More on editing

Editing on Volume 4 is going well, and we're very hopeful it'll be out before Christmas. Here's what the 18 exercises in the book cover:

Controlled Scene Length

Establishing Shots           

Fast Cuts vs Slow Cuts   

Matching Eyelines

Assembly

Fade Through Black        

Fade Through White      

L Cut     

Cutting On Action           

Cutting On Shape            

Superimposition              

Cutting On Theme          

Cut Through Sky              

Walking Into Camera     

Photo To Scene

Intercutting       

Montage            

Visual Metaphor             

Coming soon - another free book

I'm aiming to get this out by Christmas if I don't find too many typos and errors. Otherwise, it'll be available in the last week of December. As before, it'll be a free download.

Making Better Movies with Moviestorm - change to Volumes 3 & 4

Earlier today, I finished the first draft of Volume 3 of my series of books about using Moviestorm to help make better films. The preceding two covered camerawork and staging, and this one, originally due to be published in a few weeks, covers editing.

After re-reading it, I decided to hold that volume and publish it as Volume 4 at the end of December. Instead, I'll cover sound and lighting in Volume 3. This was originally planned for Volume 4. Fortunately, it's mostly written, so I'll be able to stay with the schedule for monthly releases, and Volume 3 will still be out in early December.

Throughout the book on editing, I kept referring to things you could do with sound and light, and several of the exercises had footnotes saying "this will be covered in more detail in Vol 4". That just felt wrong to me. It made more sense to deal with those techniques earlier in the series, and then refer back to them in the editing exercises.

More importantly, though, it also fits with my philosophy on filmmaking.

For me, the film isn't made by the director. It's not about what happens on the set. A film is made by the editor. The only time the director gets to make a film, unless they're doing the whole thing themselves, is when they release a Director's Cut - and that's not always a guarantee it'll be better than the original.

It's the editor who assembles everything, and who decides what is in the film and what isn't. It's the editor who blends the visual and the audio. It's the editor who creates the context for each shot by deciding what comes before and after. The editor can completely change a film, even to the extent of turning a horror movie into a comedy, or lacklustre documentary footage into an absorbing visual essay.

All the time I was writing this series, I felt that I wanted to start with how to create great shots, and then end with an entire volume on how to put them together into a finished movie, so that's the way it's going to be.

Making Better Movies, Vol 2, coming soon

The next part of Matt's series of books will be out soon. As before, it'll be a free download.

Here's what previewers have said about it:

It proved to be useful as I was teaching Maya to some 2D animators who work on Peppa Pig. There is a marked difference in thinking for 2d animation and 3d shots, especially the use of physical depth. It saved me tearing my remaining hair out when trying to set up and explain the staging and set construction. I usually work backwards in Maya, blocking out the set/camera etc to get rough story shots, so I know how much set to build and how detailed the props/characters need to be.

The practicality of learning these techniques in Moviestorm, rather than just the theory, gives you an easier way to fix these concepts in your head. I also like the lack of 'what buttons do I press': this gives the reader more control over what they have learned and how it's implemented, and it makes the volume concise. Good solid info on staging a scene, lots of ideas and suggestions for the filmmaker, and it doesn't bog you down with extraneous info (or technical programme specific information). A really good primer for any film student, especially all crammed into 40 pages.

Andrew Segal, Carshalton College

The idea itself is very solid. If someone goes through the book and does the exercises, they're going to come out a better filmmaker, no question.

Hugh Hancock, Guerilla Showrunner

An excellent resource for both new and veteran users. The exercises are easy to follow and designed to give Moviestorm users a whole new perspective on moviemaking. By following the exercises you begin to understand the importance of staging, which will take your movie to a new level. He doesn’t just describe ways to add feeling to your movies, but shows you through the easy to follow steps. All great directors have their own style. In this book Matt gives you the keys to unlock your style. In the end, you decide which techniques work best for you.

Shirley Martin, filmmaker

The book's currently going through final editing, and should be available in early November.

Making Better Movies with Moviestorm

A while ago, we mentioned that Matt was working on a book about using Moviestorm to help practice film techniques. It's been a background task for about six months now, but at last it's getting closer to completion.

It'll be released initially as a series of short e-books, covering basic camerawork, staging, editing, lighting, sound, and miscellaneous techniques.

Each contains 15-20 exercises designed to help you develop your filmmaking technique. Whether you use Moviestorm, other animation tools, or live action to make your movies, you'll find these a useful way to focus on specific skills. Each exercise requires you to film a short scene in several different ways so that you develop familiarity with the various approaches available to you. You may be required to work within constraints such as not being allowed to move the camera or making the scene a specific length, or the exercise may be about filming a particular piece of story.

How do you get good at telling stories with cinema? It comes down to experience, of course, and experience comes through practice. So how do you get experience in film making, when it takes so much to make even the simplest piece of film? You have to find actors and crew, there are lights and cameras to buy, writers to bully, locations to find… and there are some scenes you just can’t film at all without a crazy budget. It’s a problem filmmakers have faced for a hundred years. But now there’s a solution, in the form of Moviestorm.

You see, Moviestorm doesn’t just allow you to make finished movies if you are already an accomplished storyteller. It allows you to grow your own talent by putting in movie making hours.

As I said earlier, in the world of filmmaking, practice usually involves a lot of equipment, money and mostly time, both yours and other people's. It's hard for most people to put in the hours. It’s a lot like a pilot who hasn't got easy access to a plane. So what does he do? He books time in a simulator. Even if a trainee pilot has regular access to a plane, he still books a lot of time in a simulator because it's cheaper and safer than using a real plane. He can practice whenever it’s convenient, and by logging enough hours he improves his skills almost automatically.

The same is true of any technical ability which has some art to it. The more you do it, the better you get. It's a creative muscle memory. It's the same with creativity and mastery of your storytelling chops. The more you do it, the better you will get. Shots flow to shots in a seamless hypnotic glide, because you know what you are doing and you know exactly where to go at any one time, in the service of your story.

This excellent series of books will guide your development. In each of the carefully structured and easy to follow exercises Matt leads you through all the movie making tricks you will need, from the most common to the most difficult. It's an easy regime to follow: just read what's on the page and do it. Then do the next one, and the next, and work your way through Pretty soon you'll be flying through them and your mastery of both Moviestorm and film technique will grow.

From the foreword by Phil South

The first volume, Basic Camerawork, will be published in early October, with the remaining volumes following monthly. These will be available free through Moviestorm.

Machinima Reader final proofs

Over the weekend I was very excited to receive the final proofs of The Machinima Reader. It's the first serious textbook about machinima, edited by two academics who've been involved with it for about a decade, Professor Michael Nitsche of Georgia Tech, and Professor Henry Lowood of Stanford.

The Machinima Reader will assemble the first collection of essays to critically review the phenomenon of Machinima from a wide variety of perspectives.

Machinima is on the verge of stepping beyond its chaotic mix of artistic, ludic and technical conceptions into established traditions and vocabularies of contemporary media. As machinima invents itself, the flexibility of its form poses an interesting challenge to academics as well as artists and critics. We want to offer an inaugural reader for the further development and critical discussion of Machinima, one that charts its growth from several angles and also provides a foundation for critical studies in the future.

They first talked to me about the book nearly five years ago, and asked me to contribute an essay. After 25 years of writing as a journalist and for business, it was very strange relearning the discipline of academic writing. It's taken Michael and Henry a quite while to find a publisher, and go through all the rigours of academic publishing, but it's very nearly there now. The book's been picked up by the prestigious MIT Press, and should be available early in 2011. Mind you, last year I wrote that it was due to be out "in a few months", so don't hold me to that.

I haven't yet seen any of the contributions by the other authors, so I'm personally looking forward to this very much indeed!

The Machinima Reader

About four years ago, I was asked by Henry Lowood (Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections, Film & Media Collections at Stanford University) and Michael Nitsche (Professor at the Digital World and Image Group & member of the Experimental Game Lab at Georgia Tech) to contribute a piece for the first academic textbook about machinima, The Machinima Reader. Henry & Michael described it this way:

The Machinima Reader will assemble the first collection of essays to critically review the phenomenon of Machinima from a wide variety of perspectives.

Machinima is on the verge of stepping beyond its chaotic mix of artistic, ludic and technical conceptions into established traditions and vocabularies of contemporary media. As machinima invents itself, the flexibility of its form poses an interesting challenge to academics as well as artists and critics. We want to offer an inaugural reader for the further development and critical discussion of Machinima, one that charts its growth from several angles and also provides a foundation for critical studies in the future.

I duly wrote something about the difference between game-based and non-game-based machinima (still a highly topical subject, if the recent discussion over on chat noir's blog is anything to go by), sent it off a week later, and then forgot all about it. Well, the wheels of academia grind slowly. Very slowly. But they do move onwards, bit by agonizing bit.

Turns out the book is due to be published by The MIT Press in a few months, and they're now calling for final submissions. I just re-read what I wrote, and it could stand a little revision. Not, surprisingly, nearly as much as I'd expected. Still, it's another little task to be squeezed in amidst all the Moviestorm work before I go on honeymoon next week.

P.S. That'll make two books for me. Well, one and a bit. Dave, I'm ahead of you now!