The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap
by Stu Maschwitz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stu MaschwitzEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-01
ISBN: 0321413644
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Peachpit Press
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Book Reviews of The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap
Book Review: THE Book to have if you are trying to make a REAL movie with DV on a budget
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are a beginner trying to make a movie (a REAL movie) with a DV camcorder shooting in 24p (for the most part), and a PC computer of some sort, this book is damn near perfect to get you going, and keep you going. The author obviously knows what he's talking about, and anyone who has actually worked at Industrial Light and Magic immediately has my attention! You don't get hired by ILM if you aren't a pro.
This book delivers exactly what it says it will: How to make Killer action movies on the cheap using DV.
This isn't some book on "movie theory". This is a well written, often funny, practical reference manual. STU demonstrates time and time again that he knows EXACTLY what he is talking about, then he shows you how to do it. (Cheap!)
I learned so much reading this book that I didn't realize how much I didn't know before I read it, and now that I have read it, I know exactly what books to buy to nail all of the topics covered in this book. I now know what I should be studying and WHY. There are sections in this book that can only come from in depth knowledge and I am pretty sure there are things in this book that you will NOT find elsewhere. This isn't the book that will teach you everything, but it will teach you everything you NEED to know about DV film making. Period.
As a starting point this book will blow past what you thought was possible with DV into real "movie studio" territory, but Stu shows you how to do it on a meager budget - for example there is a design for a $14 "GhettoCam" made of a 2x4 piece of wood and two wooden dowels that mimics the effect of a SteadyCam that would cost you thousands of dollars. Strangely enough, bean bags and bags of sand are a great way to mount your camera at an angle and preserve the shot, and I had no idea that you could use a skateboard for a "slider shot". To be honest, I didn't know what a "slider shot" was, but I do now! (And I know when to and how to shoot one.)
For a beginner in DV film making (like me) this book is worth its weight in platinum, and now that I have finished my first read, I know that I will be coming back to this book over and over again until I know every part of it by heart. Yes, this book does focus on Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects, but honestly after reading this book, and after buying Final Cut Studio 3.0, I am actually making the switch to Adobe just based on my reading of this book. But that's not what's important. Even if you don't have After Effects, the concepts and practical solutions in the book are the most important part. What is important is that this book gives literally hundreds of tips, tricks, real life examples with lots of nice color pictures to see exactly what the author is talking about, and then he backs all this up with a slew of DVD content, including some much needed Excel files that you can really use to do what this author is talking about. Stu covers everything from the pre-production, to the actual shoot, to post production (including essentials such as color correction, scene matching, work flow, and how to maximize DV resolution and reduce quality loss in the production pipeline as well as an exact list of what to do in order to "master" your movie). Stu also solidly covers visual effects and stunts, how to create them, (and do that cheaply!) etc. Oh, did I forget the whole chapter on guns and how to make realistic gun fights using airsoft gun replicas, sound libraries and After Effects?
OK, so what's the downside? The ONLY downside in this book has to do with audio. If you are looking for a book about recording and producing audio for film, this book is NOT the one you want. However, for everything else (and that is a LOT of "else"), just buy this book.
This book rocks!
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Summary of The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap
Written by Stu Maschwitz, co-founder of the Orphanage (the legendary guerrilla visual effects studio responsible for amazing and award-winning effects in such movies as Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), this book is a must-have for all those budding filmmakers and students who want to produce action movies with visual effects but don't have Hollywood budgets. The Orphanage was created by three twenty-something visual effects veterans who wanted to make their own feature films and discovered they could do this by utilizing home computers, off the shelf software, and approaching things artistically. This guide details exactly how to do this: from planning and selecting the necessary cameras, software, and equipment, to creating specific special effects (including gunfire, Kung Fu fighting, car chases, dismemberment, and more) to editing and mixing sound and music. Its mantra is that the best, low-budget action moviemakers must visualize the end product first in order to reverse-engineer the least expensive way to get there. Readers will learn how to integrate visual effects into every aspect of filmmaking--before filming, during filming and with "in camera" shots, and with computers in postproduction. Throughout the book, the author makes specific references to and uses popular action movies (both low and big-budget) as detailed examples--including El Mariachi, La Femme Nikita, Die Hard, and Terminator 2. Note from the Publisher: If you have the 3rd printing of The DV Rebel?s Guide, your disc may be missing the data files that accompany the book. If this is the case, please send an email to Peachpit in order to obtain the files at ask@peachpit.comSoftware Books
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