FAO Johnny Ultimate & other aficionados

batnolan

I am subscribed to movie analyzer 'Every Frame a Painting' on youtube. Some of the analysis he comes out with is brilliant and interesting.

Are there any good sites/books/material that you would recommend to improve ones technical knowledge on films from aspect ratio to different lenses to how scripts are written?

Many thanks!

e_e

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Read-Film-Multimedia-Language/dp/0195321057/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425255357&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+read+a+film

I've found this book to be excellent. Looks at film thoroughly from a technical, cultural and historical perspective.

batnolan

Many thanks e_e! That is exactly the type of thing I was after.

On a slightly different note; who is your favourite director?

e_e

Of all time? I'd say Hayao Miyazaki.

johnny_ultimate

For the nitty gritty technical aspects, there's no shortage of guides which will run you through everything from pre-production to post-production (and beyond). I had to review this one a few years ago and it was good for that: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Filmmakers-Handbook-2013-Steven-Ascher/dp/0452297281/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425296065&sr=8-1&keywords=filmmakers+handbook

A lot of those books would be more technically and practically minded, so best to balance it with some more critical works that actually show how these things are applied artistically (like Every Frame a Painting). I'd say a good starting point would be Mark Cousins' A Story of Film: An Odyssey (it's a TV series, haven't read the accompanying book). It's not only a really thorough look at the the history of film on a global scale, but also Cousins also provides plenty of analysis of the films throughout as well.

shazzerman

While, to me, he comes across as a bit of an I-AM-THE-VOICE-OF-REASON type of theorist, David Bordwell has written some very useful books that cover a very wide area of filmmaking: Film Art: An Introduction is probably the best. The Cinema Book, edited by Pam Cook, is also very good. Okay, both of those are aimed at the academic, but if you want to learn...

Psychedelic

Here are some good channels & websites I follow:

Filmmaker IQ
Lots of film theory here, all brilliantly presented.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFAYalJ2Q7Tm_WmLgetmeg

filmschoolcomments
Snippets of DVD commentaries relating to just film theory & production.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyGi33538KzB1ILhEUUNnVw

Red Letter Media
Their Half in the Bag series and especially the Plinkett reviews go in depth into the hows & whys of what makes a film work or not, funny too.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrTNhL_yO3tPTdQ5XgmmWjA

Film Crit Hulk
His writing style is a bit annoying and very long-winded but he does have very insightful and in-depth articles on films:
http://badassdigest.com/author/67

Sad Professor

What’s so refreshing about Every Frame a Painting (bolstered in no small part by Zhou’s command of the video essay format) is its focus on film form rather than content. It’s actually somewhat unique in this regard. Other than Boardwell’s Film Art book (which I’d consider essential) and other video essayist like kogonada, Seitz and Kevin Lee, there’s not much else like it out there that I’d recommend. The best way to learn the language of film is by watching films and paying attention to the visual storytelling.

johnny_ultimate

And the simplest tip of all (after 'watch more films'): spend time reading about a film after you've watched it. A lot of this stuff accumulates over rather than arriving in one book or video. Read the essays you get with Masters of Cinema or Criterion releases (most of the latter are available online). Check out sites like Senses of Cinema, David Bordwell's site or others for more thorough, academic analyses. Just google a film and see where it takes you.

e_e

Sad Professor wrote: »

What’s so refreshing about Every Frame a Painting (bolstered in no small part by Zhou’s command of the video essay format) is its focus on film form rather than content. It’s actually somewhat unique in this regard.

Yeah I really dislike criticism (particularly of the modern YouTube reviewer variety) that focuses on the content and nothing else. Focusing on nit-picky plot details instead of aspects that are a lot more vital to the film's relative success or failure. It's what makes fairly ordinary fare get higher rated than bolder and more unique takes on a subject, bit of a pet-peeve of mine.

This is kinda what I'm talking about with the clips of Imitation Game and Theory of Everything:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGc-K7giqKM

batnolan

Many many thanks to all!

I took a battered copy of How to Read a Film by James Monaco out of the library. It looks abit intimidating.