Books

General Video Books and DVDs


Movie Making Course: Principles, Practice, and Techniques: The Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Filmmaker, Chris Patmore c 2005 by Quarto Inc., Barron's Educational Series, Hauppauge NY. 144 pages, paperback. The main sections are: Before You Start, The Shoot, Post-Production, Projects, and Getting It Seen. The sections are broken down into subsections like an outline. Lots of fancy color pictures and diagrams. Basically an overview and summary of the movie making process. 8-3/4" W x 8-1/8” H

A really great overview of the entire process in very short segments. I’d give this 5 stars.

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The Ultimate Field Guide To Digital Video, a National Geographic publication c 2007, 159 pages, paperback. Library # 778.59 The audience for this book appears to be for the beginner or novice and covers the topics: choosing a camera, shooting the video, capturing and editing, and sharing the video. I came out at the time that digital media was making the transition from tape to flash memory. Easy to read style. The section on capturing your video was interesting.


Before you start, Script Writing, Directing, Shooting (aka, the story is king)

Tales From The Script, a DVD, Library # 808.23, non-fiction. This is a very interesting DVD about script writing, script writers, and their opinions, with an emphasis on how the script story fits into the movie, and also how some directors and producers under-rate or even missuse the script. Very interesting.



How to Shoot Video that Doesn’t Suck, Steve Stockman, c 2011, paperback 248 pages. Library 777.6 “Like two years of film school in 248 pages” says Steven Pressffield.  Other quotes: “How do you shoot video somebody else will want to watch?”  and “Steve is one of the smartest media inds in the game. This book is the perfect gift for any would-be filmmaker.” Whether you’re filming a child’s birthday party, business promo, video for what ever, this book will help you make it better. 

77 Ways to make your video better NOW! Including: Entertain or die, Make every picture tell a story, why a bit of planning makes all the difference, Keep your shots under 10 seconds long, Your video should always be shorter than you think, etc…..

  


Creative Filmmaking From the Inside Out, Dannenbaum, Hodge, & Mayer ©2003 Fireside Simon & Schuster 204 pages, paperback. Library #791.4302 Cover says 5 keys to the art of making inspired movies and television. Seems to be intended for use as a course book. Teaching how to be creative is no easy task and there are some interesting ideas, but for me, this was a difficult read. 

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The FIVE C’s of Cinematography, Joseph Mascelli ©1965 Silman-James Press 251 pages, paperback. Library #778.53 Motion picture filming techniques, camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, composition. Covers these artistic areas in depth. Includes numerous pictures and diagrams. 8.5 x 11 format. (poor picture)





The Shoot, Equipment


Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, Jay Rose c 2003 CMPBooks, San Francisco The priniples of sound obey the laws of physics so they will never change. This book is an excellent resource. Sections include Audio Basics, Planning and Pre-production, Production Sound, and Postproduction.

Audio Postproduction for Digital Video, Jay Rose c 2002 CMPBooks, San Francisco All about editing, sound effects, Equilization, dynamics control, time and pitch manipulation, noise reduction, the mix, and more.

Cinematography, 3rd edition, Malkiewicz & Mullen, 2005, 260 pages, paperback. Library # 778.5 The cover toots the book as “The Classic Guide, Updated for the 21st Century”; however, since it is from 2005 there is a lot of it that is out of date. On the plus side, the section on lighting, although geared for Hollywood productions, has good information with regard to how to light a scene or the talent. There is a good by very short section on special techniques, Chapter 9 “Production” covers scheduling, costs, and contracts. Page 194 covers a bit on Editing Concerns and helps to explain the difference between 24 fps, NTSC 29.97 (which is actually 29.976) fps, and PAL 30 fps. 


Voice-Over Voice Actor, Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt, ©2009, 253 pages, paperback. Library #791.4023 The cover says you will discover: The ins and outs of auditioning, vocal warm-ups and exercises, tips for reading copy, etc. Book is strong on how to get VO gigs but not as much on the part I would want for doing VO on my own video. A fun read with a few cartoons.

Post Production, Application Reference Materials

Final Cut Pro X, Lisa Brenneis & Michael Wohl, c 2012 Peachpit Press, Berkley CA. 504 pages. This is applicable to an early version of FCPX, probably about version FCPX 10.0.2. There are lots of color screen shots and it has excellent step-by-step procedures. 

Final Cut Pro X How it Works, Edgar Rothermich, c 2011, 61 pages and based on FCPX 10.0.1. This reference helps one to visualize the database file structure of FCPX.

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iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual, David Pogue, c May 2007, 500 pages. This book is brimming with helpful information about how to edit in iMovie 6 and use iDVD. iDVD is no longer available for purchase so if you have a copy of it be sure to take good care of it. iDVD is very useful for creating DVDs with Chapter Markers or a Chapter Menu. One can export a FCPX video into iDVD and then use the application to create a DVD.

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© John Nantz 2013