on bushes, grass, the backing, etc. You'd think with 20K's, 10K's, and Dinos, I could get everything to burn out, but since the lenses they mostly use on this show are T/3 Cooke zooms, and I'm rating the 35mm Expression 500T stock at 400 ASA, if I light the interior to T/3, then the most I can get the background up to is around T/8, so a little more than two stops overexposed view outside of the windows. Now if I could use primes and light the interiors to a lower level, then I could get a brighter background, but the fast shooting style on a TV series pretty much demands using zooms except for the occasional steadicam shot. The other option would be to underexpose the foreground, but this isn't a moody-looking show, and that would amount to going for a thinner negative with the intent to lighten it in post, which I don't want to do. The post people have been very happy with the rich (i.e. well-exposed) negative I have been giving them.

 

I can also say that these HBO veterens on my crew are fantastic all-around, particularly the camera department. Also, my B-camera team usually works B-camera for Spielberg/Kaminski, so I get to grill them everyday about how Kaminski shoots...

[Guest]

David,

 

I'm sure many of us would like to know the ballbark salary range for a DOP that shoots a show of this nature. Not asking of course for your exact numbers, just what would be typical industry standard on a show like this.

 

Are you paid a flat rate for the show, or a daily rate?

 

Thanks

R,

[David Mullen ASC]

I suspect the DP's salaries in TV vary quite a bit -- I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised that the other DP is getting paid more than me, for example. Maybe not, maybe we're getting the same rate, but the other DP did last season and he's been around a lot longer, etc. Certainly I would guess that the top TV DP's are making substantially more than me.

 

I know in studio work, the studio often tries to find out what the DP made on their last show and offer not much more than that, hence why it's a good idea to get your rate up whenever possible.

 

In my case, the rate is similar, just a little higher, than my rate on past IATSE features, not a lot higher than scale minimum. It's hourly, with a higher rate in overtime. It's not exactly the standard union pay scale but some special contract between HBO and the union. In theory, I get paid for 5 days of prep and then 10 days of shooting per episode, but in practice, there are extra days scattered here and there.

[Justin Hayward]

The trick has been to get the dailies colorist to let the dailies look bright enough, since he's under a rule that he can't allow any clipping in the transfer,

 

Who set that rule and why?

 

The backlighting outside may get boring after a while, as you said, but are there scenes that take place in the early morning or later in the afternoon? Low frontal hard light can be very flattering to actors, on occasion.

[David Mullen ASC]

The transfer is optimized for tape-to-tape, so it holds all the info on the negative. If there is a lot of bright highlight detail, this tends to drive the image down in the transfer -- conversely, darker night scenes end up brighter than they are supposed to look.

 

It's a little annoying because your brightest scenes end up looking darker than you want and the darker scenes end up looking lighter than you want. Sometimes it works to my advantage in that I can expose a day interior normally but have it look a little darker (which I like) because of a bright window in the shot.

 

The dailies colorist is not allowed to use any tools like soft clipping (knee compression), power windows, secondary color correction, etc. He's working under the requirements set by the senior colorist who will do the final tape-to-tape.

 

You would think that a "flat" transfer would just look flat and low-con, and bright, but actually sometimes it looks "down", dimmer and duller than the snappy look I prefer. I'm glad I'm shooting Expression 500T because it helps keep the low-end areas of the frame from getting crushed-looking. Many sets have medium-to-dark paint jobs so they can fall-off too quickly if you're not careful.