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GreenCine Tech Talk
	Filmmaker For the aspiring filmmaker. Director, actor, writer, producer? Share the knowledge.	20

Looking for knowledge
	Topic by: DapperDan Posted: October 27, 2003 - 6:22 PM PST Last Reply: February 3, 2004 - 9:53 PM PST

author	topic: Looking for knowledge
DapperDan	post #1  on October 27, 2003 - 6:22 PM PST   Does anyone have any reccomendations on good books for the aspiring filmmaker/writer/producer??
dpowers	post #2  on October 29, 2003 - 9:31 AM PST   what do you know how to do already?
dwhudson	post #3  on October 31, 2003 - 7:47 AM PST   I guess another question could be: What books do you already have, i.e., at what level are you jumping in?
DapperDan	post #4  on October 31, 2003 - 10:56 PM PST   Well I know how to do somethings, its my brother and I who are getting into it. But we want to start out with a good general knowledge and go from there. We are going to be working with Digital Video. So we want to get our hands on anything that gives a good general knowledge of filmmaking, and working with Digital Video. Also lighting and cinematography. what we hope to do is work with the DV and work on different filming techniques before we get started on making shorts. Script writing books would be interesting also. It's alot of stuff but we just want to build up our knowledge. Some directors that I really enjoy are Wes Anderson, Tarrantino, COEN Bros, Terry Gilliam, Hitchcock, Jean Pierre Jeunet, Ridly Scott, Fincher, Aronofsky, and the list goes on....Ive been watching alot of Directors comentary which has been very helpful as well...but yeah...moving on, Any knowledge that you guys have and don't mind giving out that would be very much appreciated. Or if you guys just wanna talk film thats cool also. Thanks for the replies
oldkingcole	post #5  on November 1, 2003 - 12:26 AM PST   DapperDan, As it happens, I'm taking a videography class right now! Unfortunately, we are using a book I couldn't really recommend -- it's the "Digital Video for Dummies" book, and really, it's kinda lame. I'm definitely not ready for Sundance (a *major* understatement), but in the few short movies I've shot so far for class so far, two external sources of information have been invaluable to me: 1. I've been undertaking a serious, somewhat formal study of comic books for the past two years. Although comics don't involve motion, they *do* cover many other critically important aspects of visual storytelling, including: composition of elements within the frame, camera angles, use of Long Shot/Medium Shot/Close-up, and the technique of showing an activity by piecing together a sequence of images that each tell a part of the story. To explain the latter, let me give an example. My last two class assignments have been to create a 3 minute silent movie. No characters are allowed to speak, and subtitles or cutaways to expository cards of text are also not allowed. This means the story must be clear just from the visuals. It is more challenging than you might think at first, and is a really good exersize. So anyway, in my last movie, I wanted to communicate that a character who had been drinking a lot of water, had to go pee. I could've just shown him in a long shot or medium shot, doing the "pee dance". But that's not how a comics artist would show this. In comics, you'd get a master shot of the character doing the pee dance, then you'd get an extreme close up of a grimmace on the character's face, then maybe a panel showing his hands clenched down near his crotch, and so on. Taken together, in sequence, the audience would put these pieces together and get a much more involving sense of the character's desperation than would be possible to communicate just from the master shot. This works in movies too, but I really learned it from comics and just applied it to my movie. Also, if you think about it, a comic book is in many ways like a storyboard for a movie. Two comics reference books stand out as particularly useful (at least to me). First is Scott McCloud's phenomenal book, "Understanding Comics". It is, of course, about comics, not movies. But still, his insights are highly transferable to film. The other book worth seeking out is "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way", by Stan Lee and John Buscema. This book is mainly useful for its short, fantastic chapter on frame composition. It actually draws a simple one-page silent comics story twice, and puts the two versions on facing pages. The left-hand story is "adequately" framed, meaning, one can still tell what the story is. But the one on the right hand side of the page is told in the "Marvel" way -- ie, lots of extreme camera angles, dramatic figure composition, etc. Comparing them is a revelation, and the lessons learned from these comparisons are, again, extremely applicable to moviemaking. 2. Watching a lot of movies, and trying to write reviews (even if just for yourself) that are as analytical as possible. How did the director use color? How about other devices like camera angles, composition, pacing of edits, music, lighting, and so on. And try to go beyond just identifying what was done -- the really interesting question is to figure out *why* it was done. If the director always puts his central character in a frame within the frame (by having him constantly in doorways or surrounded by boxes or window frames or whatever), try to figure out what that *means* or *communicates* in the story. This may or may not be helpful to you, but I feel it's been extremely helpful to me, because, even as a beginner, I have some idea from studying movies in this way, about what I'm trying to achieve in terms of visual communication. I don't yet have the skill to always *achieve* what I'm trying for, but at least I have a sense of the direction I'm *trying* to go in. Hope this helps. If you do find a good book that covers the basics of putting shots together, I hope you will post a reference to it here. I'm interested in finding something like that too.
dpowers	post #6  on November 1, 2003 - 2:43 AM PST   a couple books that are useful lessons in shot design are film directing shot by shot and film directing cinematic motion, both by stephen katz, both widely available, i think. there are bunches of books published on how to stretch money while shooting, which is really helpful. i don't know which ones are best. has anybody found one very incredible? however if you'll be DIY all the way through production, a good thing would be a hands-on lesson on doing sound, because that's the pickiest part, and it's harder to learn from books. sound is both more spatial and more linear than image and yet kind of unsexy. to step away from the equipment and into the psyche of the story, i love robert bresson's little book, notes on the cinematographer. it's just little things he wrote to himself to open up his brain while shooting, and i say "just" there with a real reverence for bresson's ability to simplify. like his movies, the book is stripped and smartly constructed.
hamano	post #7  on November 1, 2003 - 4:30 PM PST   It's not all that glamorous or scholarly, DapperDan. I got the straight story directly from director Paul Schrader when I attended the special screening of his film Mishima at the Japan Society in NY. He was sloshed from the free sake at the reception, and he thumped me on the shoulders and said rather bitterly, "You gotta just go and sell yourself. That's the secret. Sell yourself." You can read up on a lot of practical and technical stuff, but that's all book knowledge that anyone with access to a library can get. I know you asked for book suggestions, but my advice is just do a LOT of it. Filmmaking is a lot of running around and carrying equipment and staying up all night. And unless you're making CG films by yourself on a Mac or doing stop motion animation, it's a collaborative process that involves convincing a lot of people of your vision. Try taking some acting classes, or join a theater club. While you learn about actors and their craft, you can get to know potential cast members. As you work with people, you'll learn what parts of the film-making process come naturally to you, and what parts need work. Listen to a lot of music, and dance a lot. A feel for rhythm can make or break a film. It sounds kinda Karate Kid, but editing is like playing percussion. You can save a badly shot, badly written film if you can feel the right rhythm. In the end, though, you have to get people to help you or work for you or give you money. The acting classes might come in handy for that, but so would asking your friends or family for help on things (not just film). There are some successful film-makers who lack people skills, but they are either inhumanly self-confident, incredibly self-motivated, divinely talented, or adept at Jedi mind tricks.
underdog	post #8  on November 1, 2003 - 4:36 PM PST   Besides the books that DPowers recommended, all excellent (I got a lot of "Shot by Shot")-- I'd also check out Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus' "The Filmmaker's Handbook" -- which they wrote awhile back but then revised for these digital times. And then of course there's only so much you can get from a book as opposed to taking a class, and even more so, from shooting a lot of stuff yourself. Trial and error. Which is a lot cheaper these days with DV than with film. A method a writing teacher once told me also applies to film -- copy the masters, copy your favorites. With film, you could watch a favorite film a bunch of times and then shoot it, shot for shot, or at least a scene. You're still copying, and you may not impress anyone else. But you'll learn a hell of a lot about what works and what doesn't -- as well as subtly finding your own voice in the interim. Go to it! Craig
larbeck	post #9  on November 5, 2003 - 3:58 PM PST   Can you get your DV into your computer in AVI format? If so, discover the wonderful world of the Huffyuv codec, Virtual Dub and NanDub. You will need a fast computer with lots of disk space but with this lossless codec and the filters available with these tools you can have some great tools to edit your raw video into your magnus opus. Add Goldwave for your audio needs and you are ready. Then when you have that Final Cut, encode is to Divx, burn it, and the you will have all of this disk space ready for the next project. http://www.doom9.org has a wealth of information on these and other tools for digital video, mostly free and open source.
DapperDan	post #10  on November 6, 2003 - 1:32 PM PST   Thanks for all of the information, Im trying to find some of the books mentioned but the current library ive been to hasn't been very helpful. thanks for the replys Dan
hamano	post #11  on November 6, 2003 - 4:46 PM PST   Maybe GreenCine should rent film books as well as DVDs! Send it book rate. I'd suggest The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood by Julie Salamon. It's a fun book about what goes on behind the scenes.
erinwolth	post #12  on February 3, 2004 - 9:53 PM PST   > Besides the books that DPowers recommended, all excellent (I got a lot of "Shot by Shot")-- I'd also check out Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus' "The Filmmaker's Handbook" -- which they wrote awhile back but then revised for these digital times. I like FH, just thought I'd throw in, equally good, similarly A-Z comprehensive, and a little less of a weight-lifting, wallet-draining job is Kris Malkiewicz's Cinematography.