The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap 1st Edition

If you are a beginner trying to make a movie (a REAL movie) with a DV camcorder shooting in 24p (for the most part), and a PC computer of some sort, this book is damn near perfect to get you going, and keep you going. The author obviously knows what he's talking about, and anyone who has actually worked at Industrial Light and Magic immediately has my attention! You don't get hired by ILM if you aren't a pro.This book delivers exactly what it says it will: How to make Killer action movies on the cheap using DV.This isn't some book on "movie theory". This is a well written, often funny, practical reference manual. STU demonstrates time and time again that he knows EXACTLY what he is talking about, then he shows you how to do it. (Cheap!)I learned so much reading this book that I didn't realize how much I didn't know before I read it, and now that I have read it, I know exactly what books to buy to nail all of the topics covered in this book. I now know what I should be studying and WHY. There are sections in this book that can only come from in depth knowledge and I am pretty sure there are things in this book that you will NOT find elsewhere. This isn't the book that will teach you everything, but it will teach you everything you NEED to know about DV film making. Period.As a starting point this book will blow past what you thought was possible with DV into real "movie studio" territory, but Stu shows you how to do it on a meager budget - for example there is a design for a $14 "GhettoCam" made of a 2x4 piece of wood and two wooden dowels that mimics the effect of a SteadyCam that would cost you thousands of dollars. Strangely enough, bean bags and bags of sand are a great way to mount your camera at an angle and preserve the shot, and I had no idea that you could use a skateboard for a "slider shot". To be honest, I didn't know what a "slider shot" was, but I do now! (And I know when to and how to shoot one.)For a beginner in DV film making (like me) this book is worth its weight in platinum, and now that I have finished my first read, I know that I will be coming back to this book over and over again until I know every part of it by heart. Yes, this book does focus on Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects, but honestly after reading this book, and after buying Final Cut Studio 3.0, I am actually making the switch to Adobe just based on my reading of this book. But that's not what's important. Even if you don't have After Effects, the concepts and practical solutions in the book are the most important part. What is important is that this book gives literally hundreds of tips, tricks, real life examples with lots of nice color pictures to see exactly what the author is talking about, and then he backs all this up with a slew of DVD content, including some much needed Excel files that you can really use to do what this author is talking about. Stu covers everything from the pre-production, to the actual shoot, to post production (including essentials such as color correction, scene matching, work flow, and how to maximize DV resolution and reduce quality loss in the production pipeline as well as an exact list of what to do in order to "master" your movie). Stu also solidly covers visual effects and stunts, how to create them, (and do that cheaply!) etc. Oh, did I forget the whole chapter on guns and how to make realistic gun fights using airsoft gun replicas, sound libraries and After Effects?OK, so what's the downside? The ONLY downside in this book has to do with audio. If you are looking for a book about recording and producing audio for film, this book is NOT the one you want. However, for everything else (and that is a LOT of "else"), just buy this book.This book rocks!

I originally bought this book in 2010 as I was gearing up to shoot my third feature film. Though I had made two movies previously, this one had stuff in the script that I had no idea how I was going to pull off. I somehow came across this book online and purchased it. I read it in a day and it blew my mind! While it is a how-to guide, it also just inspires creative thinking about difficult shots. I've since made it required reading for myself before every shoot I do.The movie that I made after reading this for the first time is an action film, and it now has almost 2 million views on YouTube and we shot it for $2000. I couldn't have done it without the information contained in this book. While I no longer use After Effects (which the book strongly promotes), much of the logic and information is STILL applicable today and is easy to transfer over to something like DaVinci Resolve - which is currently the software of choice for indie filmmakers in 2024.

In the interest of full disclosure Stu and I are both members of [...] a filmmaking forum. While I don't think we've had any major interaction (if any at all) I felt I should mention that. But I cannot speak more highly of this book. I wish I had it earlier.The thing to keep in mind about this book is it's an advanced book. He's not playing around here. Let's put it like this, Stu's the kind of guy that doesn't rent a helicopter for a scene he simply pulls out a 3D program and makes it, then pops it into the scene and low and behold he has a helicopter shooting high powered ammo at characters in the film and it looks good. I know he said it was 3D, but seeing it on screen you wouldn't have known it. Then he does a scene with a fake gun. It's a toy, (literally a green toy gun). But the crowd sees people running and a guy with a green gun running after him and they react just like if the guy had a real gun. When Stu digitally replaces the fake gun with a real one the scene looks incredible!Before you buy this book you should have a Mac or PC, with a nice amount of RAM because you will be using After Effects. This is like an After Effects manual specifically for action films, plus it has basic shooting tips for making action films that come off as really advanced, but when he breaks it down it makes all the sense in the world. And remember, he's still talking about doing this at the low-budget level so he's not spending millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.Finally, the writing isn't overly techy. If you've done digital filmmaking for awhile you can follow along. The book is down to earth and he explains what he's talking about. So if you're ready to move up from basic low budget action flicks to some really bad assed movie making, This is the book for you. I can honestly say I'll be using some things from here in my next film. If you buy my book, buy Stu's along with it. You wont be sorry.-Nathyn Brendan Masters

I have to admit that I have never liked the sort of "Action Movies" that this book was written about. Most of them are not worth the resources that were wasted to make them and that is why I could not give this book five stars. But the author does an excellent job of illustrating many of his techniques using his own short film "The Last Birthday Card". (Nevermind the twisted plot or lame excuse for a moral at the end of the story.) The techniques discussed in this worthy volume can be applied to many other types of movies. I had just purchased Adobe After Effects 7.0 and I was very pleased to find that the author had a great deal to say about how this powerful package can be used in the production of professional-quality sequences. Stu has a nice writing style and the book is an easy read for those who like to understand how things work.