Guys we gotta find a way - Hollywood Camerawork.us

Per, thank you so much for coming up with this dvd training set!

i have bought just about every book out there on moviemaking and i've been blown away with the skills i've learned with your dvd set and i'm only on disc 3!

nothing else that i've come across covers these subjects.

matthew
 
hey Per,

thanks for extending the discount. im sure there will be more sales becuase of it!
and ill be the first to say .. get the DVX! its a great interview cam.. in fact its a great all round cam. its cine gamma functions are second to none in its class for film emulation. it makes the xl2's cine gfamma look like video.
 
Hi Per!

Good to see you here. The review is almost done; ya know there is like 6 DVD's and umpteen hours of content. I have taken on a task reviewing this product. The review is going to be favorable I assure as it is so much info; great job on putting these together; I think I have learned more in terms of blocking and coverage and camera angles than I have in reading all of those text books.

Now onto the camera:

Get the DVX100!
 
John
I'm just getting ready to read Shot by Shot by Katz, how does the DVD series compare with that book?
 
I have the DVD's and they are very impressive. It would cost thousands of dollars to receive the same information in a course at school. You should go to the web site and watch the demo's.
 
J.D. said:
John
I'm just getting ready to read Shot by Shot by Katz, how does the DVD series compare with that book?
Click to expand...
While Shot by Shot is great, the DVD is about ten times, no, hundred times more instructive. I am really curious to read John's review. My review is - all thumbs up!
 
I have the book by Katz, and a couple of other books on directing. For me, even with thediscount (Thanks Per, it's a great offer), I'm spending a hell of a lot of $$.

One thing I'd like to ask about the DVD's is this. After watching the demo clips, I don't really remember much talk about "why" you do a certain move, but more like what moves there are and how you do them. Is there more "why" in the DVD's? That's what I'd like to know. Why I do a track pivot over some other move - the emotional reasons I'd use one over the other..

I'm on the brink of buying just need to justify the expense.

Thanks
Aaron
 
Aza said:
Is there more "why" in the DVD's? That's what I'd like to know. Why I do a track pivot over some other move - the emotional reasons I'd use one over the other..
Click to expand...
Yes. In fact, volumes I and II mention that a lot - different types of shots for different feelings. It also has a lot on cutting, transitions (not like in editing, but from subject to subject), continuity both spatial and temporal, deep staging, perspective and parallax, all that jazz.

I've read probably twenty books on film making, adding up to more money than the DVD set cost me, but being a visual kinda guy, the 3D perspective with replays from camera perspective give me much more than all those book combined - not that they would be bad books at all.

A picture if worth of thousand words; a moving picture is worth 24,000 words a second. :happy:
 
Dear Aaron,

Thanks for your question. You're right, with a move such as a pivot, there's really no deep motivation. It's just a move that does a terrific job of covering action between two characters almost regardless of how they move, and can be quite elegant.

A very large part of blocking is technique, and I would say that about half the course deals with mapping out and organizing raw techniques so they become automatic.

For instance, one thing the course deals with a lot is line-management. As an example, it's easy enough to figure out where the line is if two characters are talking in a sofa -- But what do you do when you have 7 characters, constantly interjecting dialogue, with 3 of them moving around, and at least several of your shots are dollies that cause line-crosses? Without precise line-management it's very possible to bring home a scene that can't be cut, so these are things that need to just work. And we need to be able to do it without thinking about it, because when shooting, we should really concentrate on the actors.

On top of that we're being pulled from every other direction, which almost always results in reverting to tried-and-tested techniques (which is depressing in editing, when the pressure is off, and we can see clealy again!). So for these reasons, and because any artform is just more fun when you have the repertoire to act on any creative impulse, a lot of the course is about raw technique.

But with that said, the "why" is far more interesting, and this is really the other half of the course, though not in any order. To know why to do a shot or framing or move you essentially need to know what meaning and emotional impact it tends to create. When you know that, it's very easy to pick apart a script and say "here's a close push moment because the character is realizing what's happening -- here I want to frame for the space outside the dialogue to make the character more reserved -- here I want the scene to move from open framings towards closed framings to retain the mystery" etc. etc. All of this is basically cognitive psychology and entirely untheoretical, because the only proof of whether or not it works is whether or not your can feel in your gut the meaning a shot creates. This is a very large part of the course.

I hope this helps clarify!

Best,

Per Holmes
 
Hey Per, thanks for the reply. Before I got to read your reply, I took the plunge and ordered the DVD's today anyway (I'm in New Zealand, so should have them in about 5 days!), and your answer makes the decision settle a little easier with me now ;) I don't have a ton of cash like a lot of people here and the $$ can always be spent on more essential gear, or a short film, but blocking and staging is one of the things, that I feel I have really lacked a good hold of. I'm a complete amateur, only having shot two simple short films (one just the other day) and they were for competitions and I did it on impulse, not really as a project I tackled with the effort and focus they really require, so I have been pretty unhappy with both. Each one I was running around crazy, and in preproduction I tried to storyboard and do camera diagrams etc (The most recent one I had 2 hours to do it cause it was done like a 24hour film project). Here, if I had of had more experience, and like you said, just knew almost instinctively how to stage, they would have come out a hell of a lot more interesting and making more sense and I would of had a lot more to work with in the edit. I look forward to the DVD's.

Cheers
Aaron
 
They state the mood that each move gives and demonstrate it with emotionless cg actors. You can really feel the emotion on some of the moves. I give them an A+.

You get a lot of video for your $$$.
 
I remember watching the sample clips on the website. When they do the dolly in to build tension, that sold me.
 
To be redundant

There is tons of 'Why' on this course and when it is shown and explainded it's like your sub-concious goes "Yes! Yes! That's it!" as if you have always known but didn't; make sense?
 
i wish the dvx had come with just the first dvd of this series, i think that would be a hell of a lot more useful than magic bullet!

there aren't any books i know of that compare to these dvd's

matthew
 
I can't recommend this set enough. I think it'll have a huge impact on filmmaking.

Per did a great job, and I'm glad to see his hard work paying off!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top