Filmmaking with Intention: A Comprehensive Guide to Creating Engaging Motion Pictures

Filmmaking with Intention: A Comprehensive Guide to Creating Engaging Motion Pictures helps readers better understand and further their passion for cinematic storytelling while discovering tried and true techniques for creating movies that intentionally impact an audience.

Opening chapters discuss where cinematic stories come from, how filmmakers enhance their personal connection to the films they wish to make, how filmmakers use metaphor and symbolism as external expressions of a character, how to write great dialogue rooted in character motivations, and how to best use conventions, clichés, and tropes. This book overviews the history of cinema and editing, different methods of cutting footage together, basic composition rules and camera techniques, creating a meaningful sequence of shots, and how color can affect an audience. Closing chapters underscore the importance of selecting the right camera, identify ways to mitigate issues on a production, showcase how filmmakers can create impactful cinematic moments through the edit, and how authentic sound and score can take a project to new heights.

Enlightening and essential, Filmmaking with Intention is an exemplary resource for filmmakers and a great foundation for courses and programs in cinema and film.

Craig Erpelding, M.F.A. is an award-winning independent filmmaker screening projects at venues and festivals across four continents. Additionally, he's managed production-to-post workflows for major television series, including Empire, that broadcast on FOX, ABC, and NBC. He holds an M.F.A. in directing from DePaul University's School of Cinematic Arts and attended UCLA for screenwriting. His academic and creative work focuses on developing, producing, and directing motion pictures that create an impact with audiences with a focus on visual language, camera work, and postproduction techniques. Erpelding is the director of the B.F.A. in cinematic arts at Indiana University.