Book description
Tired of the all the digital filmmaking guidebooks that give you only the nuts and bolts of how to use a camera? The third edition of Video Shooter takes the how-to knowledge a step further by showing you how to craft a story in your video. Barry Braverman is an experienced shooter and filmmaker whose is highly regarded in the field. This book covers everything from framing a shot, to lighting, to the type of camera (and tripod) you should use, and perhaps most importantly--how to translate the use of all this equipment and techniques into a story. The author is a veteran cinematic storyteller, and he shares practiced film-style techniques for use on your own DV cam.
Humorous and opinionated, the author provides anecdotes and full-color illustrations that help you to learn the tricks of the trade. He gets right to the point of what you need to know to get good shots-and on a budget.
New to this edition:
* more up-to-date techniques involving HD technology
* more coverage on the multi-skillset required of today's filmmakers (who are asked to act simultaneously as Director, Director of Photography, Cinematographer, Sound Recordists, etc.)
*Website including craft tips, equipment review/blogs, and a teacher's corner to support use of the book in film studies/digital media class (includes student work completed in class using the text)
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 The Shooter’s Point of View
-
CHAPTER 2 Let Me Tell You a Story
- What Makes a Good Story?
- Know Your Genre and Make Sure Your Audience Knows
- What Does Your Poster Look Like?
- Know Your Log Line
- Embrace Your Limitations
- For Different Reasons
- Your Comparative Advantage
- Limit Your Canvas
- Respect Your Camera’s Dynamic Range
- Shoot the Magic Hour
- Authenticity Matters
- The Story Never Stops
- Ethics Matter
-
CHAPTER 3 The Video Storyteller
- Still Lofty Expectations
- Put a Frame Around the World
- Exclude, Exclude, Exclude!
- Make ’Em Suffer
- A Unique Perspective
- Obscure, Hide, and Conceal
- Matters of Perspective
- Box-Girder Bridges, Anyone?
- The Rule of Thirds
- The Golden Rectangle
- Evoking Pain
- What Kind of Place?
- Embrace the Theory
- Craft Matters
- Close-Ups Are Your Meat and Potatoes
- Attack Obliquely
- Shot Progression and Frame Size
- The Power of Eyeline
- Shooting the Less than Perfect
- The Story Within the Story
- Backgrounds Tell the Real Story
- We Are All Liars and Cheats
- Know What You Want
- Working With the Ego-Crazed
-
CHAPTER 4 The Storyteller’s Box
- Too Many Choices
- Cameras Reflect the Changes
- Framing the Argument
- 2K, 4K, and Higher Resolution
- Grappling With the Technical
- What You Need to Know
- When the Technical Matters
- The Technical Nature of the World
- The Processor in Your Mind
- Let’s Have an Analog Experience
- Improving Our Digital Recordings
- A Bit of Knowledge
- The 10-Bit Workflow
- Does Your Camera Pass the 10-Minute Rule?
- Be Sensor-Tive
- Size Matters, Sort Of
- The Resolution Ruse
- Human Limits to Perception of Resolution
- Is the End Game Near?
- Pixels in a Grid
- Three-Chip Versus Single-Chip
- Why Is Compression Necessary?
- For Practical Reasons
- Redundancy, Redundancy
- You Don’t Miss What You Can’t See
- Interframe Versus Intraframe Compression
- Selecting a Frame Rate
- Why the Goofy Frame Rates—or Why 24p Isn’t 24p?
- The Many Flavors of 24P
- So You’re Shooting 24p
- If SD Still Lives Within You
- Attention Laggards!
- Once Upon a Time
- CHAPTER 5 The DSLR Story
-
CHAPTER 6 Your Window on the World
- Control Your Space
- To Flatter or Not to Flatter
- Maximize Use of the Storytelling Tools
- Go Long for the Touchdown
- Beware of Dubious Claims
- Optical Versus Digital Zoom
- Going Wider and Longer
- Tale from the Trenches
- Why Lenses Look Cheap
- Say No to Small F-Stops
- Why One-Piece Camcorders Make Better Pictures
- Chromatic Aberration Compensation
- Making Peace With Your Not-So-Hot Lens
- How Sweet It Is
- Dubious Focus, Zoom, and Onion Rings
- Cine-Style Lenses
- Source of Enchantment and Frustration
- Excessive Depth of Field
- Lens Adapters
-
CHAPTER 7 The 3D Shooter
- The Essence of 3D
- 3D Is a Technical Trick
- Depth Cues, Anyone?
- Monoscopic Depth Cues
- Stereoscopic Depth Cues
- Interaxial Versus Interocular
- Where to Set the Screen Plane
- 3D Camera Setup
- Avoiding Tolerance Issues
- Screen Size Matters
- Parallax: Getting It Right
- Window Violations
- Thinking About the 3D Story
- The Roundness Factor
- Shedding Your Evil 2D Ways
- The Future Is Glasses Free
- Is 3D Here to Stay?
- 3D Postproduction and Output
- 3D Is Coming—Again!
- 2D to 3D Conversion
- Evolution of the Craft
- Show Me a World I Haven’t Seen Before
-
CHAPTER 8 Story Command and Control
- Auto-Everything: Who Needs It?
- Down With Auto-Exposure
- The China Girl
- Riding the Waveform
- I Shutter To Think About It
- The Synchronized Shutter
- Frame Rates and Your Story
- Focusing on What’s Important
- These Guys Are Not Artists
- HD Focus Can Be Tough!
- Following Focus
- White Balance Your Story
- To Preset or Not Preset
- Setting Manual White Balance
- The Illogic of Auto-White
- Automatic Black Balance
- No Gain, No Pain
- Keep the Noise Down
- The Timecode Swamp
- Serial Digital Versus High-Definition Multimedia Interface
- Interconnectivity and Streaming
- Monitoring Your Work
- More Power to You
- Managing Viewfinder Clutter
- Animation and Time Lapse
- The Magic of Pre-Record
- Here We Go Loopy Loo
- Shooting in Extreme Conditions
- Shooting Wild Life and Wildlife
-
CHAPTER 9 Tweaking Your Story’s Look
- Getting Started on Your Look
- Master Pedestal: Where Is Black?
- The Legacy of Standard Definition
- Respecting Your Camera’s Dynamic Range
- Going, Going Gamma
- Minding Your Highlights
- Auto-Knee
- Controlling Chroma
- Matrix
- Filtering Your Image
- Getting Physical
- Consider a Filter Last
- Designed for the Task
- Neutral Density
- A Polarized View
- Sky Control
- The High-Contrast Dilemma
- The Diffused Look
- Christian Dior to the Rescue
- The Matte Box
- How They Stack Up
- Warming Up
- Out of the Fog
- The Post-Camera Finish
- Roll Your Own
- Color Correction
- Shooters, Take Charge!
-
CHAPTER 10 Making Light of Your Story
- Think Small
- Shooters Who Light, Edit, Produce, and Wash Windows
- LED Lighting Comes of Age
- HMI Lighting: Expensive But Worth It
- Fluorescents and the Green Plague
- Think Big
- Soft Is Key
- Choosing a Soft Light
- Spilling the Beans
- The Art of Diffusion
- The Jelly Roll
- The Standard Setup
- Lighting Front and Center
- Having Your Fill
- On- and Off-Camera Options
- Lighting in Planes
- Lighting for Green Screen
- Why Green?
- Green Screen Alternative
- Get a Grip
- Kooks and Cookies
- Being Snooty
- Clamping Down
- Tape Makes the Man (or Woman)
- The Ditty Bag
- Lighting = Craft + Ingenuity
- CHAPTER 11 Supporting Your Story
-
CHAPTER 12 Listening to Your Story
- An Unsound Proposition?
- Sound Advice
- Bad Connections = Bad Sound
- Keep Balance in Your Life
- Mixing It Up
- Setting Audio Level
- For the Love of Mic
- Riding (Short) Shotgun
- Going Wireless
- Going Boom
- Noise Reduction for the Video Shooter
- Shooting Double System: Is It Necessary?
- You are Surrounded
- To Improvise Is Good
-
CHAPTER 13 Going with the Flow
- Not One Workflow
- The Promise of MXF
- The Beauty of Metadata
- We Should Be Less Fearful Now
- The Advent of SSD
- Proxy Video and the iPhone
- Outputting Your Story
- The Decline of DVD
- Eye on the Encoded Image
- Encoders Have Personalities
- Scenes That Spell Trouble
- The Noise-Reduction Imperative
- Know Your Encoding Mode
- Blu-Ray, Anyone?
- Reaching for the Clouds
- The Archiving Challenge
- AFTERWORD There Is No Best Button
- Index
Product information
- Title: Video Shooter, 3rd Edition
- Author(s):
- Release date: October 2013
- Publisher(s): Routledge
- ISBN: 9781136058851
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