Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques

by Joseph V. Mascelli

With the aid of photographs and diagrams, this text concisely presents concepts and techniques of motion picture camerawork and the allied areas of film-making with which they interact with and impact. Included are discussions on: cinematic time and space; compositional rules; and types of editing.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art, Photography, Writing, Media Tie In, Animation

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Scott Rosenkrantz]

It's rather dense (~244 pages), but it's still one of the best books on cinematography I've read so far. It equips the cinematographer with a better understanding of why certain visual/technical choices work over others. The final chapter on Composition is simply amazing, and the conclusion feels like Mascelli's attempt to impart every single piece of wisdom to his students before we're released into the unexplored yonder.

I tried reading this book before I entered film school, and for whatever reason it seemed difficult to understand some of the language that Mascelli employs. Even after graduating, I had to re-read certain passages a couple of times (for ex. distinguishing between objective, subjective and point of view shots under "Camera Angles"; dynamic screen direction examples under "Continuity") in order to really understand the author's intention.

I'd recommend this book to the advanced student (maybe not the beginner) with a solid background of terminology and experience making his/her own student films.

I know this book can't substitute practical experience from learning on set, but finishing this one certainly feels like I just got trained by a visual storytelling master.

[Bakunin]

For filmmakers starting out and learning all the tricks of the trade this book is a good place to start. Its a bit dated but still makes one aware of the necessary basics of filmmaking: continuity, composition, close ups, cutting and camera angles. I would not recommend reading it cover to cover but its great to have as a point of reference in case you get stuck.

[Nathan Pilgrim]

I came to this book as a recommendation of Scott McDaniel as a MUST READ for drawing comicbooks or any other kind of visual storytelling, and hell, he was right.

It is dense, it took me several attempts to end it, but FINALLY did, and I'm really happy for it. Everything the guy says is on point, and even when sometimes gets really complicated, he puts great written and visual effects to make you get the point. 10/10 would read again.

[Jason]

There is not a single wasted word, example or illustration in this book. It is jam-packed with practical insight, technique, and tastefulness. Even if you don't intend to work in this medium, this book will enrich the way you watch film, etc.

[Andrey]

Should've had a dedicated chapter on lightening.

[Raúl]

Fue uno de los primeros libros en establecer los principios básicos de lo que uno tiene que saber para rodar y montar, y de él dimanan el estupendo Sánchez, el prolífico Arijon, el definitivo Katz. Aún sigue conservando su fuerza e interés didáctico.

[Jessica]

Surprisingly useful from a painter's point of view. I've never seen such a good description of which factors affect balance in composition. I'm also a fan of how the author classified images by angle (high, low, eye-level) and by zoom (long shots, medium shots, close-ups). It's very useful when I catch myself drawing the same angle at the same distance over and over again.

Four stars as a painter. Possibly worth five to a filmmaker, but I wouldn't know.

[John Pozer]

A seminal text and required reading for film students. In my many years of teaching, I've asked hundreds of learning filmmakers if they can tell me what the 5 C's stand for (without looking at their phones) - and I can count on one hand the number of students who were able to remember. The funny thing is that when I point out the 6th 'C' (mentioned in the Introduction) - they never forget it!

[Michael]

At first I was thrown off by the overlapping ideas of the 5 c's (it should be 4 c's, I think at this point) but its turning out to be very informative.

[Sharad Kaplingad]

Everything you need to know of cinematography is there in this book. A Bible for cinematographers.

[Gaurav Prabhu]

Terrific,in a word. Simple & exhaustive.
Must read for photographers & cinematographers.

[Yasser Mohammed]

A good starting book for Cinematography

[S]

It's a basic textbook, and covers things you likely already know. Someone needed to write it down somewhere for the odd person who has no resources to learn the basics of cinematography.

I think what I was hoping for from this book (and there's maybe one paragraph about suspense on page 238 that hints at this with its discussion of "absent" characters or elements from the screen) is how to use cinematography to actually help tell the story.

It spends a lot of time talking about composition, framing, editing, but only rarely mentions how composition and framing can help the audience understand a story visually. Saying "Palm Trees in the foreground suggest a warm climate" is barely scratching the surface of this art.

In a way, the blindspot of this textbook is the blindspot of the whole profession: a million cameramen know how to compose a pretty shot, but few of them stop to ask "how does this actually help me understand the story we're telling?"

[Carlos]

This is a classic book (1965) about camera rules in cinematography. You can learn in this book all about axis and 180-degree rule. A lot of photos makes easy to understand all. But this is not a book about direction techniques. If you are interested in camera techniques, you must read this book, but also you must read other books about direction, montage, script etc. This is indispensable but not enough.

These books are very interesting about direction: "Film Directing Fundamentals" by Nicholas Proferes, "Cinematic Storytelling" by Jennifer Van Sijll and "Hichcock" by Francois Truffaut (an absolute classic). About Script I recommend: "The Writer's Journey" by Christopher Vogler, "The Art Of Dramatic Writing" by Lajos Egri, "The Anatomy Of Story" by John Truby and "Writing your screenplay" by Cynthia Whitcomb.

[Rubinny]

Creo que es el libro de cosas relacionadas con el cine que he leído que más contenido útil tiene. Es como una biblia de la cinematografía (o dirección de fotografía para los Spanish speakers de El Alamín). Me gusta que no haga referencia a películas antiguas y que todo aquello a lo que hace referencia es autocontenido. Genial la verdad. Sí que a veces se repite mucho y da vueltas en torno a las mismas cosas. Creo además que un formato más trabajado podría ayudar al libro, en lugar de columnas de texto una detrás de otra. Pero muy satisfecho.

Nota: el libro es de 1965 y casi todas, por no decir todas directamente, las cosas de las que habla son idénticas a la actualidad. Yo creo que sería posible leerse el libro sin mirar de cuando es y pensar que es bastante más actual. Al final cómo interactuamos con las imágenes es invariable, pasen los años que pasen.

Buenas noches ciao.

[Pranay Kumar]

On the pretext this book might seem like an over-indulgent piece on just cinematography. But once you start running along the pages, you will come across a lot of great detail in the art of filmmaking. Great book! My only complaint is that it is highly repetitive and the photos though add to the written material has the same added description as the preceding text which then becomes a pointless thing to do (not unless you are revising the book, then it becomes a great asset!)

[Jordan Harland]

Read in film school many years ago. Still a book that informs my career and decision making in my industry 15 years later. With every minute I spent diving into its pages, despite being a dense read whilst I was still new to the topic. Now it's just a reference book to go back to, to freshen myself up. The fact it still has a lot of value so far down the line speaks volumes.

[Mostafa Ihab]

Comprehensive and extensive. I like how it really covered everything, it makes you feel that you can easily master this.
But what I really enjoyed is that Mascelli constantly reminds you that those are the rules, and this is how you break them, and of course you can do whatever you want if the narrative allows it. But in order to do so, he explains why the rules are rules.

[Natty]

‘There’s no confidence to equal ignorance. It’s only when you know something about a profession that you’re timid or careful. I thought you could do anything with a camera that the eye could do, or the imagination could do.’ - Orson Welles

that said, I did learn something

though I hopefully won't think too much on it

[George]

Terribly hard to read. It's quite a stale and stark book with many repetitions, mistakes and unnecessary blabber.

Many of the book's contents are, unfortunately, very outdated by now. Many aspects still remain. The 'Continuity' and 'Composition', if we exclude the author's absolute stance, are very insightful.

Would recommend to young cinematographers as a first book.

[Alper Kaya]

Sinemanın temel unsurlarına dair hayli açıklayıcı ve örneklemelerle doyurucu bir özellik taşıyan Mascelli yapıtı. Kurguculuk, kamera arkası vesaire unsurlarla ilgili bilgi sahibi olmak isteyenler kaçırmamalı.

[Lisbeth Campbell]

This is really good if you are interested in making either film or still images. Detailed but clear. It's somewhat dated (the sample photos all seem to be from 50s films or earlier) but very solid in both theory and application.

[Karthik S V]

A great introductory book. Acquaints one with the basics.

[Joey Madia]

Helpful, with plenty of stills as examples but very dated.

[SluggishGoblinReads]

If your looking to learn and study film this is a must on your reading list.

[Vijaya Kant]

Well communicated ideas, diagrams helped a lot, clarity from basic concepts build up sequentially.

[Ünal İpekçioğlu]

This book is like Bible for who wanna be a Cinematographer.

[Adam Kopcinski]

I got this book as a sort of primer on cinematography to read before I jump into Blain Brown's book - *edit* after reading that joyless tome, I'm upgrading my rating for this book - on the subject . As far as an introduction goes it does a good job, but for me personally, it's a bit shallow. I've been storyboarding a lot lately, so I think I've already stumbled my way through a lot of what's covered in this book. I also have an art background, so visual storytelling and composition aren't really new things to me. However, this book is useful in that it does get you thinking about things like coverage and the different types of shots and camera angles you might want to use to tell your story, as well as how to shoot to make an editor's life easier (or your life easier, as, let's face us, most of us will be doing our own editing). For someone new to visual arts it might be quite useful. Still, I'm giving it three stars for the copious amount of editing mistakes and for the fact that Joseph repeats himself quite a bit throughout.

[Vivek Tyagi]

It's a bible for cinematographers and cinematography students. I can assure you that this is the best book available for cinematography students. It's comprehensive and extensive and basically covers most of the important things related to cinematography.

[tollywood]

One of the best book for aspiring filmmakers