James Mulholland

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to share a film with you all. I find everyone on here give good honest feadback so I'd like some if you's have 20 minutes. This is the link. - Basically I had no budget to shoot this, shot 3 days and paid for food and travel for anyone. To make up for production value I spent ages on the script. I know my Cinematography is iffy but if you can pinpoint stuff I should really try to improve on (Composition, lighting etc) I would be grateful. Also let me know in general if you enjoyed the film on its own merits. Some of the night stuff is really noisy because lens only stopped to f3.5 so had to push iso to 800 on t2i to get them. (plus where shooting in my nan's house and she wanted everyone out so had to get it done as quick as possible, but I tried to get the images and lighting to get the mood and feeling across. Thanks James

Hey, thank you so much for writing back with all the feedback I really sincerely appreciate it. Yes I have only shot with DSLR's and Canon Hv's. In Ireland in the indie film world these are the camera's most being used. But I am shooting a western on the RED Scarlet next month so that should help my CV and hopefully my reel. I am strongly considering making it stronger, I am still learning lighting and framing but the main thing (like you said) is I have to shoot more regularly, which at the moment is a nightmare. So far this year I have DP'd 1 short film because nothing much seems to be happening in Indie Ireland. I am considering writing scripts that might be visually interesting and shooting them to keep practice up instead of sitting around waiting. thanks a lot again for watching and giving advice, Hopefully I can improve as I shoot more. Thanks James

Hey Everyone, this is my first showreel. I'm 22 and live in Ireland, I've been DP'ing for about 3 years now on no budget shorts and music video's while working on features as camera assistants, b camera Op and lighting design. This is my DP reel I made a few weeks back, If anyone has suggestions on shots to take out or anything I would appreicate it. Thanks for your time James

From the script there is no lantern, but that is a good idea that I might be able to talk to the director about, Thanks for the idea. Your right, I am worried that we will not have enough light to go for wide shots, but possibly go for tighter shots should be ok if I stop to about 1.8 or 2. I was thinking of trying smoke, especially for the forest as I think it could add something to it. It will be a challenge, I have mostly shot no budget shorts / music video's on DSLR and had to work around it, so can't wait to use the CP2 lenses and RED with a decent budget for lighting equipment, Plus can't remember any western features / shorts ever been shot in Ireland.

The Director wants the Fire to do it, Me personally I would prefer to just do a natural fire effect but put the actor further away from the fire but without slits of lights on his face, but the director wants it that way. I wanted to light the characters face as if being lit from the fire but to do that I have to put the light low on the ground which means i could not get shadow under the hat over the characters eyes, so I'm asking does anyone know any other way? I was thinking of putting a flag in front of the 'fire' light to cut the light at about the top of the noise, but i'm worried it would look weird, Unless I miss the moonlight and fire light on his face to just make it easy. HMI from above to cast the shadow under the hat on the eyes, then a 300w Arri to fill in the rest of the face? I'm meeting the director this week again so I'll discuss it with him again.

Hi everyone, I am DOP on a short western film being shot in Ireland late next month, the film has a limited budget so I am trying to make the right purchases. Basically 80 percent of the short is night, I am shooting one camp scene with just orange light as if coming from the fire, then I'm shooting a forest scene just in blue moonlight, then the other camp scene with both moonlight and orange. We are shooting on RED Scarlet with cp2 zeiss lenses. I can get hold of 1.2 HMI lights (4 of them) and then a lot of 2k's and a few 800's, 500's and 300's. For the fire light I was thinking of a 300w light on dimmer to create the flicker effect but to not dim up and down to much and try to keep a steady exposure. The director wants the man mostly in shade but we can still kind of see him and have some slits of light shining on his face? So I was thinking of putting the other 300's on the sides and flag them a lot to create little patches of light? Also we want the hat the man wears to shadow his eyes, but the practical light source would be coming from underneath him, so any ideas on how to achieve this? Finally I have listed the lights we can get, I believe they will be enough to light the backgrounds and frames once we don't shoot too wide, was wondering do you's agree?? Thanks for your time and I really appreciate any ideas or opinions people have. James