Cinematography: Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers, Directors, and Videographers

by Blain Brown

Lavishly produced and illustrated, Cinematography covers the entire range of the profession. The book is not just a comprehensive guide to current professional practice; it goes beyond to explain the theory behind the practice, so you understand how the rules came about and when it's appropriate to break them. In addition, directors will benefit from the book's focus on the body of knowledge they should share with their Director of Photography.

Cinematography presents the basics and beyond, employing clear explanations of standard practice together with substantial illustrations and diagrams to reveal the real world of film production.
Recognizing that professionals know when to break the rules and when to abide by them, this book discusses many examples of fresh ideas and experiments in cinematography. Covering the most up-to-date information on the film/digital interface, new formats, the latest cranes and camera support and other equipment, it also illustrates the older tried and true methods.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art, Photography, School, Education, Reference

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2002

Reviews

[Annalyse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feew, that was one hell of a read. I started reading this before I started filmschool and that was maybe a mistake. Some chapters were easy, but others were harder to understand without a little background. So after a few months of studying film in all its glory, it was a little easier to get through it.
Definitely interesting when you're in the business or at least already know somethings about it.

[Duane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brown has found a way to mix art and tech together in a way that allows the reader to easily absorb a very technical field. I have many of the cinematography books on the market and I've found this one to be the most interesting and easy to read. What I like is that Brown will give you a lot of heavy technical info if you desire, but also real life practical on set anecdotes and protocols as well as art history and theory. I really enjoyed the color theory chapter with examples from The Natural. It feels like a quality book as the pages are filled with glossy photos and charts. My one caveat is that some of the photos are really too small to properly absorb. You get almost thumbnail size photos for a lot of the pictures. It would be nice if they were bigger. There is a lot of information packed into this tome. There are also quotes and tidbits taken from various cinematographers and filmmakers. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in cinematography or film-making in general.

[Albert Vargas · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro no está mal si tienes cero o poco conocimiento del medio, pero con que conozcas cosas sirve para poco. Creo que igualmente es muy útil para conocer algunos aspectos mas teoricos y tecnicos de los aparatos luminicos o de las lentes. El capitulo de problemas tecnicos seguro que lo iré revisitando con el tiempo.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

By far the best book on filmmaking I've read so far.
It gives a nice and easy introduction for people completely unfamiliar with the field but also isn't afraid to dive into some more complex technical aspects of cinematography.
The only critiques I have are:
1. spelling errors/missing words that I discovered a lot more frequently than I would hope in a third edition
2. there are frequent references to a website made for the book that I don't have access to because they only printed the access codes in the older editions
3. repetiton, I know this book isn't meant to be read back to back but still, if I have to read one more time that colors aren't printed on test cards at 100% saturation because it's technically impossible, I'll have a breakdown.

I can recommend this book to anyone interested in cinematography, even if you allready know some basics, you will probably still learn a few new things.
I'm definitely going to have look at the other books written by Blain Brown.

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are very interested in the subject and this is the only book on Cinematography in your local library, by all means, read it!

Otherwise, look some place else. Shallow rehashing of old mindless stereotypes. Of course the light is important in cinematography, if there was only a dark screen it would have been a radio play. Of course X is relevant, but that important? No.

[Javier Ponce]

this was a lot more technical than I thought, which is fine, I just wish I was more a camera nerd to insist on understanding every bit. even then, I fear thwory is not enough, and only by practicing with a camera (which I dint have) can one understand this book.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides a broad overview of the technical aspects of cinematography, and it seems to be reliable, but it needs to be edited. Often the same information is repeated two or more times in one paragraph or series of pages, and sometimes it is phrased differently enough, or far enough after the initial statement, to make one wonder whether they are intended to describe the same thing or different cases entirely. In addition, references in the text to diagrams or pictures sometimes use the wrong identifying number. Lastly, while I wasn't looking for some stylistic masterpiece, the writing is pretty dull. On the whole, the book is much more tedious and confusing than it should be.

[Jaap Ruurd Feitsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic cinematography ‘bible’ book. Not just did I read it in its entirety, it is also my Go To Book for whenever I need answers or find certain ways to light specific scenes. Sometimes I use it for inspirational purposes and sometimes to double check technical specifics or a combination of those two :)

[M B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative, but feel free to jump around if you have a background in still photography. My only problem with this book were the numerous typos and grammatical errors in almost every chapter. Please hire a proofreader, Mr. Brown.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book on cinematography, which was largely accessible to someone with no formal training in film/video production.

Chapters 1-5 in particular were a nice overview of the purpose and artistry of cinematography which talk at a theoretical level about what cinematographers do, with numerous still image examples from real world movies, covering: Storytelling, framing, the illusion of depth, and basic building blocks of filmmaking like continuity and shot types.

Chapters 6-11 provide, what it appears to me to be a survey level of a variety of technical topics: Cameras, the physics of digital recordings, digital encoding techniques, common tools for quantifying the elements of a frame (histograms, waveforms, vectorscope views), and a light introduction to color theory and how it interacts especially with digital camera sensors, file formats, and displays.

Chapters 12-14 are concerned with lighting

Chapters 15-21 cover a variety of topics such as: Grips and grip equipment, camera movement, optics and focus, set operations, digital imaging, power and distribution, and miscellaneous topics.

As a practical guide to cinematography, I suspect the content is too light - being more an overview of the topics and (largely) absent practical advice.

A lot of topics are covered with a mix of some high level theory, and then some expressions of the desired effect, but without sufficient detail to instruct someone how to bring about the effect. I think the Optics and Focus chapter is likely the worst example of this, which begins talking like a physics textbook speaking about refraction indices and describing how photon paths bend in different mediums, before switching altitude abruptly to a laundry list of optical and focus concerns, and largely devoid of any descriptions of technique or methods.

For a textbook it notably is lacking any exercises and has few in-depth examples.

The book also needs a lot of editing - there are numerous errors - most of which do not detract much from comprehensibility, but the volume makes you question in some cases whether they are just goofs or if the author actually knows what they are talking about. Examples include: several figures whose descriptions do not match the visual image they are describing, referring to camera tape as a "paper tape" (camera tape is a cloth tape, paper tape is also pervasively used in filmmaking), and a table listing what framerates would be safe to shoot when lights are driven by various frequency AC power sources that mislabels an axis with FPS instead of Hz.

I can highly recommend the first 5 chapters of this book for someone who is curious about what cinematography is, and broadly how it is conceived.

[Adam Kopcinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book is a nice overview of basic cinematography principles well the second half is highly technical, but perhaps not detailed enough? It feels like Blain couldn't wait to get to the lighting section so he could start writing about Fresnels and HMI lights, but then, ho should we approach lighting a scene with those lights? I realize he has another entire book on lighting, but most of this book feels like an overview of basic principles and theory without much depth. The layout is also fairly odd; it feels like you should maybe start with things like movement and camera lenses and THEN move onto lighting and image control, not the other around. I'm beginning to think that this cinematography stuff is something you learn mostly through experience (like most crafts), but still, I think some more practical advice and a little less theory and technical jargon would have made this book a little more useful to the average person.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is useful as a general overview for a layperson (Filmspace, Visual Language, Lens Language, Camera Dynamics, Continuity, etc), but the second half is likely only accessible given a more extensive background in photography, color theory and optics. Many of the later chapters are enumerations of specific pieces of equipment and techniques for their use which can be difficult to follow without practical experience working with them.

This edition also had numerous typographical errors throughout the text. I am not sure if this was resolved in the later edition released in 2011.

[Phillip Keefe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The right topics are in here, but the books suffers from a few flaws. The first is poor editing. When referencing photographs, often the figure numbers are wrong. Also, the punctuation is sloppy. I’m not looking for Steinbeck, but damnit, commas matter! But, damnit commas, matter! Second, the author uses circular definitions, where the word he’s defining is used in the definition. Sometimes he introduces concepts or terms in definitions that should be previously defined or explained, but are not. This leads to further confusion rather than clarity.

That said, with all the books faults, there was a lot of useful information.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very comprehensive guide into everything related to cinematography, set procedure for cameras and lighting, and digital imaging. This book was used in my college cinematography course and was more than satisfactory for someone like me who had no experience with cameras prior to reading this.

[Mike Aryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it’s one of the best Cinematography’s book that all filmmakers need it.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my textbook for a digital filmmaking class. I pick it up all the time.

[Amro (Amartya) · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my cine specialisation i am reading this and this is really good.

[Shahmir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to Finish this today! Little helpful mostly boring but those handful tips made me satisfied 😄

PS: Do you research if you wanna read a book on this subject!

[Cooper Agar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a textbook, so plan accordingly.

[Kenneth Emmanuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is so informative, the more i learn the more i feel i do not know anything

[Diyah Diyah · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really comprehensive book with a lot of great information condensed.

[juanncorb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo leí para hacer mi primer corto. Quedó horrible. Aprendí mucho de este manual.

[Lukas Sarnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got through it! Feel smarter!

[James Caterino · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the art of cinematograpy. In another universe I am a director.

Superbly organized with eye catching graphs and pictures, this comprehensive book is loaded with tons of fascinating and useful information. Best of all is the section on video that coherently explains the fascinating history of the video signal and the various formats that have evolved. The comparisons between film and video are also well done and help explain why despite the digital mania and the HD 24FPS advances, most cinematographers still prefer to shoot on film and why projects originated on film still look better.

This book might be a bit dry in parts and too technically oriented for non-film school types. But almost anyone with even a casual interest in cinematography will find something to like and learn from in this 300 page cinematography bible.

[Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, has some amazing material, and has taught me some of the basics, of a rather complex subject. It bears restudy. Recommended.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a cinematographer, but this provided me with a good overview of the field for the purposes of my work as a game cinematics producer (and I learned a lot about how movies are made, to boot). I will admit to skimming/skipping several of the more practical chapters, as I wasn't out to learn about different kinds of lighting rigs, and as the book got into more technical matters, it made for drier reading.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had found this book before going to film school, I think I would have second guessed whether or not I needed to go. It is all encompassing and should have been a text book for my classes.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic text to educate the mind on lighting possibilities for both film and everyday photography.

[Johnnyboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful book for all those that are interested/obsessed with cinematography and/or are budding cinematographers themselves.