Akeelah and the Bee

[David Mullen ASC]

The only "day" interiors scenes I have that will be tungsten-lit are in the windowless auditoriums, but those will be lit to look lit by electrical lighting, not natural daylight anyway.

 

The regular day interiors will be lit with HMI's and Kino's, without the 85B for those early scenes, and the amount of blue adjusted in timing. So I may shoot the gray scale under 5500K but with a 1/4 Coral or 81 filter and then pull it for the scene, leaving a quarter or half the blue in. I will also shoot a card that reads: COLOR: OVERALL LIGHT BLUE TONE or something like that.

 

Or I may decide to shoot the gray scale with a heavier warming filter and then switch to a lighter one (like shoot the gray scale with a 1/2 Coral and then switch to an 1/8 Coral.)

 

All of this means that if the video dailies colorist corrects the gray scale to look neutral, then the following shot will be blue-ish.

[Delorme Jean-Marie]

Mr mullen

thank you for sharing your creative process

could you tell more about the differences of "look" between the stocks shot normaly or retained of 2/3' as you experienced it on "shadowboxer" as it's gonna be your choice, i assume?

what does look a 30' copare to a 20'

excuse my lak of experience on telecine

[David Mullen ASC]

Negative overexposed by up to one stop and printed down will use higher printer light numbers. The effect is (1) tighter grain structure; (2) deeper blacks; (3) more contrast; (4) richer colors. Any more than one-stop over and you start to expose too much highlight information on the shoulder of the characteristic curve, which flattens out the image.

 

When transferring an overexposed negative to video, however, you may pick up a lot of noise in the highlights. So this technique is more for printing than for telecine-only.

[David Mullen ASC]

I took these digital stills today over at Panavision to demonstrate the amount of halation from the filter, although I didn't quite hold the #2 GlimmerGlass correctly against my lens and got an extra flare.

 

But you can see that the #1 & #2 GlimmerGlass are less strong than a #1/4 ProMist.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, tomorrow is my first day and I'm nervous as usual. It's not a particularly hard first day luckily, a Steadicam walk & talk outdoors (I'll probably just walk a bounce card for fill) and then a shot of three people in a car at night driving for half a block before pulling to a stop behind a police car (off-camera but I'll have a lighting effect to tie it in with the night exterior later in Week Two.)

 

Here is my shot list for Day One, worked out with the director and A.D.:

 

DAY 1 ? Sunday, Feb. 6

 

Scene 82 pt: EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET ? DAY

Video interview of Woman and Steve

 

#1 (ON VIDEO) MCU Woman talking to camera

 

Scene 5: EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET ? DAY

Akeelah & Georgia walk home / Encounter with Steve / Derrick-T drives by

 

#2 STEADICAM (LOW MODE): WS, low-angle, profile view of Akeelah & Georgia walking down street, passing Steve, etc. (master)

#3 STEADICAM (LOW-MODE): follow Akeelah?s feet walking past garbage on sidewalk, kicking can (use double and do first if Keke not yet available.)

#4 WIDE SHOT: Steve crosses street as Akeelah & Georgia round corner & walk down row of storefronts (switch A-cam to normal Steadicam mode during this time)

#5 STEADICAM: MS, moving in front of Akeelah & Georgia, as they walk & talk, passing Steve

#6 STEADICAM: start on POV moving towards boarded-up store / PAN to see Derrick-T?s car turning corner / PAN 180 degrees with car over to 2-shot Akeelah & Georgia / they continue walking in tight 2-shot, continue to move back with them / PAN with paper when tossed by Akeelah to see it hit full trashcan

#7 STEADICAM: CU Akeelah, walking & talking, looking at neighborhood / sees Derrick-T (OS)

#8 STEADICAM: INSERT of flyer in Akeelah?s hands / she crumples it up

#9 STEADICAM: (Akeelah?s POV) moving down sidewalk, passes Steve, sees homeless man lying in street

#10 LOW ANGLE: crumpled flyer lands in f.g. at base of trashcan / Akeelah & Georgia in b.g. walking away

 

Scene 18: EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET ? DAY

Akeelah and Georgia walk home

 

#11 EXTREME TELEPHOTO: LS of the girls walking home towards camera

#12 EXTREME TELEPHOTO: LS of girls walking home away from camera

 

Sc. 82 (cont.)

time permitting

 

#13 (ON VIDEO) MCU Steve talking to camera

 

Scene 33: INT. MR. WELCH?S CAR ? NIGHT

Mr. Welch drives Akeelah, Keisha & Baby home

 

#14 CAR ON PROCESS TRAILER: DOLLY back from MCU Welch to 4-shot of Welch, Akeelah, Keisha & Baby / police car lighting efx fades up

#15 CU Akeelah seeing police cars in front of house

 

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: Steadicam, 600mm Canon telephoto w/ ND filters, Camera Car & Process trailer, police car lighting efx

 

FILM STOCK: 5212 pulled-one stop (sc. 5 & 18), 5229 (sc. 33)

[Bill Totolo]

Good luck! I hope you were able to get some sleep.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Am I reading that correctly - that's 15 setups per day?

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

We're limited to 10-hour days on this movie.

 

Normally my rule is to not have a shot list longer than 20 set-ups per day, but that is assuming a 12-hour day minimum.

 

This doesn't mean we only shoot 20 set-ups per day because some always get added on the set, so if you show up with a list of 20 shots per day, you end up shooting about 30 shots that day. If you had shown up with a list of 30 shots needed, you'd probably end up trying to get 40.

 

Now there have been days when I've shot as many as 60 or 70 set-ups per day, but those have been handheld fight scenes where we just keep picking up pieces of the fight .

 

I remember on "D.E.B.S." the director not being happy with my 20-shot limit idea so we usually had 25 to 28 shots on our list per day -- but after a series of 14-to-16-hour days, the producers flat-out told us not to show-up with a list longer than 20 shots and kept us to a 12-hour day. So my 20-shot list rule seems to be pretty accurate. Like I said, we usually shoot 25% or more than that because you always add something.

 

I don't how many shots we got yesterday, but after lunch, it took two hours to rig the process trailer for that night driving shot. That stuff never goes quickly.

 

Anyway, because of our 10-hour day limit, I'm trying to keep the lists down to below 20 shots, like 17.

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

Were any of these shots storyboarded? Did you look at how you were going to execute the exterior shots while scouting? Or are you flying by the seat of your pants?

[Wendell_Greene]

I took these digital stills today over at Panavision to demonstrate the amount of halation from the filter, although I didn't quite hold the #2 GlimmerGlass correctly against my lens and got an extra flare.

 

But you can see that the #1 & #2 GlimmerGlass are less strong than a #1/4 ProMist.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Thanks David for posting the stills.

[David Mullen ASC]

Were any of these shots storyboarded?  Did you look at how you were going to execute the exterior shots while scouting?  Or are you flying by the seat of your pants?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The almost all of the movie is storyboarded (the director did 95% of the them and I'm tackling the movie's climax based on his notes, and I'm three pages short of the end) and will be shot-listed by the time we shoot. The only trick is that he storyboarded the movie he wants to make and now we're creating shot lists that take the reality of the schedule into account.

 

No, I rarely make movies where I'm flying blind -- it's really not possible unless you want to answer the million questions you get in prep and shooting with "uh, I don't know..." Like "where should the trucks park? Are you shooting this scene looking east or west? What's off-camera? What time do you need the actress on set? Can we shoot this night scene in the daytime? What days do you want a jib arm? A condor? How many days of Steadicam? When do you need that 600mm lens? Are we doing this car scene with hostress trays, hood mounts, with a camera car, do you want a trailer or tow bar? " On and on and on without end...

 

I mean, of course you also have to be ready to change your plans at the drop of a hat. That's why I try and not let my blood pressure rise when the blocking of the scene with actors is really off from the plans, because the actors have to discover the scene for themselves for it to look real. You just stand by on the sidelines ready to nudge people in certain ways to make the scene shootable or coverable in the time you have. I've also found that actors always make a scene more complicated than it needs to be, blocking-wise, but soon simplify it themselves just in the course of working it out. So it is best to not say too much early on.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

So it is best to not say too much early on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You're wiser than me!! :P

[David Mullen ASC]

I bite my lip a lot...

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

I mean, of course you also have to be ready to change your plans at the drop of a hat. That's why I try and not let my blood pressure rise when the blocking of the scene with actors is really off from the plans, because the actors have to discover the scene for themselves for it to look real.  You just stand by on the sidelines ready to nudge people in certain ways to make the scene shootable or coverable in the time you have.  I've also found that actors always make a scene more complicated than it needs to be, blocking-wise, but soon simplify it themselves just in the course of working it out. So it is best to not say too much early on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I wonder how anybody gets along without storyboards and/or shot lists. It always seems funny when people tell me they don't need them. My first went on a show recently that I was passed on and he was telling me about these big fights between the DP and AD that were happening and how that DP is 180 degrees different in personality than me. Turns out they weren't even using a shot list and the poor guy was struggling to get basic shots!

 

I can't say how I would react in a situation like that because I wouldn't even get to the set if the Director didn't want to work things out beforehand. That would almost make me want to leave a show. I'm usually a bit nervous that we didn't do enough planning and it's hard to be precise when you don't have enough info about a location.

Edited February 8, 2005 by J. Lamar King

[Bill Totolo]

So how much input do you get in blocking and storyboarding? Is the director open to a different/fresh interpretation? What was your creative input in this one?

 

Best,

[Guest Dan Diaconu]

David,

I just found this thread and read from the earliest post. You mentioned some concerns for focus on longer lens. I do not know if you shot those scenes or no yet, but curious what is your opinion on this focusing device:

http://dandiaconu.com/gallery/Oustanding-T...cal-Achievement

This is my first post on this forum, so, if in any way I break the etiquette or rules, may my soul be spared, for I mean no harm, I just do not know any better.

Cheers,

Dan

[Kevin Zanit]

Dan,

 

I saw your page before, and was interested. Can you please say a little about it? I understand what the concept is, but I couldn?t find many specifics about the item.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Guest Dan Diaconu]

Hi Kevin,

An encoder mounted on rod(s) "reads" the lens movement (from infinity to close) and "translates" that linear movement into converging the CCD cameras "in sink" with the prime lens. Calibration starts at infinity (CCD's go to a parallel position) and then tree points inwards.

Then, the lens is pulled to say 8ft. Manually command the CCD's to rotate inwards until their two images overlap on a monitor, STORE the setting. The two images are combined and sent wireless to a 2.4 monitor/receiver (battery pack on the back)

Next two steps are the same for closer points (say 5 and 2 ft) Usually 1/3 of the available focusing range (as on a circle) Rest is easy. Keep the images together on whatever is being photographed and regardless the camera movement (crane, dolly, steadicam, or just plain unrehearsed animal shots)

Thank you for your interest and I hope you understood the way it works from my poor and brief description of the functions.

[L K Keerthi Basu]

Dear David,

 

Iam very much awating for the movie from the date of your first post. I learnt a lot above my level. It will be very much usefull if your post some of your most difficult lighting situations lighting diagram, we can compare and read the lighting while watching the movie. As Iam a student this will useful for my study purpose all so for the other students who are in this forum.

Good Luck, keep in touch if possible. I really pray for your success.

 

L.K.Keerthi basu

[Kevin Zanit]

Makes good sense to me Dan.

 

It's an interesting system. Where is it available to rent from? (if it is)

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Guest Dan Diaconu]

Try www.perfect-focus.com

 

I am also curious what is available. The site is administered by my ex-business partner.

He is offering units for rent. Without my consent or having any legal rights over the product or the US patent # 6160607 I hold on this device.

 

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?...cus+AND+diaconu

 

Call it whatever comes to mind, but I can not do much. US has the best lawyers money can buy, therefore, I can not afford justice. Sorry about that.

Edited February 19, 2005 by Dan Diaconu