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Contents Illustration Credits xxi Preface xxiii Chapter 1 Getting Started 1 Overview and Learning Objectives 1 What is Filmmaking? 2 Telling stories 2 It Takes a Village 3 But you don’t have a village of artists (or a movie studio) 4 What’s Ahead 4 Choosing a Camera 6 Format 7 Recording media 8 Tape Cameras 9 DVD Cameras 10 Hard-Drive Cameras 11 Memory-Card Cameras 11 Manual controls you must have 13 Manual focus 14 Control of Automatic Exposure 14 White-Balance Control 17 External Microphone Jack 17 Headphone Jack 18 Other bells and whistles 19 Zoom Lenses 20 Image Stabilization 20 Digital Effects 20 24P 21 So which camera do I choose? 22 Choosing a Computer 23 Firewire and USB ports 23 A large hard drive 24 Basic editing software 25 Final Thoughts About Equipment 25 Summary 27 Review Questions: Chapter 1 28 Discussion / Essay Questions 28 Research/Lab/Fieldwork Projects 29 Talking-Head Exercise 29 Applying What Yo u Hav e Learned 29 Chapter 2 What’s Your Story? 31 Overview and Learning Objectives 31 Story is Everything! 32 What makes a story good? 32 What’s Your Point? 32 It’s harder than it looks 33 What Makes a Story? 33 Parts of the whole 34 Act I – The Beginning 35 Act II – The Middle 37 Act III – The End 38 Not All Stories Should be Movies 41 Choosing the right format 41 The Novel Approach 41 The Play’s the Thing 42 The Motion Picture Show 43 How Can I Make My Story Visual? 45 Show me, don’t tell me 45 Find a physical action to represent a thought 46 Keep dialogue to a minimum 46 viii n n n CONTENTS n What Should My Script Look Like? 48 How Do I Know If It’s Any Good? 50 Get a second opinion 50 Summary 51 Review Questions: Chapter 2 52 Discussion / Essay Questions 52 Applying What Yo u Hav e Learned 53 Research/Lab/Fieldwork Projects 53 Chapter 3 Stop or I’ll Shoot 57 Overview and Learning Objectives 57 I Want More Control 58 I Can See Clearly Now 59 Let’s stay focused 60 How to focus manually 62 Using the Focus Ring 66 Feeling Exposed 70 The many, many types of exposure control 73 Using shutter control 76 Working with gain control 77 Staying Balanced 78 Light sources and their colors 78 Setting your white balance 79 Standard Presets 80 Custom Settings 81 Operating Like a Professional 82 First things first: Put that camera on a tripod! 83 Choosing the Right Tripod 84 Going handheld 87 How to shoot handheld like a pro 88 Grips and Body Positions 88 Hello dolly 92 Other Operator Options 95 Summary 98 Review Questions: Chapter 3 98 Discussion / Essay Questions 99 Applying What Yo u Hav e Learned 99 Research/Lab/Fieldwork Projects 99 n CONTENTS n n n ix Chapter 4 The Language of the Shot 103 Overview and Learning Objectives 103 What’d He Just Say? 104 Lenses: The Director’s Quill 104 Characteristics of wide-angle lenses 105 Characteristics of telephoto lenses 110 Characteristics of normal lenses 113 Your Visual Vocabulary 115 What the heck is coverage? 115 The establishing shot 117 The master shot 118 The long shot 119 The medium shot 119 The closeup 120 The extreme closeup 122 Expanding Your Vocabulary 123 The two-shot 123 The single 124 The Dirty Single 124 The Clean Single 125 The insert 126 Variations on Theme 127 What’s your angle? 127 High Angle 128 Low Angle 128 Size matters 128 Let’s Get Graphic 129 The rule of thirds 131 Put a frame on it 133 It’s all in the lines 137 Verticals 137 Horizontals 137 Diagonals 139 Curves 139 It’s good to be different 139 Don’t Cross the Line 140 Preserving Screen Direction 145 Summary 147 x n n n CONTENTS n Review Questions: Chapter 4 148 Discussion / Essay Questions 148 Applying What Yo u Hav e Learned 149 Research/Lab/Fieldwork Projects 149 Chapter 5 Lighting Made Easy 151 Overview and Learning Objectives 151 Why Do I Have to Light My Scene? 152 But I’m not a cinematographer 152 Basic Lighting Concepts 154 Light and shadows define form 154 What’s brightest object? 156 Look over there! 157 Hard or Soft: Two Types of Light 157 It All Starts With Three-Point Lighting 160 Key light 161 Fill light 163 Back light 165 Practical Lighting Considerations 166 Hard or soft? 168 What about the set? 169 Do I really need three lights? 170 Help! I’ve only got one light! 171 No, really, I only have one light! 172 Lights, the Cinematographer’s Paintbrush 174 The basics 174 Grip equipment 177 So where do I get lighting and grip equipment? 178 Making your own equipment 180 Shooting Outdoors 181 It’s a bright, bright, sunshiny day 181 Diffuse the Sun 183 Add Light to the Scene 183 Subtract Light from the Scene 185 Cloudy days 188 Nighttime 189 Day for night 190 Magic hour 191 n CONTENTS n n n xi Summary 192 Review Questions: Chapter 5 193 Discussion / Essay Questions 193 Applying What Yo u Hav e Learned 193 Research/Lab/Fieldwork Projects 193 Chapter 6 Now Hear This 195 Overview and Learning Objectives 195 Telling Stories with Pictures AND Sound 196 When Dialogue is King 197 Microphone Placement 198 The Different Types of Microphones 199 A quick microphone primer 199 Microphone pick-up patterns 200 Wired lavaliere microphones 201 Wireless lavaliere microphones