Manure

[David Mullen ASC]

Just counted, this is my 34th feature in the 17 years since I graduated from film school in 1991 and shot my first feature in 1992.

 

This and the next ("Stay Cool") will be my fifth and sixth feature for the Polish Brothers.

[James Steven Beverly]

Just outta curiosity, why did they choose to buy a Red, why not a 35mm like an Arri? Is it just a question of production cost? It would seem to me considering the Polish Brothers very personal and artsy style of film making, it would almost require using film. Seems almost treasonous to choose a digital format. I don't know, is it really that much cheaper go with digital acquisition in the long run or are there other reasons they may have gone this route?

Edited June 1, 2008 by James Steven Beverly

[David Mullen ASC]

The stock / processing / telecine are the main expenses when shooting film, not the cameras. For these two movies, that would have probably added up to $150,000 or more. If we were shooting 35mm, we'd just rent the cameras as we always have. For the two shoots, it would have been cheaper than buying. Now it probably would have been cheaper to rent three RED's as well, but the investor bought them separately from the budget and has the option of selling them at the end of production.

 

Anyway, we shot "Jackpot" digitally on the F900 and the Polish Brothers have been looking for an opportunity to try digital again on a project. So they decided these independently-financed projects would be a good chance to experiment with new digital technology.

[Saul Rodgar]

Just counted, this is my 34th feature in the 17 years since I graduated from film school in 1991 and shot my first feature in 1992.

 

This and the next ("Stay Cool") will be my fifth and sixth feature for the Polish Brothers.

 

The stills look great. From what I have seen, the Polish bros REALLY like the post-war small-town Americana look. It seems like this movie and Northfork are somewhat related visually, despite the obvious different color palette. How do you go about preventing the look (lighting, palette, lensing, visual style, etc) of your Polish bros movies from potentially starting to look similar?

Edited June 1, 2008 by Saul Rodgar

[David Mullen ASC]

The stills look great. From what I have seen, the Polish bros REALLY like the post-war small-town Americana look. It seems like this movie and Northfork are somewhat related visually, despite the obvious different color palette. How do you go about preventing the look (lighting, palette, lensing, visual style, etc) of your Polish bros movies from potentially starting to look similar?

 

Well, compared to "Northfork", this one is shot on Zeiss Ultra Primes using Classic Black diffusion, not Primo anamorphic using ProMist, this one is being shot on the RED camera, not on Fuji film, this one is all-brown, not all grey, this one is set in the early 1960's, not early 1950's, this one will have a jazz score...

 

But the main difference is that this movie is all shot on stages with painted landscapes, which is bound to be quite different in feeling that shooting in Montana on real landscapes.

 

But yes, there are some similarities between "Northfork", "Astronaut Farmer", and "Manure" in terms of the Americana themes, the vaguely Norman Rockwell / Andrew Wyeth / Edward Hopper feeling.

 

The next movie is a modern comedy set in suburbia, about a high school (Class of '84 I think) reunion, all shot on location. And the color palette will be significantly different, probably sort of 1980's-era pop art. But a lot of it will use real places and just find ways to compose them interestingly, rather than create everything from scratch.

[Guest Stephen Murphy]

As usual your work looks stunning David. Particularly like the wide farmhouse afternoon shot.

In terms of blocking, how close (distance) are you allowing the actors to get to the cyc? Presumably you have a minimum distance you're trying to keep between them and it?

[David Mullen ASC]

As usual your work looks stunning David. Particularly like the wide farmhouse afternoon shot.

In terms of blocking, how close (distance) are you allowing the actors to get to the cyc? Presumably you have a minimum distance you're trying to keep between them and it?

 

Well, the problem is that in order to make this 25-day schedule, we have to separate the field set into at least two sets most of the days, like a carrot farm in one direction and a potato farm in another, for example, which cuts the shootable area down in half sometimes. Ideally we'd always stage as close to one end or the middle with the whole landscape in the b.g. and the backing farther off but that isn't always possible. Some scenes we will be quite close to the backing, especially as we squeeze multiple cars into the shot.

 

Reverse angles can be hard or easy, depending. Sometimes a f.g. person with their back to camera, an over-the-shoulder shot of someone watching the action in the distance, is at the near end of the stage, so we have to pull them deep into the middle to shoot a reverse angle on their face with enough depth behind them. But other times, one can just shoot the same direction for the reverse angle more or less.

 

Now I'm noticing on these old movies showing on TCM how the stagebound Hollywood movies of the 1930's and 1940's used limited stage space very carefully.

[Travis Cline]

How much flexibility do you have as far camera movement (especially dolly moves) is concerned? I mean while shooting with the cyc in the background, is a changing perspective an issue or not? How about dolly moves on interiors with the cyc out the windows? It looks great, and although difficult, it must be fun to shoot an entire movie on stage. Thanks David.

 

 

Travis

Edited June 2, 2008 by Travis Cline

[David Mullen ASC]

There are limits to how much we can dolly across a set where we have a lot of forced perspective objects along the base of the cyc, but we aren't locked into static shots either (some stylization of perspective is allowable here.) Cycs out the set windows aren't a problem on the big stage, but can be a problem when we have to use smaller cyc pieces outside a window. The problem inside is more that there not much "natural" daylight coming through the windows, it all has to be provided with lights outside the windows, so that can be restricting.

 

Here is the workflow as has been explained to me by PlasterCity Digital:

 

1. R3D 4k source files are downloaded from RedDrives and CF Cards on set and double-backed up to 2 Raid5 FireWire 800 drives

 

2. R3D drives are sent nightly to PlasterCITY where they are backed up again to LTO3 and chased with an LTO logging data-base

 

3. The Rec709 2048x1024 color meta-data imbedded in the QT camera-generated clips is loaded into Final Cut Pro at 1920x1080sF

 

4. Audio is automatically synched up to dailies so all dailies have synch sound

 

5. 2:40 matting is applied to the clips and windowburns with source name and timecode are supered for 4K DI matchback

 

6. ProRes 1080sF media is processed out overnight and saved to the the source media drive for delivery to editorial (processing time is 5:1)

 

7. DVDs are downconverted from the ProRes 1080sF media and sent to set

[David Auner aac]

When possible, I will turn off a particularly obvious Kino reflected in the windshield, but otherwise, my choices are to plan on some digital removal in wide shots, and in close-ups, fly a sky painting over the car and light that to get a reflection in the glass of the painting. I thought about a big silk, but I realized that the sky should be brown, not white, to match the cyc.

 

You could print some sky image in the right color scheme to a printable fabric, such as Airtex, and fly that and light it to reflect in the windshield...

 

Regards, Dave

[Jon Rosenbloom]

Has there been any consideration of stretching a net in front of the backdrops?

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Mr. Mullen,

That all looks really really amazing. Im looking forward to catching this once it comes out. Top notch work as always and my own personal thanks for always writing out these amazingly detailed production journals.

[Saul Rodgar]

It's interesting how the Nikon snapshots are so different to the RAW files: even as the latter are midly corrected, the difference is huge, especially in terms of contrast. I am refering to the two men by the window shot, for example. How much are you going to correct the RAW to match what your Nikon saw? In other words, do the Nikon snapshots really represent what you were going for or are they merely proxy images and later in post you can dial in the final look?

Edited June 3, 2008 by Saul Rodgar

[David Mullen ASC]

The final look will be determined when I see the image on the big screen in the D.I. theater. The Nikon snapshots are nice but I don't expect the movie to look like that, it's just a rough idea. The RAW RED images will need work of course.

[Andrew Brinkhaus]

Since we are on the subject of your Nikon and the RED's raw files, what are the main differences you are noticing between the two? (Assuming you are shooting RAW on your Nikon)

 

I realize you are only using the photos as a guide, not for anything finite, but are you seeing a noticeable difference in DR? Contrast?

 

Is it safe to trust a Nikon's image reproduction when your matching your settings to RED? From your examples here they look very similar to my eye.

[Evan Winter]

Hey David,

 

Very cool look and huge congrats on starting your THIRTY-FOURTH feature!!!! Wow! Truly impressive that you've shot that many films in 17 years. I do have one question though and I'm a little surprised it hasn't come up yet.

 

In all the wider stills, the sky-cyc looks particularly cyc-like to me. I understand the film is stylized and I also appreciate that once I'm looking at a 2.39 cropped image in a movie theater the feel will be different from the heavily compressed and photoshopped web images. Nonetheless, do you anticipate the cyc will appear more life-like or is the general feel from the stills where you want/need it to be creatively?

 

Thanks!

 

Evan W.

Edited June 3, 2008 by Evan Winter

[David Mullen ASC]

The cyc is the cyc, what you see is what you get, unless we touch them up digitally in post. It's an all-brown cyc with stylized clouds airbrushed on them, so it will never be photo-realistic...

[Adrian Sierkowski]

David, a question of perception;

do you worry that people might notice the clouds aren't moving? and/or are the same clouds always?

It was just a thought I had, and I'm sure most people won't catch it, but are you actively trying to alleviate that and, if so, how?

[Kevin Zanit]

I think the point of it being a stylized cyc is the fact that its supposed to be stylized and all the odd visual quirks that come with that are part of the reason why they are using a cyc in the first place (at least thats impression I'm getting).

[Evan Winter]

I do think editing and the aspect ratio will help the illusion. However, it does seem like it'll be a really tough sell on wide shots. I can only imagine that it's a pretty big challenge to shoot in a tight stage and try to deliver the feel of the wide open outdoors but if anyone is up to the challenge it's David. :)

 

Evan W.

[David Mullen ASC]

Clark Hunter, our amazing production designer, has painters altering the cloud formations every couple of days, within limits.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity; that's pretty awesome all in all. I am throughly loving the overall visual design of this film. Best of luck finishing it up and I thoroughly look forward to this and all your future production journals.

[Bruce Taylor]

I don't know, is it really that much cheaper go with digital acquisition in the long run or are there other reasons they may have gone this route?

 

Please forgive this question --the discussions on lighting and sets of this film are a lot more interesting-- but I do wonder: is it in fact significantly cheaper to go with digital acquisition in the long run?

 

When David was going through the post workflow, there were large amounts of data being stored, processed and moved around. That's not free. At the point where final prints are to be struck, is digital acquisition truly significantly cheaper?

 

 

Bruce Taylor

[Bill Totolo]

David,

 

Those stills look amazing.

 

How is the resolution holding up on the wide shots?

[David Mullen ASC]

Please forgive this question --the discussions on lighting and sets of this film are a lot more interesting-- but I do wonder: is it in fact significantly cheaper to go with digital acquisition in the long run?

 

When David was going through the post workflow, there were large amounts of data being stored, processed and moved around. That's not free. At the point where final prints are to be struck, is digital acquisition truly significantly cheaper?

 

 

Bruce Taylor

 

Well, you figure that a movie like this would probably shoot about 200,000' of 35mm stock -- that typically costs over $100,000 in stock, processing, and telecine for dailies. I seriously doubt the data back-ups are costing us $100,000.

 

And we'd be doing a D.I. on this movie anyway, which is expensive, so the costs of doing color-correction and a digital-to-film recording would be the same -- minus the costs of scanning negative.

 

You could say that a photochemical finish is a lot cheaper than doing a D.I., but these days you still have HD deliverables for any feature, which is not cheap to create.

 

The fact that so many low-budget movies are shot digitally should be proof enough that digital can be affordable for people on a budget.