Found a cool book in my garage...

[Mike Buckles]

I was going thru my books, and found a cool book about movie making, "The book of movie photography" by David Cheshire. The book is cool because it explains everything in great detail, including cutaway diagrams of how a super 8 camera and projector work, how super 8 film cartridges look, how color movie film works, depth of field examples, how shutters work, what different aperatures and depth of fields do to the same scene (with example photos)... how to compose shots and scenes, how to light for different scenes and effects...examples of neutral density filters with and without...working with striped and double system sound...even shows a striping machine and how you can stripe your own film! (don't know if the machine still exists!) The book is a bit dated....1979....it briefly covers video, but no camcorders..they didn't exist then! The book is cool though, because most of what it talks about is geared/aimed at the super 8 format...it also talks about 16 and 35 mm, shows the different film gauges, etc, but aims more at super 8....book is perfect for the beginner...I did see that Amazon.com has a copy in their Z shops for about 17.95....someone that has film experience probably wouldn't need it, but a newbie would find it really indispensible...even covers different kinds of lighting....but not softbox! Just thought I'd share, Mike

[Alex]

What a great topic post. I had not heard of the book, but apparently Amazon sells it used...!!!

That's really cool.

Thanks for the review. This book sounds like one of the best books made about the Super-8 format, and 1979-1980 was the absolute crest of Super-8 in this country, so that book was written at the time when Super-8 was in it's heyday and there was a lot to write about.

So, what's in your garage...!!! [img]graemlins/film.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/bat.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/camera.gif[/img]

[wahiba]

some diagrams from the book can be seen on my web site. It was the last big book on 8mm produced, so has a bit on everything, including the Instant Polaroid system.

[GREATwarEAGLE]

One of the best books on technical aspects of Super 8 filmmaking I've ever read is called:

SHOT BY SHOT: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO FILMMAKING
john cantine
susan howard
brady lewis

copyright 1992, 1993, 1995

It's simple, to the point and even has Super 8 Depth of Field Tables.
The 3 authors are faculty members at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, one of the oldest and largest media arts centers in America.

This is a different book than
FILM DIRECTING: SHOT BY SHOT
by steven d. katz

which is all about basic film directing for any format.

[Mike Buckles]

The cool book was what was in my garage! Actually, alot of stuff is in my garage...until I discovered some items were mildewing...I got my super 8 equipment out of there fast! The Technicolor movie camera case smelled like mildew, so I doused it with Fabreeze..it's ok now...my books and my really good super 8 camera were fine...thankfully I'm waiting for my current super 8 roll to come back to Walmart, then I'm going to set up some scenes using the lighting techniques in the book, and shoot another roll..should be lots of fun! Mike

[HenrySuper8]

I have borrowed that book by David Chashire from the library in town (called Forums stora bok om smalfilmning in swedish).

It covers direction, photography, editing, sound editing, special effects, filters and more!

Really big one, and really good, i read the whole book in one evening [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Mike Buckles]

That's great Henry! I was hoping someone who was new to film would be able to read the book, and get something out of it...it really answers a lot of questions I've seen posted here! Great! Mike

[JIM DUNN]

While there may be more up-to-date books on the subject now, I can't let this thread go by without mentioning "The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques Simplified" by Joseph V. Mascelli. Publushed in 1965, it deals with camera angles, continuity, close-ups, composition, and cutting. It's 251 pages, with many black and white pics. It used to be my film bible til I lost it in a Texas tornado in 1979. Recently a copy sold on Ebay for $20 with 15 bidders.

[Alex]

This bump is for Kev.