Customer Reviews

Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Home Videos

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This thick book is filled with ALOT of technical terms and references to things that I will never do with my home movies. If you just want to learn some basic techniques for shooting better home videos, skip this book. The advice is not very practical. For instance, I wanted to know step-by-step how to take better shots, not "avoid panning too much." Still there is some useful information. But if all you want to do is make better home movies, check out John Fuller's Make Fantastic Home Videos. In a short amount of time, he tells you exactly how to shoot home movies just like the pros do it. It is just a much more practical book and not quite as "theory oriented" as this one.

AS PROGRAM DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION FOR A LARGE METROPOLITAN NEW YORK COMPANY THIS BOOK IS ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED READING FOR EMPLOYEES DOING EDUCATIONAL TRAINING VIDEO RECORDING AND EDITING. IT IS EASY TO UNDERSTAND, COMPREHENSIVE AND THOPROUGH. I GIVE IT A FIVE STAR RATING.

I definitely recommend this book! I recently returned from a vacation with some friends, and we wanted to take our HOURS of videos and make them into something worth watching. The book taught us how to edit the videos down to a manageable size...basically, we cut out the boring stuff! I had never used a computer editing program before. If I could figure this stuff out, believe me--you can! :)

I got this book because the guy who sold me my video recorder recommended it. In it, I found everything I was looking for, plus some things that I probably wouldn't have thought of. Overall, very useful.

Idiots guide to making home movies was an incredible help for my husband and I. As complete novices, we needed a guide to assist us in making videos of our newborn baby girl. The book shows you how to actually edit your videos on your home computer. This is something I was extremely intimidated by, and I am so thankful that I can actually do these things now! Our friends think we're technical genuises...which is not the case at all! I recommend this book ten times over!

So much of this book is dedicated to equipment, I would recommend buying this book before buying any equipment. I only gave this book a "3" because it covers more theory than practical information. For instance, Chapter 24 "Multimedia Madness: Alternative Methods of Distributing Your Video" mentions that you should "choose a codec (compression/decompression) scheme." Then it moves on with out going in to some of the pro/cons of even the most popular formats.

I got this book as a birthday present from my uncle, since he knew that I didn't understand all of the functions on my videocamera. It's helped tremendously--a great basic guide.