On film technology

An easy to follow, quick reference introductory guide for beginning professionals and students in filmmaking and postproduction. It explains all film laboratory procedures in the context of the wide range of technology that is used by filmmakers, explaining what happens and why at every stage. A technical understanding of film processing and printing, telecine and laboratory and digital processes will help you get the best results for your film. The book is particularly useful for those who have come to film making from other media - video or digital. The book is based on the author's own experience as a lab technician and technical film consultant and provides answers to many frequently asked questions. The different pathways for film production and postproduction are demonstrated as well as the function of the lab at each stage of the process. The complete range of services is offered, with particular emphasis on the often confusing requirements for super 16 and the blow up to 35mm, the intricacies of negative cutting to match a non-linear edit and the process of grading and regrading for the answer print. This new edition includes: * An update on all digital formats of image and sound * Revision sections on Super 16, Super 35 * Additional information on syncing rushes at telecine and to digital images * The latest telecine machines * A new, clear and simple glossary

An ideal introduction for anyone starting out in audio post-production.

(Berklee Guide). Learn the essential skills to enter the audio post-production industry. This book offers a broad coverage of audio post production, including the four basic elements: dialogue, music, sound effects, and Foley effects. You will learn strategies for working with composers, music supervisors, and dialogue and sound effect editors, and explore techniques on how to edit songs to fit a scene, record dialogue replacement, cue Foley effects for a scene, as well as many more. In addition, you will learn how to prepare for a pre-dub or temp mix (to group and sub-mix tracks into stems for the final dub), create the final dub, and prepare the mix for foreign distribution and final delivery. By learning the tools and strategies used by working professionals, you will have an advantage to participate effectively in this fast-paced environment, as well as applying these skills to independent projects. Includes foreword, introduction, afterword, author biography and index.

A step-by-step guide to post-production sound for film, video, and television, this resource includes practical techniques used by experienced editors and mixers to create professional-quality audio. Topics of discussion include how audio is recorded, how sound and picture stay in sync, how audio can be exported from system to system, and how film and video technology works as well as how to record the final mix with a complete analysis of music editing. Hands-on software tutorials coupled with clear explanations on how to clean up background noise and how to best utilize clipped audio help make this title a must have for anyone wanting to take their project beyond the location recordings.

With its huge cost-saving potential, digital cinema is the biggest thing to happen to the movies since sound -- this book details how each phase of the digital movie-making process, shooting, postproduction, delivery, and exhibition -- differs from film and provides clear answers to the cost vs. quality controversy. * Nonlinear editing -- software, basic technique, cost savings * Digital video color correction * CGI -- changing the shot after the shoot * Digital composition for film * Universal mastering (film, DVD, TV, Internet) * Digital distribution and exhibition

How digital visual effects in film can be used to support storytelling: a guide for scriptwriters and students. Computer-generated effects are often blamed for bad Hollywood movies. Yet when a critic complains that "technology swamps storytelling" (in a review of Van Helsing, calling it "an example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood computer-generated effects movies"), it says more about the weakness of the story than the strength of the technology. In Digital Storytelling, Shilo McClean shows how digital visual effects can be a tool of storytelling in film, adding narrative power as do sound, color, and "experimental" camera angles—other innovative film technologies that were once criticized for being distractions from the story. It is time, she says, to rethink the function of digital visual effects. Effects artists say—contrary to the critics—that effects always derive from story. Digital effects are a part of production, not post-production; they are becoming part of the story development process. Digital Storytelling is grounded in filmmaking, the scriptwriting process in particular. McClean considers crucial questions about digital visual effects—whether they undermine classical storytelling structure, if they always call attention to themselves, whether their use is limited to certain genres—and looks at contemporary films (including a chapter-long analysis of Steven Spielberg's use of computer-generated effects) and contemporary film theory to find the answers. McClean argues that to consider digital visual effects as simply contributing the "wow" factor underestimates them. They are, she writes, the legitimate inheritors of film storycraft.