Digital Video Production Cookbook by Chris Kenworthy
Whether you are a video professional with years of experience, an independent filmmaker working on a yet another flick to add to your resume, a total beginner at film making, or even just a fan, you'll find something to learn and appreciate in the new Digital Video Production Cookbook from O'reilly Digital Studio.
This book by Chris Kenworthy provides 100 great tips and tricks for inexpensively creating neat looking effects and video scenes. Set up like a cookbook with easy to follow instructions and illustrations, the book is a very enjoyable motivational and learning tool to improve your film-making techniques. None of these are truly revolutionary but many are of the "cool, yes let's try that variety".
These tips and techniques are targeted to the filmmaker using video to create and shoot - whether a inexpensive one chip DV camcorder or a professional 3 chip video camera.
This would be a great bathroom book as each of the hundred tips just takes a page or two to demonstrate and explain. I found it enjoyable to sit down and read about ten a time. Then I'd come back and read another ten tips or so.
(I am going to use these on my next production).
The book's tips cover the gamut of filmmaking from lighting, camera illusions and effects, to editing, production and visual effects, to advanced effects and shooting at night. It also covers the basics of how to do safe stunts, how to create sound effects , how to duplicate bad weather and easy make up tips. Who would have guessed that fruit salad can look like brains shot out of head during a gunfight?
I found this book very easy to read and understand, with little or no jargon to confuse. If you are thinking of doing an independent film, or are already working, you got to check out the Digital Video Production Guide.
By the way, this would make a great present for your friends or relatives who want to get into making movies using digital video.
Retail price is $29.95.
Here is the Amazon Review
Book Description Have you ever watched a big-budget Hollywood movie and wondered "How did they do that?" or, perhaps, "How can I do that?" While digital technology greatly simplifies the filmmaking process, there are many tried-and-true production tricks that only those lucky enough to work in the world of high-budget professional film production get to know. The truth is that setting up a car chase, making a realistic-looking alien, staging a fistfight, creating atmospheric lighting, and using special effects are often not as difficult to master as you might think.
Digital Video Production Cookbook will show you how to create sophisticated-looking visual effects, dramatic shots, and powerful sequences using low-cost methods adapted from high-end professional techniques. Author and award-winning filmmaker Chris Kenworthy explains how you can use a digital video camera and basic editing software, to create high-end production values with household equipment and a little imagination.
The book includes easy-to-follow recipes for:
Creating bluescreen effects
Simulating rain, snow, and other natural phenomena
Working with backlighting, simulated candlelight, and special lighting effects
Shooting day for night
Staging safe stunts, chase scenes, and fistfights
Makeup techniques for aging, bruises, and serious injuries
Shooting at night
Working with camera movement
Adding special effects such as laser bolts, holograms, and explosions
and much more.
Packed with full-color, step-by-step instructions, inspirational examples, and authoritative information and advice, this book is the ultimate, no-nonsense cookbook for every aspiring digital filmmaker.
