The Next Step for your Filmmaking... | The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer...

Awesome book for low budget film makers. | The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap | Stu Maschwitz

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	• The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap Stu Maschwitz Peachpit Press, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 78 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Awesome book

I have long known about The DV Rebel's Guide from reading Stu Maschwitz's blog and articles. You can't work in the visual effects industry very long before you run across something from Stu. He is quite opinionated and learned in his field. I can personally say that I have learned much from Stu's wealth of information on the internet. When it came out, I did not have much interest in reading the book since I am not a filmmaker per se. Eventually my curiosity and inner filmmaker took over and I got a copy of the book. The book is well written and comes with a level of street cred that you can sense as you read the information. Stu's wit and candor are evident as he use humorous stories and illustrations to get a point across. He covers all aspects of making a film on a low budget, some areas deeper than others. The areas that are not covered in depth are best covered in other books since they are topics unto themselves. Scriptwriting is a good example of this. Every chapter is sprinkled with invaluable side notes and 'jargon watch' panels. I would say that the jargon watch panels may be one of the most helpful aspects of the book. If you ever go on a set for your job, you would be well served to learn the lingo and know when to ask for a 'truck out' instead of a 'tilt up'. The chapters on editing, camera, and onlining were the most useful to me. Most of the material covered in the visual effects chapters were a good overview and would be extremely instructional for a junior fx artist. I think a solid understanding of the fields related to your own make you well rounded and easier to interface with. This book educates in that capacity and covers many topics well. Most importantly, The DV Rebel's Guide inspires you to want to go out and make a film...and I think that's the reason most of us are in the business after all.

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The Next Step for your Filmmaking...

Some of you probably know me, I wrote Action Filmmaking: The Guide to Producing Kick-Ass Microbudget Action Films, but this is definitely the next step. My book basically talks about how to get the film off the ground when you don't have a ton of money. But what do you do to get high end effects and slick Hollywood style when you don't have a lot of money? Stu has the answer.

In the interest of full disclosure Stu and I are both members of [...] a filmmaking forum. While I don't think we've had any major interaction (if any at all) I felt I should mention that. But I cannot speak more highly of this book. I wish I had it earlier.

The thing to keep in mind about this book is it's an advanced book. He's not playing around here. Let's put it like this, Stu's the kind of guy that doesn't rent a helicopter for a scene he simply pulls out a 3D program and makes it, then pops it into the scene and low and behold he has a helicopter shooting high powered ammo at characters in the film and it looks good. I know he said it was 3D, but seeing it on screen you wouldn't have known it. Then he does a scene with a fake gun. It's a toy, (literally a green toy gun). But the crowd sees people running and a guy with a green gun running after him and they react just like if the guy had a real gun. When Stu digitally replaces the fake gun with a real one the scene looks incredible!

Before you buy this book you should have a Mac or PC, with a nice amount of RAM because you will be using After Effects. This is like an After Effects manual specifically for action films, plus it has basic shooting tips for making action films that come off as really advanced, but when he breaks it down it makes all the sense in the world. And remember, he's still talking about doing this at the low-budget level so he's not spending millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Finally, the writing isn't overly techy. If you've done digital filmmaking for awhile you can follow along. The book is down to earth and he explains what he's talking about. So if you're ready to move up from basic low budget action flicks to some really bad assed movie making, This is the book for you. I can honestly say I'll be using some things from here in my next film. If you buy my book, buy Stu's along with it. You wont be sorry.

-Nate

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Awesome book for low budget film makers.

I'm a low (read no) budget filmmaker, however the $30 this book cost me was definitely well spent. Well written and accessible but full of fantastic information that both appreciates the limitations of guerilla film making and inspires you to push the boundaries.
I'd thoroughly recommend this book!!
Cheers
Jez

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A Must

This books is a true guide to digital film making. Stu guide us through the most important aspects and techniques without reading thousands pages. Excellent, this is a must.

Great content, bad binding

This is an excellent book. Mr. Maschwitz really knows what he's talking about and you can tell that he has a passion for film-making! It is an extremely interesting and insightful read.

The reason it only gets four stars is that the binding on the book is horrible! It fell apart after about a month of light use.

Overall it's highly recommended, but be ready to glue the binding back together.

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Written by Stu Maschwitz, co-founder of the Orphanage (the legendary guerrilla visual effects studio responsible for amazing and award-winning effects in such movies as Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), this book is a must-have for all those budding filmmakers and students who want to produce action movies with visual effects but don't have Hollywood budgets. The Orphanage was created by three twenty-something visual effects veterans who wanted to make their own feature films and discovered they could do this by utilizing home computers, off the shelf software, and approaching things artistically. This guide details exactly how to do this: from planning and selecting the necessary cameras, software, and equipment, to creating specific special effects (including gunfire, Kung Fu fighting, car chases, dismemberment, and more) to editing and mixing sound and music. Its mantra is that the best, low-budget action moviemakers must visualize the end product first in order to reverse-engineer the least expensive way to get there. Readers will learn how to integrate visual effects into every aspect of filmmaking--before filming, during filming and with "in camera" shots, and with computers in postproduction. Throughout the book, the author makes specific references to and uses popular action movies (both low and big-budget) as detailed examples--including El Mariachi, La Femme Nikita, Die Hard, and Terminator 2. Note from the Publisher: If you have the 3rd printing of The DV Rebel?s Guide, your disc may be missing the data files that accompany the book. If this is the case, please send an email to Peachpit in order to obtain the files at ask@peachpit.com

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