The Five Essential Steps in Digital Video

Rating:
Summary: A superb reference for the seasoned producer
Review: The inspiration for Five Essential Steps In Digital Video: The Do It Yourself Guide To Shooting And Producing Your Own Video sprang from a theme of five frequently asked questions posed to digital video expert Denise Ohio. The questions she typically receives are based on what she calls Five Steps: Development: Hunting and Gathering; Preproduction: People, Places, and Things; Production: Action!; Postproduction: Directing the Movie; and Selling: How to Keep Your Shirt Five Essential Steps In Digital Video is packed full of information for the novice and will serve as a superb reference for the seasoned producer. Denise Ohio covers the basics of DV technology and choosing the right equipment to planning your budget, digitizing your own music, and acquiring resources online. Selling a project has also been transformed by the Internet and Denise Ohio accessibly surveys and explains which means of distribution would be the best for the reader's project. Highly recommended with User Level classification of: Beginner to Intermediate. 800 pp.

Rating:
Summary: Everything and the kitchen sink
Review: There's a lot of information in here. Que rushes to put out these bibles--the thick book with the fat spine that sticks out on the bookshelf. But to achieve this it seems a lot of extra detail is included, reading as though it was sucked in from a variety of research sources, some of them technical, some of them not, with little or no editing for relevance or clarity. Ms. Ohio is most helpful when she's describing things she's done on the set or in the editing suite, and her talent shows in the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: This one books covers everything!
Review: This book is very remarkable in that it covers in ONE VOLUME virtually every aspect involved in digital moviemaking--from how to operate equipment to navigating the business and legal aspects of being a movie producer. If you could only buy one book to learn moviemaking, this would be the book.

Rating:
Summary: It's about darn time.
Review: This remarkable book manages to deliver a lot of "meat" but in writing that's clear, straightforward, and even entertaining. I love the info on script analysis--finally one of these indie moviemaking books gives as much attention to SCRIPT QUALITY as it does to networking and how to get into festivals. Other books pay lip service to DV possibilities, but "5 Steps" unapologetically takes DV to heart and espouses a style, philosophy, and approach that truly exploits the DV potential. Buy it. Then get off your butt and make your movie.