Cinematography Books - Page 5

High Definition Cinematography, Second Edition

Paul Wheeler

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Buy if you are mroe of a techie, and not if you are the creative type. 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

There is a ton of information in this book, but most of it was purely technical backstory that an engineer would appreciate.

He covers a few specific cameras in great detail, but if you're the kind of person who's more likely to be shooting on an HVX 200 or shooting HDV, than this is not for you.

there was helpful information about broadcast HD delivery specs for certain networks, however... but as of now, the book is sitting on my shelf collecting dust.

Editorial Review:

High definition is here to stay.

HD changes the whole shooting and editing process in film and television production and this book is to satisfy your hunger for information. Whether you are a cinematographer, producer, or working in film/TV production, High Definition Cinematography, 2nd edition will demystitify the new technology, help you select the right cameras and equipment, and explain how high definition affects the shooting process and budgets. Filled with practical advice for tackling everyday decisions and choices, this is a necessity for you if you are using or considering using high definition technology.

* One of the few books available on the very hot topic of high definition
* Filled with practical advice for tackling everyday decisions and choices
* Demystifies HD technology, equipment, and workflow to help filmmakers shoot gorgeous footage

Guide to Postproduction for TV and Film: Managing the Process, Second Edition

Barbara Clark, Susan Spohr

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Are you an associate producer who needs to juggle projects and vendors while keeping on top of the latest trends and formats? Or an independent filmmaker who can't afford a misstep in the crucial postproduction phase? Take a step back and get a clear overview of the process. This guide will show you how to navigate each step in taking a TV or film project from production to final delivery. Start by getting a handle on the critical issues of budgets and schedules. From there, you'll learn the smoothest way to manage dailies, sound, editing, and completion. Detailed instructions and checklists for film, video, and High Definition procedures will teach you new ways of doing things and help you avoid costly errors.

The second edition is fully updated and information-packed. There is extensive new material on high definition as it affects dailies, editing, and delivery. The chapter on the film laboratory has been expanded further to include discussions on troubleshooting film damage and YCMs, which are so important in maintaining film assets. The latest information on film restoration, digital technologies, acquisitions, and a chapter on what's on the horizon round out the update.

* Manage the postproduction process with this step-by-step guide

* Learn how to stay on budget and on schedule with helpful forms, flowcharts, and checklists

* Find out how the latest developments in high definition, e-cinema, and acquisitions are changing the post world

Carmen on Film: A Cultural History

Phil Powrie, Bruce Babington, Ann Davies, Chris Perriam

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Editorial Review:

Traces the cinematic history of Carmen, the Spanish Gypsy femme fatale

Cinematography (Screencraft) (Screencraft Series)

Peter Ettedgui

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Cinematography is the first title in the Screencraft Series, a unique venture which aims to unravel for the first time the multi-layered language of film-making, by exploring the fusion of crafts which combine to create the most important art form of the 20th century. Although the cinematographer or director of photography rarely receives the kind of attention reserved for directors and actors, there is little doubt that this is the key technical role in the process of revealing a story through images. The cinematographers featured in this book encompass three generations of filmmaking and represent a diversity of film cultures. What they have in common is the contribution they have made to a universal cinema heritage and the fact that their work has helped to expand -- if not revolutionize -- the language of film. This book, featuring the world's finest cinematographers, will inspire practicing professionals, students, and movie buffs alike. This beautifully designed and illustrated book speaks in the voices of these cinematographers and through the powerful images they have created for the screen.


The cinematographers featured in this book encompass three generations of filmmaking and represent a diversity of film cultures, from "African Queen" to "Delicatessen."
Highly illustrated -- over 500 color pictures and 300 black and white photos -- and written entirely based on each cinematographer's own words from interviews
This book, featuring the world's finest cinematographers, will inspire practicing professionals, students, and movie buffs alike.

Features three generations of cinematographers representing many diverse film cultures
Highly illustrated with over 500 color pictures and 300 black and white photos
Written entirely based on each cinematographer's own words from interviews

The Technique of Film and Video Editing, Third Edition: History,Theory, and Practice

Ken Dancyger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Technique of Film & Video Editing is the best training for aspiring directors, providing a detailed, precise look at the artistic and aesthetic principles and practices of editing for both picture and sound. Analysis of photographs from dozens of classic and contemporary films and videos provide a sound basis for the professional filmmaker and student editor. Practical skills are grounded by an exposition of the ideas and styles of editing through which the director can understand the visual tools at his or her disposal. This book puts into context the storytelling choices an editor will have to make against a background of theory, history, and practice.


The current edition brought this book to the cutting edge with such topics as new technology and its influence on the art of editing, MTV style, psychoanalytic ideas, and the appropriation of style over content. The new edition furthers these discussions by highlighting the "stylistic extremes" brought about by the clash of imitative style and innovative filmmaking. It continues the examination of MTV style via a study of the full spectrum of its uses in recent years. Additionally, it examines the editing characteristics of nonlinear storytelling as evidenced in such recent films as The Ice Storm and Thin Red Line. A new chapter addresses new trends in documentary.

* Offers a deeper discussion of MTV style editing
* Includes more on the appropriation of style
* Examines innovations in documentary

The Godfather in Pictures: An Unofficial Companion

Tony Nourmand

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Editorial Review:

"The Godfather Parts I, II and III" are among the best loved and most highly acclaimed movies in the history of cinema. Moving chronologically from Vito Corleone's childhood in Sicily to Michael Corleone's demise in the late 1970s, "The Godfather in Pictures" collects together for the first time a sumptuous array of posters, magazine covers, behind-the-scenes photographs and costume designs in one beautifully designed volume. The book also contains short features on the role of the real Mafia in the making of the films, the trilogy's cast and crew, and the actors who almost made it (Anthony Quinn and Sir Laurence Olivier were both considered for the role of Don Corleone). As elegantly realized and effortlessly cool as the movies it celebrates, "The Godfather in Pictures" is a real treasure-trove for all fans of the trilogy, a must-have tribute to the talent and creative vision behind Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece.

Digital Domain: The Leading Edge of Visual Effects

Piers Bizony

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Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From Armageddon, Dante’s Peak, Interview with a Vampire, and Apollo 13 to Titanic, The X-Men, Fight Club, and the record-breaking The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Digital Domain has been on the cutting edge of effects production. Founded in 1993 by industry veterans James Cameron, Stan Winston, and Scott Ross, this studio has produced some of the most spectacular special effects ever seen in cinema.

Digital Domain: The Leading Edge of Visual Effects provides an exclusive, first-ever look at the Academy Award–winning production company at the forefront of the Hollywood special effects industry. Readers will discover dozens of cutting-edge special effects techniques, ranging from model-making and CGI morphing to digitally created virtual sets and “synthespians.” Unique, frame-by-frame deconstructions demonstrate how the most sophisticated special effects are achieved, and stunning case examples from the company’s work illustrate basic effects from conception to completed sequences.

Plus, dozens of previously unpublished, behind-the-scenes photos reveal the expert artistry needed to create these groundbreaking effects, as well as the various ways digital imaging is combined with the work of set designers, model makers, and production artists to achieve brilliant results.

Digital Domain also includes an interesting overview of the future of movie technology—including the almost certain elimination of film stock—as well as the recent blurring between the traditional “cinema” experience and the growing new market for theme park rides and PC game simulators.

The Avid Handbook: Techniques for the Avid Media Composer and Avid Xpress, Third Edition

Steve Bayes

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Avid Media Composer, Avid Xpress and Avid Symphony are the most widely used nonlinear editing systems by professionals in the film and video industries. Based on his experience teaching countless seminars around the world on the Avid Media Composer, Avid Symphony and Avid Xpress, Steve Bayes has written the most comprehensive manual for nonlinear digital editing on these Avid editing systems. This handbook is now revised throughout to reflect recent upgrades to these systems and the third edition covers Symphony 2.1, Media Composer 9.1 and Avid Xpress 3.1, as well as earlier versions.

Written for the reader who already has a basic knowledge of the editing systems, this book moves beyond an introduction to the professional Avid editing systems and focuses on strategies, techniques, and troubleshooting. The Avid Handbook covers the basics of working with effects, rendering, and graphics and discusses the more abstract issues of workflow and organization of different types of editing projects. The book discusses frequently made mistakes, common technical problems,and how they can be avoided. In addition, there is an in depth explanation of Symphony color correction, 24 p and other new features and efficiencies in the latest software versions from Avid. The Avid Handbook discusses techniques for Windows NT users, including the most complete description of the offline to online workflow using Avid systems.

Includes techniques for using Windows NT with Avid systems
Revised throughout to reflect system upgrades
A guide to strategies, common problems, and techniques while editing nonlinear digital video or film

How to Make an Action Movie for $99

Andrew Mayne Harter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Magician-turned-Filmmaker tricked us! 2 out of 5 stars.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I have been looking forward to reading this book ever since I heard about it 3 years ago. I finally got my hand on a copy, and boy was I disappointed!
It appears that this is a self-published title. The font is rather large, too large for a book. This title also has no ending, and the numerous spelling and grammatical errors I read made me cringe.
The book talks a lot about his film, Full Motion Blur. For those of us who haven't seen it (Which I'm guessing is most of the readers of the book), it'd be nice to tell us what it was about!! Maybe show us a screenplay or where we can find the film (there's no website or anything online on where to find it).
This book doesn't have much value to a filmmaker until the first 100 pages. the author keeps referring to Chimpanzees and Monkeys, which seems to be an inside joke I don't get. The footnotes are not only in bad taste, but completely pointless. I just kept shaking my head every time I read them (a warning for parents of kids: the book does have some not so subtle sexual inneundo in the book).
He also appears to be a bit self-absorbed and possess a large ego, which is unfortunately evident in the first 100 pages.
Once you get to the section about shooting the movie, he starts to give out information filmmakers can use. Despite being a 6 year veteran of filmmaking, I learned a bit about no budget filmmaking that I didn't find in other books. But the author seems to want us to do what he says, not what he does. He talks about showing, not telling the action, but all he does is tell us some techniques for low-budget filmmaking. How about some still photographs of what you've donem or computer program screenshots when you made the film?
For all the hype and promise this book held, it grossly underdelivers. [...]
Oh, and finally, the author warns of people who tend to criticize filmmakers' efforts are no more than frustrated filmmakers who never made their movie. So that I may put that to rest: I've been making films for six years: I've made 5 films, 9 commercials, and written 20 screenplays, all while holding down a fulltime job and raising a son.

Editorial Review:

A guide to writing, shooting, and editing a feature film in the digital age. When independent filmmaker Andrew Harter decided to make a feature-length action movie, he didn't let the $99 budget get in the way. The result: Full Motion Blur - quite possible the greatest (and only) action movie ever made for $99 (Official Selection of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.) In this book, Andrew explains how to write a script around existing props and borrowed locations. How to get people to work for free and love it. Most importantly, he breaks down the technical details of filmmaking so you can start and see your project completed. It's guerilla filmmaking at it's most extreme.

The 16mm Camera Book

Douglas Underdahl

List Price: $39.00 By: Long Valley Equipment, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 2 new & used starting at $66.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A must-have for the guerrilla film maker 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

If you've just bought your first 16mm camera or thinking of hiring one for a shoot, this book is invaluable. It's a fascinating subject and Douglas Underdahl manages to make it funny too!!! There's also plenty of advice for the first time director. What more can I say? The book makes you want to grab your Bolex, run into the street and start making a movie!!

excelent guide to 16mm cameras 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

this book covered all of the major and minor parts of the different cameras.an easy read...and a must for all new film students!!!!!

Wonderful book! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Fantastic book, the best I've ever read on cameras and experiences with cameras. I wish Underdahl would write more. HIGHLY recommended! (Review entered on behalf of Jeff Hill.)

great for beginner, handy for expert, production-friendly 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

it even includes info on the Krasnogorsk-3!
Good stuff here, lots of production prep tips, notes on all major makes of 16mm movie cameras plus the expected chapters on lenses, lights, and so on. Plus stuff like low-cost tips and tricks for filters, making your own stuff. Having this book is like having a nice next-door neighbor who you can stop by and ask questions.