Extreme Dv at Used-Car Prices: How to Write, Direct, Shoot, Edit, and Produce a Digital Video Feature for Less Than $3000

Rating:
Summary: Another Sacred Moviemaking Tome
Review: Rick Schmidt writes FAR more than mere books on making movies. When you feel the words on the page speaking to your being on as many levels as this man communicates on, you are being re-arranged. Ricks writings are a real world example of how The Force works through us. You will have the opportunity to take advantage of the intense focus of passion and energy that surrounded this man as these words traveled from the abstract infinite into solid order before you on the printed page, and it is much like finding an oasis.
I ordered Extreme DV expecting largely a re-hash of his first work, Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices. Maybe Ray Carney's Open Letter to the Next Generation of American Filmmakers and the chapters about digital video fleshed out with more modern equipment mentioned, and certainly some all new material. I had no idea how off I'd be! To begin with, Ricks decision to open his books with a Ray Carney forward was one of the most profoundly fitting ways to live up to his ideologies of collaboration essential to efficiently allowing things to become their best. This new book gives us Mr. Carney's The Path Of The Artist, equally as worth our while as the aforementioned Open Letter. Worth the price of the book by itself, even if you have read it on Ray's website!
But the main meat of Extreme DV is worth more than the budget and gross of the movie Titanic. Invaluable is Ricks recounting making three of his workshop collaborative features, each one giving you new angles and aspects. Through his placing you into the positions he was in, you can feel yourself facing your own future navigations and he gives you the method of finding your own confidence in your ability to make these things happen for yourself
He does provide you with all of the technical basics you will need to actually carry out your own operations, but he knows where to stop when it is either unnecessary to know, or more properly found in books devoted almost entirely to the technical end, such as The Filmmakers Handbook. He will tell you about selecting a camera with the most essential features and qualities, setting yourself up with an adequate computer editing system, and even the basics of how to use the software (though I do wish he would have covered Vegas for PC, which is awesome beyond description!).
But for me, the most wonderful and surprising chapter is number 10....DV Vagabonds: Shooting By Van! I will not discuss this chapter any further. It is just too personal and intimate for me to detail. Even if you feel there is no chance that you will literally follow the path in this type of manner, there is much essence to be communicated within.
The Guerilla Promotion chapter will give you a true feel for the type of thinking you will need to be generating to get yourself and your art properly spread, and the VangoghsDV chapter will help keep you from straying too far into cliché with your art. It will encourage you to find that what makes you and your art truly unique, which if there is any common thread to Ricks passion, it is the celebration of uniqueness. I would suggest picking up both of Mr. Schmidt's very unique books...your soul will thank you.