DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish (O'Reilly Digital Studio) [Paperback]

Ian David Aronson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596008481 | ISBN-13: 978-0596008482 | Publication Date: January 18, 2006 | Edition: Pap/DVD

Thanks to the digital revolution, film artists now have a spectacular array of powerful, new, inexpensive tools for creative expression through digital film. The once powerful studios can no longer stifle an artist's creativity. With the power of the Internet, film artists are finding once unimaginable ways to distribute their creations worldwide.

DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish covers all aspects of the new digital video frontier, for amateurs and professionals alike--from the nuts and bolts of timecode and aspect ratio; to framing, lighting, and sound recording; as well as editing, special effects creation, and distribution.

The book is written for filmmakers at varying experience levels--taking an integrated approach to media production, and emphasizing the ways different aspects of the process work together to create a vital work of digital art:

• Hands-on detailed examination of the artistic aspects of film and video production
• Extensive examples use comprehensive step-by-step exercises for advanced editing techniques
• Scenes from successful films illustrate techniques used by professionals
• Includes a collection of professionally shot video clips, so the user can read and follow along with sets of structured exercises
• Develops a highly refined repertoire of advanced skills in editing, effects creation, title design, and more
• Inspires advanced readers to work with the included clips on their own and experiment with new ideas
• Written for both Mac and PC users and covers advanced uses of both Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects

Written in an engaging, accessible style, DV Filmmaking provides a solid foundation of tremendous value to a beginner, while addressing the fine points of filmmaking with a level of sophistication, detail, and insight that even the most worldly director or educator can appreciate. The author draws upon his years of experience teaching at the college and graduate level, his extensive professional background as a media producer, and his unmistakable love of cinema to create a text that's not only easy to learn from, but also fun to read.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ian David Aronson is a media producer and scholar who lives in New York City. He is a 1997 graduate of the Stanford University Master's Program in Documentary Film and Video, and author of O'Reilly's DV Fillmaking: From Start to Finish. Aronson is also the director/producer of digitaldocumentary.org, which produces social issue documentary and educational media in a variety of electronic formats. His current production, Mi Querida America, follows a group of immigrant teens through their first year of high school in Manhattan and is intended for distribution via DVD and broadband Internet. From 2001 to 2004 Aronson served as Assistant Professor of Digital Media at Ramapo College. He is currently earning a doctorate in the highly selective Educational Communication and Technology program at New York University. Before attending Stanford he worked as a public radio producer and a stringer for The New York Times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Pap/DVD edition (January 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596008481
• ISBN-13: 978-0596008482
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #371,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavily weighted towards post-production, June 20, 2006

By 

Finn Gregory - See all my reviews

This review is from: DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish (O'Reilly Digital Studio) (Paperback)

Up front: I liked this book. However, I don't think the blurb or other reviews give a very accurate picture of it.
Good points:
- The book gives a very good general overview of all the steps involved in a DV production.
- It goes into quite a lot of detail on the editing and post-production side, especially for green/bluescreen projects.
- It's recent (pretty much current at the time of writing this review).
- Great layout, easy to read, good included materials.

On the down side:
- On the production side, it's too general for anyone but the absolute beginner.

Personally, I was more interested in the hands-on aspects of production. Things like setting up good three-point lighting, framing, camera and boom handling, shock-mounting and wind-gagging mics, balancing a tripod head, and so on. The type of things that pro's learn with experience, and would be valuable to hand down to relative beginners. Things like essential gear lists for different types of shooting, and what to look for in tripods, mics, filters, etc. specifically for DV cameras, would have also been very useful to me. You will find very little of the above in this book.

As I result, I think the "From Start to Finish" subtitle is a bit of a misnomer (hence only 3 stars). The "Start" and "Finish" parts are fine - it's the middle that is lacking depth. If you're coming to the field absolutely cold, or are more interested in editing (especially with alpha-channels), this book is very good.

However, if your needs sound similar to mine, you may want to investigate more production-oriented titles.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! Lots of fun!, April 21, 2006

By 

ueberhund "ueberhund" (Salt Lake City, UT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish (O'Reilly Digital Studio) (Paperback)

Are you an aspiring filmmaker? Do you want to create films, but aren't sure where to start? Are you currently an amateur filmmaker, but need to tune some of your skills? This book doesn't just show you how to be a filmmaker, it lets you follow along with sample projects on the included CD.

Most of the book concentrates on producing good video. The author discuss topics including lighting, special effects, sound and sound editing, nonlinear editing, compositing images, and color correction. I was most impressed with the examples in the book, which illustrate many of the concepts with a sample movie project (which can be found on the accompanying CD-ROM), or discuss how a familiar movie utilized the concept (e.g. color matching in Open Water). These types of illustrations really make the filmmaking concepts come alive.

The last section of the book discusses how to release your finished product. Once the film editing is complete, the book discusses how to distribute your film-perhaps on DVD, perhaps with 5.1 sound-and what some of the ins and outs of each option are. Finally, the author discusses the basics of negotiating a distribution deal for your film.

I was very impressed with the depth and breadth of content in this book. I would highly recommend it to any aspiring DV filmmaker.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good general digital video resource, March 8, 2006

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish (O'Reilly Digital Studio) (Paperback)

This book is unusual in that it's not linked to any hardware or software, per se. With the exception that it's about digital video. That leaves a lot of room for putting in information about general practices for creating good video for setup, lighting, angles, shooting and more. The information on post production and editing is also excellent.

This is an good resource for anyone looking to create movies with digital video technologies.