Customer Reviews

The IFILM Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbook

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have ordered many books from Amazon in the past, but this is the first review I have written. After reading the poor review of Maxie Collier's IFILM Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbook, I had to offer my feedback.

I have purchased and read dozens of books about digital filmmaking and low budget filmmaking and Collier's book is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive. The book covers everything from film basics to an excellent explantion of digital production and post production technology and technics. I learned alot just reading the very informative glossary.

I have to agree with the review below that it is not the best edited book but the writing is excellent. I was impressed with the personal and inspiring tone of the book. Unlike one of the other digital filmmaking book I recently read (Digital Moviemaking by Scott Billups), this book is a great read. And, Collier's book cost less and comes with a DVD. (The DVD was kind of boring, but it has some real handy production forms on it that you can print out on your computer.)

While I'm a fan of other filmmaking books such as Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices (Rick Schmidt's classic), Collier's book covers digital technology far more thoroughly. If there is a better digital filmmaking book available, somebody PLEASE let me know the title and I'll order that one as well. Otherwise, the IFILM Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbooks gets my vote.

Ably edited by Scott Smith, the IFILM Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbook is a complete "how-to" instructional guide for digital filmmaking and covers all creative and technical aspects of pre-production, lighting, digital video, editing, post-production, distribution and exhibition. An essential, core title for personal, professional and film school library collections, The IFILM Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbook is enhanced with an accompanying and invaluable DVD of filmmaking resources.

Ably edited by Scott Smith, Maxie Collier's The iFilm Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbook is a complete "how to" instruction guide for digital filmmaking and covers all creative and technical aspects of pre-production, lighting, digital video, editing, post-production, distribution and exhibition. An essential, core title for personal, professional, and film school library reference collections, The iFilm Digital Video Filmmaker's Handbook is enhanced with an accompanying and invaluable DVD of filmmaking resources.

I've given this book a middle rating because I'm not sure what category of reader is its intended target. It mentions "first time filmmakers" but few start at that point. If it's aimed at the rank beginner who's trying to find a handhold, I'd rate it lower. If it's aimed at those who are knee-deep in the process, or is meant to supplement instruction, I might rate it higher.

As someone just beginning to look into digital filmmaking, I bought this book along with Digital Filmmaking 101. I'm glad I bought DF 101. Digital Video, on the other hand, is destined to be donated to my local and impoverished library. Another book-buying lesson learned.

I don't think of it as a really bad book, or an unbalanced book, and if I were more familiar with digital video I might appreciate it more--or less, depending on how correct the information is. As it is, I finished reading it and felt as if I'd gained little "stick to the ribs" information from it. The chapters after chapter 7 seemed especially unsuited to the beginner.

It may be that the book tries to cover too much territory. Obviously, shooting a movie--even with DV--is a complex process where a lot can go wrong. Making a book complex (not necessarily detailed) isn't likely to work well with the person new to the process, especially if the editing isn't up to par.

I suspect the approach taken by DF 101, combined with further reading on various elements of the craft, will serve most of those readers better.

The book comes with a CD, the contents of which are unknown to me, as it appeared to be lightly scuffed and was unreadable in four CD-ROMs, even after cleaning. Hopefully an isolated case.

We used Maxie's book as a textbook for an introduction to digital moviemaking class I took last semester. I finished reading the book the first week of class, it was so easy to read! When we started shooting our short films, most of the people in the class had the book on set with them. The glossary alone is filled with useful information. Out of more than 20 people in the class, there was never one complaint about the book. I think the teacher is using it again this semester. I leant my copy to a friend who ended up buying her own copy. I highly recommend this book.

I have to give Maxie 5 stars, because this truly is one of the most concise yet simple-to-read books on the subject of DV. I had only one major complaint though; Maxie makes a comparative anylasis of PCs vs Macs by comparing Mac OS to Windows 95 - and this book was published last year! Windows 95?? Come on Maxie! WinNT, Win2k and WinXP Pro are by far the standards for DV on the PC platform, and Maxie just doesn't do the PC fair in his argument.

It's easy to tell the author has experience behind the camera. But the book seems thin in parts, perhaps where he's less well grounded--camcorder controls and post techniques, for example. This book was used as the text in a DV production course I took, but the lecturer had a lot more information than it does. I think it was one of the few books on this topic at the time they designed the course, but there are a lot more books on DV out there now.

I purchased this book following Maxie's excellent digital filmmaking panel at Showbiz Expo here in LA. I was impressed with the information he gave at the panel and even more impressed with all of the practical information in the book. I'm shooting a movie in three weeks and this book is helping me be far better prepared. Highly recommended!

I was gravely disappointed by this book. A large portion of it is wasted talking about movie making in general-- how to work with writers, write a good script, etc. A small portion provided a small portion of the information I had expected--technical information about the 'digital' part. It is poorly written and poorly edited.

I've been reading several books on the subject, and while this one seems reasonably complete it falls down in alot of areas. The authors starts some technical discussions and leaves the reader hanging. Some parts were really confusing, like the section on NLE software.

As a general overview to the process of making DV movies, it was ok, and easy to read. It almost appears the the author was trying to create a book which was a technical how to guide, and an overview to the process, but never fully explained both.