HBO’s acclaimed series Big Love presents DP David Mullen with several “big” challenges. “It’s a story of a polygamist family living in the suburbs near Salt Lake City,” explains Mullen, who has worked on Twin Falls Idaho, North Fork and The Astronaut Farmer. “The lead character, and his three wives and kids live in three houses next door to each other that share a common backyard,” Mullen continues. “While the show’s set in Utah, we shoot on stages in Santa Clarita, and then do exteriors at Vasquez Rocks and around L.A. The look of the show is very naturalistic, which is where the humor comes from. The situation is a bit surreal, so it helps that the photography is very straightforward.”

The show shoots half of each episode’s daytime scenes on stage, so the main set with the three homes and large backyard needs to be lit for daytime. This is no easy task. “Reproducing daylight on a stage is the biggest problem,” notes the DP. “We have a huge 180-degree backing of a mountain range that circles the back yard, trees, and a swimming pool in the center. The three houses are all working interior sets as well, so we can shoot scenes inside and outside the houses ─ all in one shot if needed.”

To deal with these daytime demands, the set’s basic, permanent arrangement includes 150 Spacelights hung overhead, all with three of the six globes wired.  “They  put out 3K each,” Mullen says. “Every fifth Spacelight is gelled half blue to give the overhead light a slightly blue ambience. There’s also cyc lighting and Sky Pans from the ground for the backing, and there are two scissor lifts at each end of the stage with two Dinos each. So we have four Dinos, and on rolling parallels around the perimeter, we have two 20Ks and a 9-light with spot globes and these lights provide the hard sunlight effect in contract with the soft overhead Spacelight effect. The big trick is getting the balance right, as you need to increase the contrast in the back yard to get believable sunlight, so generally I have to lower the Spacelights’ intensity down to where I get around an f4 to base exposure. Then the Dinos give me an 11, and that way I get a three or four stop difference between the sun and the shade.”

Mullen mentions that all the lights were bought by production especially for the show so that they could be set up to hang permanently. “The other big challenge is faking different times of day in the back yard,” he explains. “The stage is so big that the scissor lifts at each end barely get over the tops of the houses, so they tend to create a late afternoon effect where the sun isn’t that high in the sky. So occasionally I’ve gotten production to rent me an articulated Condor so I can put a 20K on and do a scene under the porch or somewhere else where I can arm a 20K more overhead to create a higher, ‘toppier’ sunlight effect with shadows at the right angle.” The DP also adds gels to the Dinos and uses dimmers to create a sunset effect, “so you can be pretty creative with the lighting.”