Stay Cool

[David Mullen ASC]

WEEK THREE

 

We spent Monday at the Van Nuys Flyaway station doubling for an airport ? I was worried about how we were going to do the scene where the main character gets picked at the curb in front of the airport, with all the restrictions these days, but this modern station doubled quite well for an airport.

 

We also did a lot of driving around Van Nuys using a camera car and a tow rig to shoot some dialogue inside a tiny Mini Cooper. We had to switch to our 8G CF cards and rent a few more in order to avoid the RED drives on a bumpy road ? I was happy to find that switching cards in the cameras when they got full was quite fast compared to switching drives, just a few seconds to reformat the card.

 

Tuesday was spent running around Santa Clarita getting some drive-bys in shopping areas and suburban house areas, plus a quick scene at a convenience store. Then we moved to a house to shoot the final scene of the movie, figuring it would look better to shoot when the sun was low. Trouble is, as we have been discovering, here in California in August, the sun drops like a rock. When you get a nice low backlight, you may have two takes of a dialogue scene before the sun is gone. Anyway, my point is that now we have a few more angles on that scene to shoot when we?re back at that house. After the sun was gone, we did a few driving scenes right next to the house. To match the look of the sodium streetlamps, I used 12-lights with ½ CTO on condors but turned off some of the bulbs to not overpower the real streetlamps, then I rated the RED camera at 640 ASA / 270 degree shutter and used some Zeiss Master Primes that we picked up just for that night to shoot at T/1.3 or halfway between T/1.3 and T/2.0. There was some noise in the image at 640 ASA but it allowed us to create a fairly natural night look.

 

We spent all of Wednesday at a SuperCuts hair salon in a shopping mall. Being wall to wall mirrors, I was limited on where I could light. I ended up replacing the overhead fluorescents with daylight tubes for the day scenes and then augmenting that look by hanging an HMI Joker Chimera ball over the main workstation. The shop had fluorescent panel lights next to each mirror but they turned out to be 3? tubes, which we were not carrying replacements for. I decided to add some needed color in the shop by letting them be Cool Whites and augmenting that color by putting some Cyan 30 gel on the white panel covers. Since I had an HMI Chinaball over one workstation, I added to the overall level to the opposite side of the room by bouncing an HMI Joker Source-4 off of the ceiling. Basically I was unable to key from eyelevel because of the mirrors on both sides of the room, so I tried to make the overhead key very soft. For the night scenes, I turned off half the overhead daylight tubes, but left then daylight, then I hung a tungsten Chinese Lantern over the main workstation and switched the camera from 5600K to 3700K.

 

We were in another suburban subdivision on Thursday shooting a scene inside a tract home, and then moved several blocks uphill to a bigger house to shoot a house party. I had a diffused 18K HMI coming through a window in the tract home for the daytime scene plus some soft fill from bouncing an HMI Source-4, but most of the real illumination came from the natural daylight in there.

 

The house party scene was tough because we planned a Steadicam shot that moved through parked cars in front of the house, through the living room, and then out into the big backyard. I lit the street with an overhead coop light gelled half-orange for a streetlamp look, used a few small tungstens to uplight the house, just used real fixtures inside the house for the interior, then light the backyard mainly with a tungsten light balloon, plus some practical fixtures, and HMI hydroPAR?s in the swimming pool. I set the camera to 500 ASA with a 270 degree shutter at 3700K.

 

I often set the camera to 3700K in 3200K lighting for a slight warming effect. It?s all just metadata only anyway.

 

Friday was a full night of shooting, so we wrapped after sunrise on Saturday (shooting a small daytime scene at the end of our day.) We shot in a couple of backyards of these mini-mansions as the characters flee from the house party when the police arrive, hopping fences. Except for Tuesday night, all of this night work was done with our Zeiss Ultra Primes, usually at T/2.8 or a T/2.0-2.8 split.

 

I only have a few innocuous wide shots to post:

 

 

 

[Conrad Hunziker III]

It makes perfect sense that subtle changes could occur throughout the workflow and into the editing bay/dailies. Do you adjust your production monitors so that producers/director, etc. are seeing more of a "final product" image as compared to the muted look of the RAW format while shooting?

 

The RED camera outputs a Rec709 signal to begin with, so its default is not the muted RAW that its recording, but some sort of LUT is applied to the image and then sent to the viewfinder and HD outputs. In camera, you can choose to view the Raw, or Rec709 or Red's new RedSpace LUT.

 

In addition, you can make changes to the output that will be recorded in the metadata of the RAW file and set as the defaults when opened in RedAlert. For example, we have a saturation boost in camera. Thats shown in the viewfinder and HD outputs, and recorded as metadata in the RAW file. In theory, it should also be applied to the downstream quicktimes - but that isnt quite working yet.

[Conrad Hunziker III]

David, would it be possible to hire a full-time DIT type of person (in addition to the regular DIT) and get a few super-high-end PCs so you could RAW process all the footage on set or on location? Essentially, this way you and the director might have more control over the dailies and perhaps the final look? Or is the amount of data simply too much for a few high-end PCs to handle? Is your on-set DIT or data wrangler making duplicates of everything before it's sent to Plaster City, or is Plaster City doing the backups?

 

This is getting into the realm of the current debate between locals 600 & 700. The second DIT type person you are speaking of is really an assistant editor at that point. Its literally just a mouse-click difference between doing the color conversion and the additional step of setting up for the editor. Local 700 wants to establish a new job for the data wrangling, whereas local 600 wants to include that into the loader position.

 

Ive done a couple of other shows where the on-set assistant editor was doing color correction and outputs for the editor. Of course, he was not 'on-set', but rather at the post house.

 

As for what we are doing on "Stay cool", we are making 2 copies of the footage on-set, one of which is shuttled to PlasterCity who then does a LTO and downconverts. On set, we are also watching every take looking for those dreaded codec-errors, and exporting TIFFs for Davids approval. Ironically, we setup the computers and RAIDs in a darkroom on the camera truck - where the loader would be.

[Conrad Hunziker III]

okay so two hours @ 9x = 18hours for conversion on a $4000 machine. so why cannot they get 9 machines running and have it done in a few hours. I know that I'm being a little bit blunt, but this is small fry for hardware costs compared with film dailies etc. and as for avid being done quicker i assume that is because they are making the SR dumps via scratch something that could be done in the same way for you if your editor is working FCP. this is either nonsense or a (low) budget issue.

 

Ok - lets follow your theory for a bit. 9 machines working to convert roughly 200Gb of RAW footage per day.

 

Hardware costs:

9x Apple Mac Pro, Quad 3.2, 32Gb ram: $14,500ea = $130,500

9x Apple monitors, keyboards, mice = $10,000

2x Promise Vtrack, 12Tb RAID storage: $15,000ea = $30,000

2x LTO-3 decks: $1200ea = $3000

2x APC 5000VA UPS, $5150ea = $11,000

1x cisco fiber channel switch, = $14,700

2x 1500BTU AC, $1500ea = $3000

Misc cables & add'l hardware = $3000

 

So you are looking at $205,000 plus taxes and shipping, before you have processed one frame. Then in addition you will need the space to run it all (some large cube truck, with union driver) and a tow generator (with operator) to meet the power requirements, and of course a couple of people to run it all. BTW, IT guys are the most expensive, fetching $95 per hour for the low-ballers, which is more than the union scale for camera operators.

 

And in addition, you'd need to make it all extremely mobile. On Stay Cool, as David has mentioned, we have had several location moves - sometimes 3 times per day. So you'll need to set it all up, make it go, and tear it all down again. As it is, right now, we are having quite an issue with the mobile darkroom. The big issue is where to put it. Not all of our locations have been generator-friendly, especially since it takes an average of 2 to 3 hours after wrap just to backup and confirm the days work (on one 3 camera day, it took 5 hours after wrap). We have resorted to, at some locations, putting the IT truck over a mile away from base camp and the working trucks, mostly because of the un-friendly atmosphere and location rules regarding the current generator we have running (1500 watt honda generator).

 

So I know you said you were being a bit blunt, but I just wanted to inject a little reality into this thought process.

[Saul Rodgar]

So you are looking at $205,000 plus taxes and shipping, before you have processed one frame. Then in addition you will need the space to run it all (some large cube truck, with union driver) and a tow generator (with operator) to meet the power requirements.

 

IBEW Local 40, Electrician/Drivers. They'll save you a bundle. :P They get in the neighborhood of $400-600 per day to drive the truck and keep the power on.

[Saul Rodgar]

I thought was I going to get a vacation too... but I've just been hired to shoot a Showtime series that is being produced by Diablo Cody and Steven Spielberg -- and it starts just two days after I wrap on this one. So no rest until the series wraps around Thanksgiving. This will be some kind of record for me of continuous shooting work.

 

The pendulum swings back at some point, so gotta work when there is work. This business is feast or famine anyway.

 

But congrats, you must to be doing great work -we knew that- the (big name) producers love working with you time and again.

 

Keep it up!

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Ok - lets follow your theory for a bit. 9 machines working to convert roughly 200Gb of RAW footage per day.

 

Hardware costs:

9x Apple Mac Pro, Quad 3.2, 32Gb ram: $14,500ea = $130,500

9x Apple monitors, keyboards, mice = $10,000

2x Promise Vtrack, 12Tb RAID storage: $15,000ea = $30,000

2x LTO-3 decks: $1200ea = $3000

2x APC 5000VA UPS, $5150ea = $11,000

1x cisco fiber channel switch, = $14,700

2x 1500BTU AC, $1500ea = $3000

Misc cables & add'l hardware = $3000

 

So you are looking at $205,000 plus taxes and shipping, before you have processed one frame. Then in addition you will need the space to run it all (some large cube truck, with union driver) and a tow generator (with operator) to meet the power requirements, and of course a couple of people to run it all. BTW, IT guys are the most expensive, fetching $95 per hour for the low-ballers, which is more than the union scale for camera operators.

 

And in addition, you'd need to make it all extremely mobile. On Stay Cool, as David has mentioned, we have had several location moves - sometimes 3 times per day. So you'll need to set it all up, make it go, and tear it all down again. As it is, right now, we are having quite an issue with the mobile darkroom. The big issue is where to put it. Not all of our locations have been generator-friendly, especially since it takes an average of 2 to 3 hours after wrap just to backup and confirm the days work (on one 3 camera day, it took 5 hours after wrap). We have resorted to, at some locations, putting the IT truck over a mile away from base camp and the working trucks, mostly because of the un-friendly atmosphere and location rules regarding the current generator we have running (1500 watt honda generator).

 

So I know you said you were being a bit blunt, but I just wanted to inject a little reality into this thought process.

 

My God, who'd have thought that 35mm shooting would become not only the fastest thing, but also the cheapest thing? Continue like this, and we'll be shooting on film forever!

[David Mullen ASC]

Monday and Tuesday were spent in Granada Hills shooting in a suburban tract of homes designed by Joseph Eichler in the 1960’s. See:

 

http://www.eichlersocal.com/

 

A restored home was chosen for the main character’s house, but we weren’t allowed to shoot the interiors, so we spent the second part of the week shooting on a stage back at Melody Ranch (where we did “Manure”) with the interior recreated, which was tough on our tight budget, since the house is full of glass walls that look out into a hillside and an open atrium. I wanted to light the stage set with daylight fixtures, since the RED camera prefers 5600K, but our budget didn’t allow for that, so I ended up using tungsten spacelights around the set for the daylight effect, plus a 20K and some 12-lights. We did some night exterior work around the real house on Monday and Tuesday night, again lit with 12-lights in a condor with Half Orange for a sodium streetlamp look.

 

Also on Wednesday night, we did some driving shots near sunset into night around Valencia, and visited a video game arcade for one scene, our last with actors Sean Astin and Josh Holloway. On Thursday, we finished the house scenes with the actors playing the parents, Dee Wallace and Michael Gross.

 

The RED cameras have continued to perform fine, without problems, even outdoors on fairly hot and sunny days, though we are careful to keep them shaded when working.

 

Some RED frames (any inconsistencies in black level is more to my lack of skill with Photoshop Elements):

 

 

 

 

[Saul Rodgar]

Yummy interior colors! Did you gel the Tungsten spacelights for the daylight interiors?

Edited August 18, 2008 by Saul Rodgar

[David Mullen ASC]

Yummy interior colors! Did you gel the Tungsten spacelights for the daylight interiors?

 

No, the spacelights were above the backyard patio and above the atrium, and were left 3200K (ungelled.) I sometimes gelled the hard sunlight with half-orange though.

[James Steven Beverly]

I LOVE that sunset shot!!! Did you use any filters on that particular one? I also really like the house. kudos to your location manager. The interiors are also terrific. You production designer really out did himself on this one. Was this the same guy you used on Manure? Just outta curiosity, it the fake exterior was such a problem why didn't you guys just put up sheers or curtains and backlight them? I suppose it was aesthetics but I'm wondering with such a tight budget, if it may have saved time and there for money with out sacrificing all that much visually.

Edited August 18, 2008 by James Steven Beverly

[David Mullen ASC]

I LOVE that sunset shot!!! Did you use any filters on that particular one? I also really like the house. kudos to your location manager. The interiors are also terrific. You production designer really out did himself on this one. Was this the same guy you used on Manure? Just outta curiosity, it the fake exterior was such a problem why didn't you guys just put up sheers or curtains and backlight them? I suppose it was aesthetics but I'm wondering with such a tight budget, if it may have saved time and there for money with out sacrificing all that much visually.

 

Yes, that was one option, though you lose the depth that a ranch home with big patio doors creates.

 

That was just how the sunset looked straight, no filters.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Really interesting color palette you and your team have worked out there David. I look forward to seeing it!

[Michael Belanger]

There's a tiny, hidden tract of what I assume are Eichler homes in Long Beach. They have that same atrium design and you did an amazing job of re-creating that on set. Bravo.

[David Mullen ASC]

WEEK FIVE

 

Monday was a short day; we spent the morning inside a Borders Bookstore shooting under their fluorescent lights, which I augmented with some HMI Source-4?s (gelled to match) bounced into cards. Then we moved across the street into an Italian restaurant and bar to shoot two small scenes, one at a bar (lit with some Kino tubes put behind the bottles on the bar wall, plus a few other Kinos) and one at a dinner table, lit with some tungsten Source-4 bounces and a ?Woodylight? (which has four 213 bulbs inside a small Chimera.)

 

Tuesday involved going back to the stage at Melody Ranch for the last time, to finish a few small bedroom scenes in the main house, plus some bedroom scenes for another house.

 

Wednesday was a long day? we started at a drugstore, again shooting under their fluorescent lights augmented with some Kinoflos with the same Cool White tubes. Then we moved across town to an outdoor mall to shoot some night exterior scenes, one by a parking spot and another was a big Steadicam walk-n-talk through the mall, lit with some 12-lights, one as a backlight on top of a building, the others coming from the sides through frames of Light Grid Cloth. Then we moved into a restaurant to shoot a romantic dinner scene. I had to quickly light this entire restaurant so I started by swapping all their light bulbs with brighter bulbs. In the background, I hid two 2K Zip lights in the ceiling. The foreground was crosslit by Chimera/Woodylights and some Source-4 bounces. I decided to use some light diffusion for the romantic dating scenes, the #1/8 Classic Black we got for ?Manure?.

 

Thursday and Friday were spent at a suburban tract home where the character played by Winona Ryder lives. We started out by finishing the last scene of the movie, started here two weeks ago as the sun was dropping. We started an hour earlier than before and I used a Half Soft Frost over Winona, who was facing the setting sun. In her closest, tightest angle, I flagged off the silked sunlight and lit her with a diffused 18K gelled to match the setting sun. Then we flipped around and I shot Mark Polish?s coverage (backlit) as the sun dropped lower; I just used some white cards for fill. So we managed to get all the coverage of the scene in the late afternoon light we needed.

 

Then we did some night exterior work in front of the house, lit from a condor with a 12-light with Half Orange to create a sodium vapor streetlamp look. After that, we moved inside for some dialogue scenes.

 

Friday had more night exterior scenes in front of the house, one involving a monster pick-up truck with powerful spotlights on it shining onto the house. Then we did some camera car work, towing an SUV in circles around an unlit neighborhood. Because we were driving through blocks of a tract home area lit with only a few sodium streetlamps, I decided to boost the camera to 640 ASA and use some Master Primes at T/1.3 to capture as much available light as I could. I lit the car itself with a Kino Miniflo taped to the dashboard, and then the grips mounted some speed rail off of the roof so I could shine a 1K Zip light through the side windows, plus a 1K fresnel armed off of the camera car shining through the front windshield. These lights were gelled with Half Orange, 216, plus ND.60 gel to knock their intensity down, and then they were run through a small dimmer box so we could fade them up and down individually as if we were passing lights outside the car. This was all kept pretty dim to match the ambient sodium streetlamp level. At 640 ASA with fairly dark footage, and the camera set to 3400K, there was some blue channel noise over the image that I will have to diminish later in post. But at least we got the sense of driving through a dark neighborhood at night.

 

Three days left, all night work. What?s tough is that besides shooting all night, I am starting to prep for my next job during the day, a Showtime series called ?United States of Tara? starring Toni Collette. We start shooting that in a week. Being Showtime, it has to be shot in HD, so we managed to secure a Genesis package.

 

Some RED frames:

 

 

 

[James Steven Beverly]

I thought you had 3 pictures to do in a row with the Polish Brothers or did am I remembering incorrectly?

[David Mullen ASC]

No, it was two pictures in a row.

[Andrew Brinkhaus]

Great grabs David. Love the look of the restaurant in the two shot. I'm guessing the glare on the table is coming from the Woodylight? You mentioned Showtime insists on shooting in HD, why the Genesis instead of the RED?

[David Mullen ASC]

Great grabs David. Love the look of the restaurant in the two shot. I'm guessing the glare on the table is coming from the Woodylight? You mentioned Showtime insists on shooting in HD, why the Genesis instead of the RED?

 

It didn't really come up as an option in conversation so I didn't want to push it -- they usually rent from Plus-8 / Panavision. The F23 was the main option but I asked if we could consider the Genesis even though it is a bit more expensive to rent apparently. Panavision came through for me with a deal on the Genesis. The pilot was shot in 35mm and I wanted to avoid a 2/3" camera for the series, especially since the main director likes a shallow focus look.

 

Also, I haven't done a Genesis show so this seemed like a good opportunity to try it out. I want to eventually shoot with all the digital options out there so I can make the best decisions on which to choose.

 

I hear mixed rumors about the RED and TV shows -- apparently some show producers are embracing it while other shows have been avoiding it after being warned away by some studios who feel it isn't ready. That will change over time.

 

 

 

But anyway, I'm looking forward to trying out the Genesis. Though with all the handheld work that will be coming up, I suspect my usual operators and AC's will miss the RED cameras if only for the size and weight.

[Greg Gross]

David,

I absolutely love the yellows and reds. Best wishes for the film's success and thank you so much

for sharing your craft and art. I just cannot take my eyes off the landscape of colors.

Greg Gross

[John Allen]

 

Hey David, beautiful work as usual, and like everyone else is saying, I love the use of vibrant colors.

 

Anyway, my question was, did you use a white card to bounce the back lights back into the actors faces on that last 2 shot of them eating dinner? And what kind of lights did you use for the back lighting? Tweenies?

[David Mullen ASC]

Hey David, beautiful work as usual, and like everyone else is saying, I love the use of vibrant colors.

 

Anyway, my question was, did you use a white card to bounce the back lights back into the actors faces on that last 2 shot of them eating dinner? And what kind of lights did you use for the back lighting? Tweenies?

 

They were cross/backlit by two 1K Woodylights, which have small Chimeras on them. The fill came from some white cards which I raked with some light from a Source-4. You can see in the shot that there was a low wall in the foreground between the actors and the camera, so I stuck the white cards on that wall on the opposite side from the camera.

[John Allen]

Awesome!! Thanks David!! :)

[David Mullen ASC]

"Stay Cool" will be showing at the Tribeca Film Festival:

 

http://www.tribecafilm.com/festival/featur...e_Features.html