Moviemaking Course: Principles, Practice, and Techniques: The Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Filmmaker

This information-packed volume helps filmmaking students master a wide range of techniques, and then shows them how to put their skills into practice. Its main focus is on short movies, ranging in length from 15 seconds to 15 minutes, and intended for private screenings, festivals, competitions, or broadcasts on TV or the Web. All essential equipment and techniques are clearly explained with diagrams and step-by-step photos. Novice filmmakers learn to formulate story ideas, shoot footage, edit, lay down soundtracks, and add special effects. The book presents practical projects and exercises that give students the opportunity for hands-on experience. They also get advice on putting together a showreel and getting their finished film seen. Printed in full-color throughout, this instructive volume features more than 400 how-to photos and illustrations.

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This carefully structured book teaches a full range of filmmaking skills to anyone interested in creating short movies for private screenings, festivals, competitions, and broadcast on television or the web. From initial planning to assembling a cast and crew, you will discover how to get your movie up and running.

Find out where to look for inspiration, and how to develop the narrative and storyboard your movie. Put together a basic kit for shooting digitally or on film, and discover how to translate your vision by manipulating sound, images, movement, and lighting.

All essential equipment and techniques are clearly explained with diagrams and step-by-step photographs. From shooting footage to editing, laying down soundtracks, and adding special effects, this book teaches a wide range of pre- and post-production skills.

Practical projects and exercises give students hands-on experience for working in different genres, from ten-minute documentaries to pop videos, short dramas, and action sequences. There’s also advice on putting together a showreel and getting a finished film seen.

CHRIS PATMORE is a London-based writer specializing in creative technology. He is the author of The Complete Animation Course and Character Design Studio, and runs a Web site for animators and comic book artists. His current book project describes the development and creation of female characters for comics and animation. Chris, who has worked internationally as a graphic designer and photographer, began filmmaking in the late ’70s, shooting Super-8 surfing films in Australia. As a self-confessed technophile, he has embraced the latest digital technology as the ideal way to tell stories with moving images, and currently has several projects in various stages of production.