Born: 26 June 1962, Iwakuni, Japan, as Merritt David Mullen III.

Education: School of Film/Video of the California Institute of the Arts [CalArts], Santa Clarita [MFA in 1991].

Career: 'I had a long path toward cinematography. I was interested in filmmaking since high school and started making Super-8 films back then. Although I ended up getting a BFA in English Literature at UCLA, I had friends who got into the USC film school and I helped on their films, secretly shooting some of them. After graduation, I continued to make my own Super-8 and then 16mm short films. It wasn't until I was 27 that I decided to get a graduate degree in filmmaking; when I arrived at CalArts in 1988, I was the only incoming student with a strong cinematography background.'

Shot test films with the Panasonic AG-DVX100 & Sony PD-150 digital cameras [2002; d: Noah Kadner; short; dv & 35mm transfer/c]. Appeared in the doc 'Cinematographer Style' [2005, Jon Fauer; ph: J. Fauer, Jeff Laszlo, Brian Heller & David Morgan]. Member of the ASC since 2004.

Awards: Independent Spirit Award nom [1999] for 'Twin Falls Idaho'; Independent Spirit Award nom [2003] for 'Northfork'.

Website: M. David Mullen

Fashioning a 'New Suit' in 24P HD by M. David Mullen: "In the early spring of 2001, I invited 'New Suit' director François Velle to a digitally projected screening of 'Jackpot', a feature I shot in 24P HD for Michael & Mark Polish. Not only was he pleased with the filmlike qualities of the image, but he was intrigued by the fact that 'Jackpot' was composed for a 2.35:1 widescreen presentation [achieved by cropping the 16:9 HD frame]. Shooting 'New Suit' in a similar manner, we used a Sony HDW-F900 with the Canon 5.5-50mm and the Fujinon 7.5-150mm HD zoom lenses. On 'Jackpot', I had turned off the camcorder's artificial sharpening since excessive edge enhancement can be one of the uglier aspects of video imagery on a large screen. However, the final 35mm scope prints of 'Jackpot' exhibited some occasional softness, sometimes due to the optical quality of the Hi-Def zoom lenses at wide apertures. So for 'New Suit', I took advantage of the camera's 'detail' function, but used it at an extremely low level; this seemed to improve overall sharpness without making the image look too edge enhanced. I also decided to shoot 'New Suit' without diffusion filters except for the close-ups, where I used a 1/2 Soft-FX [the lightest grade], only rarely jumping to a 1 Soft-FX. I also tried not to shoot below an f/2.8-f/4 split, and while this increased my depth-of-field compared to shooting wide-open, we used this deeper focus for comedic or dramatic effect when staging the actors. Since 'New Suit' is a comedy, the overall look of the project is rich and colorful, but not garish. François wanted the image to have the overall warm tones of a film like 'Chinatown', so we carefully pushed the art direction, costumes, and lighting in that direction. We will also be printing the final transfer to 35mm onto Vision Premier print stock, which will keep the rich colors and blacks that one would see in digital projection or on a HD monitor. During our 20-day production, because we were shooting tape instead of film, François discovered that he was able to get more takes of performances - we ended up shooting the equivalent of 250,000' of 35mm negative, when most low-budget features generally can only afford to shoot 100,000'. We also saved a little time due to the limited number of camera reloads, since each HDCAM tape holds 50 minutes at 24P. In terms of lighting, the only consideration I make for shooting digitally is that video cameras do not handle overexposure well. Therefore, compared to shooting color negative film, more of my effort is spent controlling the brightest areas in the frame, from carefully choosing the tonality of costumes, furniture and walls, to darkening daytime windows using ND gels, to lowering the intensity of practical lamps with dimmers. However, since the Sony HDW-F900 has a sensitivity at 0 db that roughly equates to that of a 320 ASA film stock, the light levels employed when shooting are very similar to that of a typical 35mm film production. All-in-all, I'm very pleased with the quality that the 24P HD format can deliver; I hope future formats will solve some of the lingering differences between HD and 35mm, primarily in terms of resolution and exposure latitude. But for now, we have in the current 24P HD format something that delivers near-35mm quality but with unique capabilities that some filmmakers will find useful for certain projects, enough to outweigh any disadvantages. It's similar to traditional film but it also has a look that is special to itself, and most cinematographers will be happy to have this new option available to them when choosing the best way to shoot a movie." [From High Def.Org magazine, Autumn 2001.]