Cinematography for Directors: A Guide for Creative Collaboration

by Jacqueline B. Frost

Through interviews with current ASC cinematographers, and a balance between technical, aesthetic, and historical content, this book guides the director into a powerful collaboration with their closest on-set ally. Topics include selecting a cinematographer, collectively discussing the script, choosing an appropriate visual style for a film, color palette, film and digital formats, lenses, camera movement, genres, and postproduction processes—including the digital intermediate (DI). Interwoven are quotes from working ASC cinematographers.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Sherif Nagib · Rating 2 out of 5]

الكتاب متواضع وملئ بالتكرار، وقديم للغاية ونصفه أصبح غير قابل للتطبيق. الحوارات مع مديري التصوير جيدة ولكنها مليئة بالتكرار وكان يمكن الاكتفاء بقدر أقل. قد يكون مدخل جيد لمبتدئ في عالم التصوير السينمائي ولكنه لا ينتقل لمرحلة أبعد في فهم الصورة أو علاقتها بالقصة، ولهذا أجد العنوان خادعاً.

[Amro (Amartya) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well written , factual and helps a lot

[Rubinny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pese a que no me parece perfecto, porque tiene partes que dan un poco de pereza, las que no, son interesantísimas y he aprendido mucho.

[Simms Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think there are essentially two parts of this book: the author’s summary and explanation of the topics and the interviews both conducted by the author or curated from outside sources.

To start with the latter, the perspectives of working DPs are top notch. The organization is well thought out, the snippets are as short as possible while being as long as necessary, and the topics themselves are ones that I’ve not often heard brought up in such a specific way. Even if you are a seasoned cinematographer, the interviews alone are worth picking up this book.

I cannot say the same for the meat of the book and do not feel like I would recommend it to anyone amateur or experienced. I felt that the overviews given were inexplicably too simplistic and too complex. The book covers some remarkably basic concepts perhaps for someone who comes from the musical theater world who has never considered working on a film. Fair enough, great place to start! But the book tends to, at times, name something without ever defining it. An example fresh in my mind as I was reading next to a friend: the author makes references to DCPs as an important output for a finalized film but only expands the initialism rather than making any note as to what a DCP is or does or who makes it. No one book could possibly have the scope to fully explain every bit of detail of the filmmaking process, but the lack of ways to follow up on information I feel would be frustrating for a new director trying to get a handle on things. Even a simple “talk to the festivals you’re submitting to and coordinate with your editor to make sure your film is in the correct format” would suffice. As it stands, the director is left to wonder if it’s something they need to worry about while prepping the film, or more likely, will simply ignore the reference to DCP until it comes back to bite them when they don’t realize an online video streaming link does not suffice. While this particular example is minor, it appears time and time again, asking the director to figure things out on their own rather than pointing them in the direction of which of their collaborators can best help them sort out the technical details.

I presume it’s from the edition update, but the amount of times that exact passages (even paragraphs) are completely repeated is quite shocking. On top of spelling errors and comma splices, the editing of this edition feels sloppy.

[David Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great study of the Director/Cinematographer relationship and what each brings into the partnership. Each section gives a complete history and break down of all the important aspects of film on screen and then cuts to interview snippets from a host of phenomenal practitioners. It'll definitely give you a few points to ponder in regards to your next project or collaboration.

[Madeline Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I get what Avery in The Flick by Annie Baker meant when he felt it was a tragedy that film was switching to digital. Like I’m about to become even more annoying about film than I already was. My family is going to disown me for it.

[Saran Baran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okuduğum şeylerin alaka göz açıcıdır

[Ally · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best textbook I can find for aspiring directors who are more story oriented and haven’t done much cinematography work. This textbook answered every technical question I had. Would recommend.

[Omar Manjouneh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written as an overview but it doesn't surpass that limit. " visual References " and " The Color Palette " are the most valuable chapters, also the interviews - though it get very repetitive - but describes the director/cinematographer relationship well. The very disappointment was for the technical issues which were described from a flat surface like the chapter where Jacqueline describes in " Lighting for Genre " the kind of production that distinguishes Hollywood Studio from each other stuffed by dozens of names and dates as It was a history lecture, It would have been better if she had choose just a fewer names but dedicated mare time to analyze the individual style of each name solely instead of useless information that can be found easily on Wikipedia.

[Nadine Al lahham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is perfect for 1rst year film students and amateurs. I really needed this book when I was trying to go deeper into Brodwell's book "Art of Film". Professional and seniors are familiar with a lot of the information provided in the book. However, I really liked the interviews done with the cinematographers. They talked about their personal experience with famous directors and their preferences in the use of cameras. I recommend this book for everyone because you'll benefit from the interviews more than the information.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an okay introduction to cinematography, but if you have taken a cinematography course or film production class, you won't really learn anything from it. The prose is merely serviceable, and the author tends to repeat sentences and concepts within the same paragraph or page. The film stills are also often distorted in perspective, which pretty much defeats the point of using them to illustrate a particular film or style.

[Jonathan Brooker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well recommended reference, particularly technical content which goes a long way to helping the Above the Line folks understand what is required to get the right shot, composition, lighting, positioning, blocking etc.

We have had our copy for just 2 weeks and already its looking worn and very used.

[Abdulaziz Lamlum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, Fantastic to knowing all the general etiquette when the two roles work together, there is however at the end the talk too much on types of film stock, this can be either good or bad depending on what you want

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book that explains basic technical and aesthetic approaches to the collaboration between cinematographer and director. I learned a lot.

[Godfrey]

The book is awesome!

[Rama]

its a good thing