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Cinematography: Theory and Practice
The world of cinematography has changed more in the last few years than it has since it has in 1929, when sound recording was introduced. New technology, new tools and new methods have revolutionized the art and craft of telling stories visually. While some aspects of visual language, lighting and color are eternal, shooting methods, workflow and cameras have changed radically. Even experienced film artists have a need to update and review new methods and equipment. These change affect not only the director of photography but also the director, the camera assistants, gaffers, and digital imaging technicians.
Cinematography: Theory and Practice covers both the artistry and craftsmanship of cinematography and visual storytelling. Few art forms are as tied to their tools and technology as is cinematography. Take your mastery of these new tools, techniques, and roles to the next level with this cutting-edge roadmap from author and filmmaker Blain Brown.
Whether you are a student of filmmaking, just breaking into the business, currently working in the industry and looking to move up to the next level, or an experienced professional who wants to update their knowledge of tools and techniques, this book provides both a basic introduction to these issues as well as more advanced and in-depth coverage of the subject.
The companion website features additional material, including lighting demonstrations, basic methods of lighting, using diffusion and other topics.
Topics Include:
Visual language Visual storytelling Continuity and coverage Cameras and digital sensors Exposure techniques for film and video Color in-depth Understanding digital images Waveform monitors, vectorscopes, and test charts Using linear, gamma, and log encoded video Image control and grading on the set The tools and basics of film lighting ASC-CDL, ACES and other new methods Optics and focus Camera movement Set operations Green screen, high speed and other topics
Cinematography: Theory and Practice covers both the artistry and craftsmanship of cinematography and visual storytelling. Few art forms are as tied to their tools and technology as is cinematography. Take your mastery of these new tools, techniques, and roles to the next level with this cutting-edge roadmap from author and filmmaker Blain Brown.
Whether you are a student of filmmaking, just breaking into the business, currently working in the industry and looking to move up to the next level, or an experienced professional who wants to update their knowledge of tools and techniques, this book provides both a basic introduction to these issues as well as more advanced and in-depth coverage of the subject.
The companion website features additional material, including lighting demonstrations, basic methods of lighting, using diffusion and other topics.
Topics Include:
Visual language Visual storytelling Continuity and coverage Cameras and digital sensors Exposure techniques for film and video Color in-depth Understanding digital images Waveform monitors, vectorscopes, and test charts Using linear, gamma, and log encoded video Image control and grading on the set The tools and basics of film lighting ASC-CDL, ACES and other new methods Optics and focus Camera movement Set operations Green screen, high speed and other topics
422 pages, Paperback
First published October 9, 2002
272 people are currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 18, 2012
Feew, that was one hell of a read. I started reading this before I started filmschool and that was maybe a mistake. Some chapters were easy, but others were harder to understand without a little background. So after a few months of studying film in all its glory, it was a little easier to get through it.
Definitely interesting when you're in the business or at least already know somethings about it.
Definitely interesting when you're in the business or at least already know somethings about it.
January 1, 2014
Brown has found a way to mix art and tech together in a way that allows the reader to easily absorb a very technical field. I have many of the cinematography books on the market and I've found this one to be the most interesting and easy to read. What I like is that Brown will give you a lot of heavy technical info if you desire, but also real life practical on set anecdotes and protocols as well as art history and theory. I really enjoyed the color theory chapter with examples from The Natural. It feels like a quality book as the pages are filled with glossy photos and charts. My one caveat is that some of the photos are really too small to properly absorb. You get almost thumbnail size photos for a lot of the pictures. It would be nice if they were bigger. There is a lot of information packed into this tome. There are also quotes and tidbits taken from various cinematographers and filmmakers. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in cinematography or film-making in general.
August 29, 2024
El libro no está mal si tienes cero o poco conocimiento del medio, pero con que conozcas cosas sirve para poco. Creo que igualmente es muy útil para conocer algunos aspectos mas teoricos y tecnicos de los aparatos luminicos o de las lentes. El capitulo de problemas tecnicos seguro que lo iré revisitando con el tiempo.
April 22, 2021
By far the best book on filmmaking I've read so far.
It gives a nice and easy introduction for people completely unfamiliar with the field but also isn't afraid to dive into some more complex technical aspects of cinematography.
The only critiques I have are:
1. spelling errors/missing words that I discovered a lot more frequently than I would hope in a third edition
2. there are frequent references to a website made for the book that I don't have access to because they only printed the access codes in the older editions
3. repetiton, I know this book isn't meant to be read back to back but still, if I have to read one more time that colors aren't printed on test cards at 100% saturation because it's technically impossible, I'll have a breakdown.
I can recommend this book to anyone interested in cinematography, even if you allready know some basics, you will probably still learn a few new things.
I'm definitely going to have look at the other books written by Blain Brown.
It gives a nice and easy introduction for people completely unfamiliar with the field but also isn't afraid to dive into some more complex technical aspects of cinematography.
The only critiques I have are:
1. spelling errors/missing words that I discovered a lot more frequently than I would hope in a third edition
2. there are frequent references to a website made for the book that I don't have access to because they only printed the access codes in the older editions
3. repetiton, I know this book isn't meant to be read back to back but still, if I have to read one more time that colors aren't printed on test cards at 100% saturation because it's technically impossible, I'll have a breakdown.
I can recommend this book to anyone interested in cinematography, even if you allready know some basics, you will probably still learn a few new things.
I'm definitely going to have look at the other books written by Blain Brown.
July 17, 2018
If you are very interested in the subject and this is the only book on Cinematography in your local library, by all means, read it!
Otherwise, look some place else. Shallow rehashing of old mindless stereotypes. Of course the light is important in cinematography, if there was only a dark screen it would have been a radio play. Of course X is relevant, but that important? No.
Otherwise, look some place else. Shallow rehashing of old mindless stereotypes. Of course the light is important in cinematography, if there was only a dark screen it would have been a radio play. Of course X is relevant, but that important? No.
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September 27, 2025this was a lot more technical than I thought, which is fine, I just wish I was more a camera nerd to insist on understanding every bit. even then, I fear thwory is not enough, and only by practicing with a camera (which I dint have) can one understand this book.
January 17, 2011
This book provides a broad overview of the technical aspects of cinematography, and it seems to be reliable, but it needs to be edited. Often the same information is repeated two or more times in one paragraph or series of pages, and sometimes it is phrased differently enough, or far enough after the initial statement, to make one wonder whether they are intended to describe the same thing or different cases entirely. In addition, references in the text to diagrams or pictures sometimes use the wrong identifying number. Lastly, while I wasn't looking for some stylistic masterpiece, the writing is pretty dull. On the whole, the book is much more tedious and confusing than it should be.
June 12, 2019
Fantastic cinematography ‘bible’ book. Not just did I read it in its entirety, it is also my Go To Book for whenever I need answers or find certain ways to light specific scenes. Sometimes I use it for inspirational purposes and sometimes to double check technical specifics or a combination of those two :)
January 30, 2015
Very informative, but feel free to jump around if you have a background in still photography. My only problem with this book were the numerous typos and grammatical errors in almost every chapter. Please hire a proofreader, Mr. Brown.
September 6, 2024
I enjoyed reading this book on cinematography, which was largely accessible to someone with no formal training in film/video production.
Chapters 1-5 in particular were a nice overview of the purpose and artistry of cinematography which talk at a theoretical level about what cinematographers do, with numerous still image examples from real world movies, covering: Storytelling, framing, the illusion of depth, and basic building blocks of filmmaking like continuity and shot types.
Chapters 6-11 provide, what it appears to me to be a survey level of a variety of technical topics: Cameras, the physics of digital recordings, digital encoding techniques, common tools for quantifying the elements of a frame (histograms, waveforms, vectorscope views), and a light introduction to color theory and how it interacts especially with digital camera sensors, file formats, and displays.
Chapters 12-14 are concerned with lighting
Chapters 15-21 cover a variety of topics such as: Grips and grip equipment, camera movement, optics and focus, set operations, digital imaging, power and distribution, and miscellaneous topics.
As a practical guide to cinematography, I suspect the content is too light - being more an overview of the topics and (largely) absent practical advice.
A lot of topics are covered with a mix of some high level theory, and then some expressions of the desired effect, but without sufficient detail to instruct someone how to bring about the effect. I think the Optics and Focus chapter is likely the worst example of this, which begins talking like a physics textbook speaking about refraction indices and describing how photon paths bend in different mediums, before switching altitude abruptly to a laundry list of optical and focus concerns, and largely devoid of any descriptions of technique or methods.
For a textbook it notably is lacking any exercises and has few in-depth examples.
The book also needs a lot of editing - there are numerous errors - most of which do not detract much from comprehensibility, but the volume makes you question in some cases whether they are just goofs or if the author actually knows what they are talking about. Examples include: several figures whose descriptions do not match the visual image they are describing, referring to camera tape as a "paper tape" (camera tape is a cloth tape, paper tape is also pervasively used in filmmaking), and a table listing what framerates would be safe to shoot when lights are driven by various frequency AC power sources that mislabels an axis with FPS instead of Hz.
I can highly recommend the first 5 chapters of this book for someone who is curious about what cinematography is, and broadly how it is conceived.
Chapters 1-5 in particular were a nice overview of the purpose and artistry of cinematography which talk at a theoretical level about what cinematographers do, with numerous still image examples from real world movies, covering: Storytelling, framing, the illusion of depth, and basic building blocks of filmmaking like continuity and shot types.
Chapters 6-11 provide, what it appears to me to be a survey level of a variety of technical topics: Cameras, the physics of digital recordings, digital encoding techniques, common tools for quantifying the elements of a frame (histograms, waveforms, vectorscope views), and a light introduction to color theory and how it interacts especially with digital camera sensors, file formats, and displays.
Chapters 12-14 are concerned with lighting
Chapters 15-21 cover a variety of topics such as: Grips and grip equipment, camera movement, optics and focus, set operations, digital imaging, power and distribution, and miscellaneous topics.
As a practical guide to cinematography, I suspect the content is too light - being more an overview of the topics and (largely) absent practical advice.
A lot of topics are covered with a mix of some high level theory, and then some expressions of the desired effect, but without sufficient detail to instruct someone how to bring about the effect. I think the Optics and Focus chapter is likely the worst example of this, which begins talking like a physics textbook speaking about refraction indices and describing how photon paths bend in different mediums, before switching altitude abruptly to a laundry list of optical and focus concerns, and largely devoid of any descriptions of technique or methods.
For a textbook it notably is lacking any exercises and has few in-depth examples.
The book also needs a lot of editing - there are numerous errors - most of which do not detract much from comprehensibility, but the volume makes you question in some cases whether they are just goofs or if the author actually knows what they are talking about. Examples include: several figures whose descriptions do not match the visual image they are describing, referring to camera tape as a "paper tape" (camera tape is a cloth tape, paper tape is also pervasively used in filmmaking), and a table listing what framerates would be safe to shoot when lights are driven by various frequency AC power sources that mislabels an axis with FPS instead of Hz.
I can highly recommend the first 5 chapters of this book for someone who is curious about what cinematography is, and broadly how it is conceived.
April 3, 2022
The first half of this book is a nice overview of basic cinematography principles well the second half is highly technical, but perhaps not detailed enough? It feels like Blain couldn't wait to get to the lighting section so he could start writing about Fresnels and HMI lights, but then, ho should we approach lighting a scene with those lights? I realize he has another entire book on lighting, but most of this book feels like an overview of basic principles and theory without much depth. The layout is also fairly odd; it feels like you should maybe start with things like movement and camera lenses and THEN move onto lighting and image control, not the other around. I'm beginning to think that this cinematography stuff is something you learn mostly through experience (like most crafts), but still, I think some more practical advice and a little less theory and technical jargon would have made this book a little more useful to the average person.
April 30, 2020
The first half is useful as a general overview for a layperson (Filmspace, Visual Language, Lens Language, Camera Dynamics, Continuity, etc), but the second half is likely only accessible given a more extensive background in photography, color theory and optics. Many of the later chapters are enumerations of specific pieces of equipment and techniques for their use which can be difficult to follow without practical experience working with them.
This edition also had numerous typographical errors throughout the text. I am not sure if this was resolved in the later edition released in 2011.
This edition also had numerous typographical errors throughout the text. I am not sure if this was resolved in the later edition released in 2011.
December 26, 2023
The right topics are in here, but the books suffers from a few flaws. The first is poor editing. When referencing photographs, often the figure numbers are wrong. Also, the punctuation is sloppy. I’m not looking for Steinbeck, but damnit, commas matter! But, damnit commas, matter! Second, the author uses circular definitions, where the word he’s defining is used in the definition. Sometimes he introduces concepts or terms in definitions that should be previously defined or explained, but are not. This leads to further confusion rather than clarity.
That said, with all the books faults, there was a lot of useful information.
That said, with all the books faults, there was a lot of useful information.
January 3, 2022
Very comprehensive guide into everything related to cinematography, set procedure for cameras and lighting, and digital imaging. This book was used in my college cinematography course and was more than satisfactory for someone like me who had no experience with cameras prior to reading this.
February 28, 2018
I think it’s one of the best Cinematography’s book that all filmmakers need it.
June 8, 2018
This was my textbook for a digital filmmaking class. I pick it up all the time.
September 13, 2019
For my cine specialisation i am reading this and this is really good.
April 25, 2020
Had to Finish this today! Little helpful mostly boring but those handful tips made me satisfied 😄
PS: Do you research if you wanna read a book on this subject!
PS: Do you research if you wanna read a book on this subject!
October 22, 2021
It's a textbook, so plan accordingly.
February 18, 2022
this is so informative, the more i learn the more i feel i do not know anything
March 26, 2022
Really comprehensive book with a lot of great information condensed.
June 24, 2023
Lo leí para hacer mi primer corto. Quedó horrible. Aprendí mucho de este manual.
August 13, 2025
Got through it! Feel smarter!
October 23, 2011
I love the art of cinematograpy. In another universe I am a director.
Superbly organized with eye catching graphs and pictures, this comprehensive book is loaded with tons of fascinating and useful information. Best of all is the section on video that coherently explains the fascinating history of the video signal and the various formats that have evolved. The comparisons between film and video are also well done and help explain why despite the digital mania and the HD 24FPS advances, most cinematographers still prefer to shoot on film and why projects originated on film still look better.
This book might be a bit dry in parts and too technically oriented for non-film school types. But almost anyone with even a casual interest in cinematography will find something to like and learn from in this 300 page cinematography bible.
Superbly organized with eye catching graphs and pictures, this comprehensive book is loaded with tons of fascinating and useful information. Best of all is the section on video that coherently explains the fascinating history of the video signal and the various formats that have evolved. The comparisons between film and video are also well done and help explain why despite the digital mania and the HD 24FPS advances, most cinematographers still prefer to shoot on film and why projects originated on film still look better.
This book might be a bit dry in parts and too technically oriented for non-film school types. But almost anyone with even a casual interest in cinematography will find something to like and learn from in this 300 page cinematography bible.
October 2, 2021
This book, has some amazing material, and has taught me some of the basics, of a rather complex subject. It bears restudy. Recommended.
February 7, 2011
I am not a cinematographer, but this provided me with a good overview of the field for the purposes of my work as a game cinematics producer (and I learned a lot about how movies are made, to boot). I will admit to skimming/skipping several of the more practical chapters, as I wasn't out to learn about different kinds of lighting rigs, and as the book got into more technical matters, it made for drier reading.
December 3, 2007
If I had found this book before going to film school, I think I would have second guessed whether or not I needed to go. It is all encompassing and should have been a text book for my classes.
June 26, 2009
A classic text to educate the mind on lighting possibilities for both film and everyday photography.
March 18, 2009
Wonderful book for all those that are interested/obsessed with cinematography and/or are budding cinematographers themselves.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews