Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmaker Must Know

Not at all what I expected. I was looking for a book on how to translate ideas into visual scenes, and this book isn't that. However, it covers lots of things I never would have thought about if I hadn't read it. Just one example that sticks out is the series Helix. I watched many episodes of it without noticing anything different about it until I read this book. Now I know it was mainly shot in shades of green, and the love interest of the main character, and there are two, would always wear red, so you instantly knew which one he was closest to at the moment. Without this book I would have never noticed that.I had no idea that directors and editors looked at the sort of stuff this book talks about. Fascinating. It's like it opened up a whole new world to me.

In general, most of these 'cinematic techniques' are discussed in a very basic fashion. The coverage is cursory at best. What would help it a lot is more 'best practices' kind of discussion, and showing more how to get good results with specific applications of the techniques. This is done to a small extent, but it is way too limited to be very helpful. Many of the 'techniques' are so simplistic, it is like saying 'Well, if the scene is too dark, you can shine a light in there.' If you compare this book to 'Master Shots', you can see my point.

I am not all the way through my first reading of this book, but so far I am taking a lot from it! I have just recently taken into creating films and I wanted to learn as much as possible, but starting as a beginner through and through I didn't where to start, I have been reading this book and it sort of reads like a classroom text book (which is good, there's a lot of information packed in, not just pretty pictures) It has tons of real examples to follow along with it so you can really understand what ideas are being presented. I got the E-book (Kindle) version, and it reads/is translated really well into this format, the information is not missed the black and white pictures suffice on my Kindle-Touch, it's a great read, and a lot can be taken from it. If you're trying to learn more about the visual art of storytelling and screenwriting this is a good place to start.

I can't say I completely recommend it, at least not until after reading more informative books about directing and cinematic composition such as  Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen (Michael Wiese Productions)  and  Film Directing: Cinematic Motion, Second Edition , both by Steven D Katz and  The Filmmaker's Eye: Learning (and Breaking) the Rules of Cinematic Composition  by Gustavo Mercado. I'm actually a little surprised at all the overwhelmingly positive reviews of this book and thought it needed a bit of more critical appraisal.It seems to be part of a series of books all made in the "widescreen" format, I think trying to cash in on the HD craze. The layout of these books is similar to the 16:9 HD aspect ratio, and the books are designed to be visually appealing, but seem to be very sparse on information. There's a lot of blank white space, and what few words there are suffer from a stiffly formulaic presentation loaded with pointless repetition. Each page only features a few brief paragraphs and feels like it could have been developed a lot more. And then to waste more space, each chapter pointlessly lists the credits for each movie mentioned in that chapter - what's the point of that? I wouldn't mind it if it seemed the actual descriptions of the cinematic conventions themselves -- the meat and potatoes of the book - were more fully presented first, but it seems the credits listing eats up valuable space that should have been devoted to more fully developed discussion of those conventions.I'm not completely panning the book... it IS a good brief introduction to "100 cinematic conventions every filmmaker should know". But that's all it is. To make an analogy, it's like a book that lists 100 great ingredients with very brief notes as to how each tastes and what kind of dish it can be used in, but has no recipes in it. The books mentioned above have those recipes... they go into great detail about staging and blocking and how to arrange actors and scene elements for various effects. The information in those books is presented in such a way that you come out with coherent understanding of how to set up certain types of scenes.Once you have a grounding in that kind of detailed info, then a book like Cinematic Storytelling is a good addition... some additional ingredients to add to your dishes once you know how to cook them. But that listing of ingredients does no good until you know some recipes.

blown away by the comprehensive guide to using cinematography to make your audience feel a certain way, or achieve some subliminal subtext to your video project. wether it be film, commercials, events, etc. DEFINITELY worth the purchase. This book should be in every videographer or cinematographers library

Very good book. It illustrates really well the contents, the scripts and images help a lot to understand the ideas. Still, I'd like the references to be a little less...old... To illustrate how the principles are applied nowadays. Still, great read and great book.

Bought this for my brother-in-law who just graduated film school. He really enjoyed the perspective this book takes and it brought back to the front of his mind some of the more obscure things about framing and shot setup that he had overlooked on a few of his last production jobs. It's a good read, nice illustrations, and a memory jog for anyone interested or working professionally in film.

This book is an essential learning tool for understanding the diverse elements of storytelling and their creative applications.The author introduces all of the fundamentals and reinforces their importance with examples from film and text from the script. If you love examples with your definitions, this is your book. I only give it a 4 of 5 because I feel the examples become fluff at a certain point when little more is necessary for explaining some of the techniques than their definition.

This book is really good at showing you the different devices used in film - clear and precise with good examples. It explains the different conventions (POV, wide angle, music, etc) and how they can be used to convey dramatic effect. Along with small bw pictures you also get the corresponding section from the screenplay - quite interesting to see how the word became the image. Only gripe is that it's a floppy paperback book and difficult to read unless you rest it on something. I guess they were going for a format size that mimicked the film screen, however none of the images make use of this space so it's a pretty redundant idea. Apart from that I'd recommend it.

If you have a basic appreciation that directors create their shots to help 'tell the story' but aren't quite sure about how they actually do it, then this book should make lot of sense. It contains examples of how to use directing techniques with cameras, lenses, props, sound and even wardrobe and more to tell the story cinematically.Each technique includes real world examples and even screenplay extracts to help you understand the need for using the technique as well as how to apply it. But it doesn't waffle unnecessarily. Each example is concise and to the point.I have found this to be like a 'Directors toolbox' of ideas and techniques and after just 10 minutes of reading I am already thinking of my own shots in a very different way. The concepts are simple, but very effective and easy to understand.Some of the ideas are really quite interesting such as one example of an over dinner conversion between two parties who are about to start an affair. A tracking shot was used to shift from one side of the man's face to the other, essentially showing us his 'good side' then his 'bad side' as he shifts from happily married man to contemplating the affair. It's ideas like these that make this more than just a reference book - it's a fun, informative and inspiring read to anyone seeking to better understand the techniques used by professionals to tell stories cinematically.This book covers a lot of essential ground such as composition, editing, pacing, sound effects, transitions, wardrobe, camera motion, lighting, colour, lens choices and so on.Definitely recommended.

I'm a film maker so though I know a lot of the things mentioned in the book. I think this book is quite useful, its nice to have film terms and the reason and names for certain structures in films, laid out in an organised way. As others have said the photos are not very good but OK. I don't regret my purchase but wish the book had been designed better with with clearer photographs and a better shape. Its a bad shape for a paper back as its wide but floppy so looks awkward on my book shelf. I would say this book is good for budding film makers or anyone with an interest in how and why certain decisions are made when creating a story in film.

Great primer, good reminder of cinematic techniques . Makes for a wonderful little flip book at work or on a coffee table for clients. I keep a few books on my work desk. I like this one because it's partitioned in a way that you don't have to read it end to end. Just go to the parts that interest you. Refresh and come back to it later.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I study animation and hoped it would give me a clear idea of film conventions and how to adapt them for my use. However I found this book a little difficult to navigate and while the shots are all there, there isn't much of an explanation as to when you'd use them etc.It might help more if you're shooting live action, but for animation I'd recommend a good storyboarding book instead, you'll probably find that more helpful.