Saturday, July 30, 2011

Indiana Filmmakers Network - Bloomington chapter

Last week we had a great first meting of the Indiana Filmmakers Network - Bloomington chapter.  Lots of awesome people attended and I'm looking forward to next month's meeting.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Time to mention another book

Well, I've been able to chew my way through another book about making movies.  This time we're looking at a book about where movies are actually made.  I've read that you don't actually make a movie in front of the camera, that's just where you capture the performances.  You actually make the movie in the editing suite.

Think about that for a moment.

So I just finished reading The Invisible Cut: How Editors Make Movie Magic by Bobbie O'Steen.  It was very well written and used clear frame grabs to illustrate editing concepts along with diagrams.  She talks about visual techniques, not technical operations per se.  For example, she illustrates concepts like crossing the line and how to manage the line of action in complex scenes from the point of view of the editor.  Her examples were taught with frame grabs from 12 Angry Men, which, if you think about it was a really difficult movie to cut.

She has several other great examples and the book read pretty quickly.  My favorite section was her analysis of the opening montage from The Big Chill.  The though and creativity put into those cuts by Carol Littleton and director Lawrence Kasdan is impressive when deconstructed.