DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish [With CDROM]

by Ian David Aronson

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596008481
• ISBN13: 9780596008482
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 2.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.0" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

A great book that gave me the answer !

A great book! "DV Filmmaking" is an excellent book for anyone who wants to go beyond the basics of digital video. I recently completed a video-based project for my M.A. thesis, and used this book as my guide. Each time I encountered problems, this book gave me the answer. For example, after I shot, I noticed some severe lighting trouble in a few very important interviews and I started to panic because I didn't have enough time to shoot them again. I had more than three hours of interview footage that looked pale, shady, and just plain depressing. Frustrated, I opened this book. The solution was there, in the section on color correction!!! I could fix my footage so that it was not only usable but looked really good. I also relied on the section on compression and encoding to make professional quality video for the Internet (something I would not have been able to do otherwise). This book covers all aspects of the video production process, from planning, to production, and distribution. I'd like to recommend it to anyone who is new to the world of digital video, as well as people who want to take their work beyond the level of point-and-shoot to make something really creative.

Great book! Lots of fun!

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.

Fantastic book

I am a novice filmmaker doing training and educational videos and have been reading several magazines for about a year or so, slowly expanding my skills and knowledge base. Ian Aronson's book DV Filmmaking was perfect for presenting the wide range of essential topics in an easy to read and understandable whole. The book really is start to finish. I particularely liked Ian's inclusion of source materials to experiment on with the techniques being taught. I have read several video books and this is by far the best I have had the pleasure to read.

Good general digital video resource

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.

Comprehensive introduction to DV filmmaking

This is a comprehensive and very well written introduction to DV filmmaking. The author covers a vast array of topics (as the subtitle says, "from start to finish"). Most of the technical pitfalls waiting to trip filmmakers are discussed, at least to the level of making one aware of the problems and the direction to head for a solution. Numerous sidebars offer references to outside sources (web, magazine, etc.) for more information. The DVD included with the book worked well on my Mac and had all the digital resources necessary to complete the exercises. The extensive discussion of film versus video is interesting, though I suspect, not terribly important to the target audience, who probably won't even consider shooting on film due to cost. Zed Safeed writes an excellent forward, comparing word processors and writing to camcorders and filmmaking. He does, perhaps, overstate the book's focus on aesthetics; the author's examples and discussions are great, as far as they go, however, readers will want to complement the text with additional resources that focus more on the grammar of filmmaking. It is an optimistic book, promoting self-funded independent filmmaking without advance distribution, by relating successful strategies used by no-budget filmmakers to shoot, finish, and distribute their work. I am more cautious, having assisted a half dozen friends bankrupt themselves with independent features that failed to find distribution. Other texts offer more information about financing independent film production and seeking funding outside of the film festival "lottery." Although the book was published just in advance of the new camcorders from JVC and Canon (HDV) and Panasonic (HD), the author frequently discusses HD issues that will become ever more relevant. Overall, a superb introductory text.