Status Updates From The DV Rebel's Guide: An Al...

For the last part of the book, it goes into Color Correction, which is the 4th/Final step of Post-Production, and it went more into detail here then any other step of "Post-Pro" and luckly that's the part of Post-Pro that I know the least about.

It finishes off the Production section with the last bit of stunts, including cars, and how to now die while doing stunts with them (It was actually pretty helpful). It then starts the last stage of film-making, Post-Production (Editing, VFX, Sound, Color). It doesn't go to deep into each part, something I didn't like, so this section didn't really teach me anything new, but its still always fun.

In this part of the book, Stu goes over Matt Paintings, a technique where you digitaly replace a background, so that the setting seems like it's in a differnt place. He then goes over guns, how to use them, using fake/toy guns vs. real guns and the benifits of using one or the other. He then goes over "debris" effects, which are effects like squibs (Blood hits on bodies), ricochets, etc.

So now, its gone into the how to's of effects, both practical (Real) and visual (CGI). He goes on how, pretty much in effects, like much of film making, its all an illusion, and some of the basic stuff film makers will do to trick their audience. He goes on how to do miniatues, which is actual one of the few things so far in the book I really had no idea how to do.

So now, Stu (the writer) has finished his part on pre-production, with the last bit of planning and then choiceing you camera, lenses, and any other thing you may need for your camera. He then began to get into Production (Filming of the film). He went over ways to stabalize your camera with dollies, sliders, jibs, etc. Simple ways to light your scene without spending 100s of dollars.

The book is about the basics of making an action video. So far a lot of the stuff is review, thats why I've avoided this book for so long, but its always nice to hear how other people handle certain things, since there is never only 1 right way in film making. So far it has gone over the basics of Pre-Production (writing, storyboarding, planning, casting, etc.)and how to plan a budget.