Film Directing: Cinematic Motion

Shot by Shot #2

by Steven D. Katz

The book uses extensive illustrations to explain how to create extended sequence shots, elaborate moving camera choreography, and tracking shots with multiple story points.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Textbooks

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 1992

Reviews

[Feliks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent follow-up to complement the earlier (and much more well-known) 'Shot by Shot' which Katz also authored. Here, Katz takes the reader further into more advanced topics than in the prior 'basic' volume.

And it's very well-done. See, far too many of these types of manuals are--in spite of themselves--'text-rich'. Talky. As if expounded from a lecturn or a podium.

What they ought to be is more diagrammatic, and visual--as is the style of Steven Katz in his books. 'Shot by Shot' was equal measures of text and graphics--and very effective. But 'Cinematic Motion' is 90% graphic explanation! Ore-ida. That's the way!

So its a real treat to read, own, and have out-on-the-table. It truly shows what's going on behind-the-scenes of a shoot, and *why*. Superb as a quick reference. A great way to sharpen one's overall thinking about movie-making.

Frankly, I read a lot of these kinds of books and am so often disappointed. Most of them go right back out to a thrift-store almost as soon as they arrive. But this book is so competent and handy, it is one I will keep on my 'film books' shelf.

Now, of course, its not the secret diary of Sergei Eisenstein or the private notebooks of Alfred Hitchcock but what it is, is just what it says. How do you move your cameras around? How are cameras usually moved around? Where should you place your characters and actors? How to shoot for the best economy?

Strong recommendation for this title.

[Michael Winget · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty essential to anyone who is looking to delve into the world of cinematography or film directing. Great info about shot composition, camera moves, blocking and staging scenes, and making your film look a lot better than the standard youtube fare we all watch. Great read, good resource to keep around.

[Josh Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should be retitled as, "Advanced Film Directing Shot by Shot". It seemed like the left out chapters from his first book. Don't get me wrong it's very helpful and worth picking up but, not until you've read his first book.

The in-depth look at staging complicated scenes is very insightful. Each 'phase' is broken down for you: script to-storyboard -to- filming -to- editing, an entire scene.

[Shervin · Rating 3 out of 5]

For many reasons, not as good as "Shot by Shot." I think chief among them is that it's harder to convey character and camera movement via still images than it is to convey static compositions (as he did in "Shot by Shot"). I finished the book not really feeling more equipped with tools to stage scenes.

Another reason I think is that the examples are for very specific circumstances. For instance, scenes in vehicles and buses are not so incredibly common that they should take up a sizeable portion of a book like this. And for the average filmmaker, I think the most valuable staging would be 2-4 people in various forms of verbal and visual conflict. How do you convey confrontation visually when there's 4 people in frame? What are some fundamental ways of staging and blocking the most common types of scenes and what are some variations that can be done on these principles to breathe life into them?

The first book offered more of this, but this one, by virtue of its examples feeling irrelevant to the most common problems faced by directors, fell flat.

[coolwind · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good as the author’s first book. These two should be read before master shot so easier to understand master shot settings.

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"No director is tied to any one approach and can all upon either style [realist or expressionistic] to achieve his interpretation of a scene. In fact, all the factors discussed in this chapter are highly flexible. When a director beings to visualize a script, the imagination takes over, and a serious of shots being to emerge. It is not until a production begins that a direct is required to consider the practicality of any give staging approach. This is when a director learns to be flexible, to call upon his craft and resourcefulness. At this time, the production manager and line produce become the director's most important support team. Because all stagging styles require different amounts of time to shoot, a well-prepared director should have more than a passing familiar with the process of scheduling a movie.

[M B · Rating 4 out of 5]

The chapter on digital story boarding software wasn't really necessary and felt a bit tacked-on. Reading the description before buying, I was also skeptical about film industry interviews rather than having those pages dedicated to more hypothetical stagings. But I actually found them interesting to read and wished he had included more discussions and less information about how many great applications I can design storyboards with.