The Film Handbook

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Film Handbook examines the current state of filmmaking and how film language , technique and aesthetics are being utilised for today's 'digital film' productions. It reflects on how critical analysis' of film underpins practice and story, and how developing an autonomous 'vision' will best aid student creativity.

The Film Handbook offers practical guidance on a range of traditional and independent 'guerrilla' film production methods, from developing script ideas and the logistics of planning the shoot to cinematography, sound and directing practices. Film professionals share advice of their creative and practical experiences shooting both on digital and film forms.

The Film Handbook relates theory to the filmmaking process and includes:

* documentary, narrative and experimental forms, including deliberations on 'reading the screen', genre, mise-en-scène, montage, and sound design

* new technologies of film production and independent distribution, digital and multi-film formats utilised for indie filmmakers and professional dramas, sound design and music

* the short film form, theories of transgressive and independent 'guerrilla' filmmaking, the avant-garde and experimental as a means of creative expression

* preparing to work in the film industry, development of specialisms as director, producer, cinematographer, editor, and the presentation of creative work.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures (p. vii)
• Notes on contributors (p. x)
• Acknowledgements (p. xi)
• Foreword (p. xiii)
• Introduction (p. xix)
• Part I Film language and aesthetics (p. 1)
• 1 Renaissance of (digital) film (p. 3)
• 2 Developing mise en scene (p. 10)
• 3 Directing the actor (p. 20)
• 4 Cinematography: painting with motion (p. 24)
• 5 Sound underpinning image (p. 49)
• 6 Editing: temporality and structure (p. 57)
• Part II Film theory in practice (p. 65)
• 7 Reading the screen (p. 67)
• 8 Spectatorship and audience (p. 90)
• 9 Contemporary cinema (p. 101)
• 10 Eisenstein and Bazin: formalism and realism, two modes of practice (p. 120)
• 11 Genre (p. 145)
• Part III Guerrilla filmmaking: practice as subversion (p. 157)
• 12 Experimentation and the short film format (p. 159)
• 13 Working with non-professional actors (p. 175)
• 14 The avant-garde, subtext, and symbolism (p. 182)
• 15 Documentary as resistance (p. 190)
• Part IV Persistence of vision (p. 205)
• 16 Screenwriting: from script to screen (p. 207)
• 17 Soundtracks: using music in film (p. 223)
• Part V Merging and emerging media: developing a professional specialism (p. 247)
• 18 Post-film: technology and the digital film (p. 249)
• 19 Post-film: production, distribution, and consumption in the digital age (p. 259)
• 20 Mapping a career path (p. 270)
• Glossary (p. 276)
• Bibliography (p. 301)
• Filmography (p. 308)
• Index (p. 315)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This handbook seeks to bridge the divide between film theory and practice. Written for student filmmakers, it reviews various theoretical topics and then provides exercises that put those topics to practical use. De Valk (Southampton Solent Univ., UK) and Arnold (Univ. College Falmouth, UK) discuss Sergei Eisenstein in terms of montage and Andre Bazin in terms of an aesthetics of long takes and deep focus, and then ask students to shoot the same scene two ways--once using mise-en-scene, then again using montage. The authors' representation of theory is often reductionist, as seen in the Bazin and Eisenstein section. Christian Metz's notion of film language is presented as an extension of Lev Kuleshov's and reduced to the "grande syntagmatique." Suture is reduced to Jacques Lacan's "mirror phase." The book explores theories of film language, aesthetics (formalism versus realism), auteurism, and digital cinema. Unfortunately, the discussion of theory tends to presume prior familiarity with that theory, so beginning students will have problems understanding the book. On the other hand, the authors clearly lay out a number of useful practical terms, e.g., "the Rembrandt triangle," "the reverse 's,'" "the rule of thirds," "two-dimensional editing." The goal of the book is admirable but its execution occasionally falters. Summing Up: Optional. Large film collections. J. Belton Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick