$72.49
Author: Mercado Gustavo
Brand: Routledge
Edition: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Details: Product Description
This is the only book that combines conceptual and practical instruction on creating polished and eloquent images for film and video with the technical know-how to achieve them.
Loaded with hundreds of full-color examples, The Filmmaker’s Eye is a focused, easy-to-reference guide that shows you how to become a strong visual storyteller through smart, effective choices for your shots. After a short introduction to basic principles, a variety of shots are deconstructed in the following format: Why It Works: an introduction to a particular type of shot How It Works: callouts point out exactly how the shot works the way it does–the visual rules and technical aspects in action Technical Considerations: the equipment and techniques needed to get the shot. Breaking the Rules: examples where the “rules” are brilliant subverted This book: Helps you make smart visual choices with this quick, focused, and visual guide to cinematic composition. Shows you how to master the rules, then break them. Includes examples and discussions from a range of international films.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Gustavo Mercado on The Filmmaker’s Eye: Learning (and Breaking) the Rules of Cinematic Composition
Dear Amazon Readers,
Although there are other books out there that deal with the principles of visual composition, I always wanted to have a guide that specialized in the specific requirements that are inherent to the composition of shots intended for telling stories with moving images, also known as cinematic composition. The reason for the differentiation is simple: the composition of shots for movies has developed its own set of conventions, sometimes appropriating concepts from other art forms (like painting or still photography), but also creating its own aesthetic principles and visual language because of its unique characteristics (the fixed size of the frame, the movement of the subject and/or camera, the technology used to capture images, the way images are shown in conjunction with other images, etc.).
As you can probably guess, I never found such a guide, so I decided to write The Filmmaker’s Eye: Learning (and Breaking) the Rules of Cinematic Composition to fill the gap in this critical area of filmmaking. This book combines, for the first time, a specialized, focused guide to the most common and basic shots of the film vocabulary, from the extreme close up to the extreme long shot (also including chapters on the over the shoulder, macro, establishing, and moving camera shots). The Filmmaker’s Eye examines the main aspects that make these shots work: the rules of cinematic composition used in their creation, the techniques and equipment necessary to implement them, and their most common narrative function as shown in examples from mainstream, independent, and world cinema. This approach allows you to understand not only why a particular shot type is usually composed in a certain way, but also how it is used to convey meaning and how to shoot it whether you are working on film or HD video.
It is my sincerest wish that this book will help deepen your understanding of cinematic composition, whether you are on a film shoot setting up your next shot, or just enjoying one of your favorite movies. Have fun!
–Gustavo Mercado
Amazon Exclusive: Top Ten Tips from Gustavo Mercado to Improve Your Cinematic Compositions
Use a director’s viewfinder, a still camera, or any other instrument that allows you to create a frame to see the world around you. Good compositions work not only because of what is included in the frame, but also because of what is left out of it. Using any device (even your hands) to create a frame will allow you to train your eye and better understand the visual relationships of the elements contained within it. Know what your lenses can and cannot do. The lens you choose can radically alter the visual relationships between elements in your frame; understanding how different lenses aff
Release Date: 15-09-2010
Package Dimensions: 15x229x567
