Friends of the ASC (American Cinematography Magazine)

iamlance

iamlance

Well-known member
Hey, when out in pursuit of some film magazines, I stumbled across American Cinematography. I had heard of this magazine before, and of course the organization representing it, the ASC. Does this magazine produce fairly constant quality material? At a level where a semi-amateur would understand what is being discussed?

A special membership option they offer as well is "Friends of the ASC". It costs quite a bit more ($100 instead of the regular $30/year price), but you receive a year of the magazine in digital form, are able to use their forum, and have access to their weekly "breakfast club" videos where they hold interviews and talk about interesting things (so I believe).

Would this be worth my time, or would my money be better spent on some books and the regular print version of the magazine (or not at all)?

I'm a college student with a passion for cinematography and am studying communications (not enrolled in a film school), if that helps give an answer.
 
American Cinematography magazine is a great way to learn about the craft of filmmaking. I subscribed for about 10 years...everything I've forgotten I learned first by reading every issue more than once.
 
Its a great magazine, sadly overtime has been getting thinner and thinner with more advertisements but I'm guessing its not easy putting out a small print mag. Has some really cool feature BTS though and interviews.

Another one worth noting (digital magazine) is fdtimes.com which was started by Jon Fauer, also a member of the ASC. Personally if I had to pick one, I would go with FDtimes... they are doing a great job, a lot of unique content and not very much unwanted advertising.

Old ASC mags are great though- its been around since 1920, you can pick them up on ebay.
 
Ooh, the Jon Fauer magazine looks interesting! You can even view every past issue online for free, although in a lower resolution (completely fine for me).

Anyone else have anything to say about American Cinematographer or Friends of the ASC?
 
I subscribe to the digital edition which is a lot cheaper and just download them to my tablet, or in a web browser. It's great reading them that way and I love going through the back issues. On-line the archives go back to about 2000, with a few more articles stretching into the late 90's.
 
I used to subscribe to American Cinematographer decades ago when it was still a print publication. However, for some reason it dropped off my radar and I almost didn't pay this thread any notice because the original poster had the thing called American Cinematography which didn't click at first.
 
Yeah, sorry about that. I meant to say American Cinematographer. It still has a physical print magazine, along with the newer digital versions.

Was there any reason in particular why you canceled your subscription?
 
Long involved story involving moving, the high arctic, a five and half month 5 star holiday in the orient amoungst other things. It had nothing to do with the magazine itself which I always thoroughly enjoyed. However, that holiday did work itself into a project called "Hong Kong Shuffle" which got sidelined when Hong Kong was returned to China.
 
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It's by a wide margin the best magazine about the industry and filmmaking. Only film magazine i've seen worth the subscription. Get it immediately.
 
In case anyone is interested in this magazine, or any magazine really, and is enrolled at a university, I recently discovered that the thousands of ugly green volumes found in the libraries are actually full of the contents of basically every magazine ever made! I may be exaggerating a bit, or quite a bit even, but the point is I found American Cinematographer and a dozen other film magazines compiled into these volumes. They go back a couple decades. The stuff isn't always the newest material, but sometimes there is even the newest magazines in regular form nearby.

Not to mention the hundreds of other popular and ancient magazines touching on other topics.
 
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