equipment

[Lazlo]

I was just wondering Mr. Mullin. Obviously it takes a great deal of time to become established in the buisness, and to have the budgets to rent cranes and cable cams and expensive lights. My question, is how did you learn how to use all of the equipment in the industry to its potential? You would have had to blindly use it a first time on a project, right? I don't understand how you can become aqainted with that high end stuff to KNOW when to use it if you've never used it. I m not sure I'm being clear. I think this is the real question.

How did you know what the best equipment to use on a project during that time when you were just getting to work on projects with big enough budgets to afford that kind of thing?

I ask because I was reading the AC magazinea on charlie an dthe chocolate factory, and was curious as to how he knew that a cable cam might be the right rig for the project having never used one himself (well he had used it, but there had to be a first time).

If this is ambiguous let me know. Thank you for your time.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's a good question.

In fact, one of the weakness of starting out as a low-budget DP and climbing the ladder upwards in budgets, rather than starting in the industry at a lower crew position and working my way up the crew ladder to DP, is that I haven't had a lot of hands-on experience with the expensive toys that big shows get to use. But usually on each show, I get to try something new, whether it is Lighting Balloons, Technovision cranes, Dino lights, big dimmer boards, etc.

So I have to rely on research, advice from other pros (who are happy to give it to me), keeping up by going to trade shows, rental houses, and reading magazines, and asking my key crew people who probably have used some of these things on their other shows.

If I need to use a remote-head on a crane arm, I'll talk to my Key Grip and get his opinion, I'll talk to other DP's, I'll use info gained from reading an article.

You can learn a lot on your own. I've shot three features now in 35mm anamorphic, but years ago before I had, I was already so well-read on the history of CinemaScope and the issues in shooting anamorphic versus Super-35, that I was getting emails and calls from bigger DP's sometimes asking ME for advice on anamorphic, which was weird because I had never shot anything with those lenses at the time.

I had learned a lot about flashing and silver retention printing years before I tried it on a feature. Years ago, I remember being at a lab's demo of silver retention processes and having to turn around in my seat and explain (nicely) to a much older and bigger-name DP how silver retention works because he couldn't understand why the results were grainier.

So reading about "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and how they used the CableCam is good because someday you may get this idea to try it yourself.

Also remember that there are often several ways of achieving similar results.