Video Editing Books

Eden and Rory have provided us beginners with an excellent introduction into learning to use our Macs to keep those home movies and vacation videos from rotting on the shelf. The dialogue is clear with just enough technical information to give the 'newbie' a comprehensive picture of how to edit video on the computer with confidence. Most notable are their tutorials, which unlike most books of this nature, go beyond covering the use of the computer and provide excellent pointers on movie-making in general. After reading the book, not only have I been able to make entertaining videos through the editing techniques they describe, but my original footage has improved as well through their guidance on how to use my DV camera to get the best results. Thanks guys!!

I just got this book and it's the best of all the iMovie books I've used/read. Like "iMovies2 For Dummies," this book includes a very good DVD that includes visual/iMovie examples of the techniques and strategies that it explains in the book. For me, this the DVD is the selling point of the book--even though it is somewhat expensive.

I've always felt that a book talking about video/film production must have an accompanying CD or DVD. It's not just about visual learning, but moreso about providing effective examples of what is being explained about visual techniques. I mean...it only makes sense to talk about video technigues by using actual video examples. It really doesn't make sense to keep using a traditional form of communication (writing) to talk about an emerging and developing form of communication (digital video).

Besides the DVD, I also appreciate how the writers of this book provide strategies for different types of video productions--instructional video, music video, documentary video, home video, and short fictional movies. It's the only book I know of that talks about these types of video productions using iMovie. Thus this book (along with another one titled "The Little Digital Video Book, by Micheal Rubin) to me is for the serious/intermediate digital camera and iMovie users.

Finally, I would just like recommend another new book for those like me who want to one day move beyond iMovie to something more professional: Micheal Wohl's "Editing Technqiues with Final Cut Pro" (Peachpit Press) is a very good book on video editing--no matter what editing software you're using. All three of these books should be on your library reference shelf.

This is a fascinating look inside filmmaking. Most of the examples are from the 1960s and 1970s, but that does not lessen the impact or relevance.

The author is a master of the film editing craft. He also writes with insight and emotion. As you read, you'll learn how a film is "cut", how a film evolves, and what makes a film "work."

This book deserves a place in the bookcase of any student of the filmmaking art or craft.

Rosenblum edited feature films from the late 50s until early 80s, and is most noted for his collaborative efforts with Woody Allen in the 1970s. But his most interesting stories in the book are from a decade earlier when he was still experimenting. Though, I have only seen about half of the movies Rosenblum writes of, it makes the stories no less fascinating.

Rosenblum's major accomplishment in the book is to shed light on the importance of the film editor in motion pictures. He's not wrong in stating that their efforts have been largely ignored by critics and the public at large. What's interesting is that the editor as an influence in film is rarely even discussed by film critics and historians. It's probably because people are largely unsure of what an editor's true contributions are to any one motion picture.

Through the course of the book, Rosenblum takes apart THE RAID ON MINSKY'S, THE PAWNBROKER, and ANNIE HALL in depth. He also gives examples of how much an initial cut of a film can differ from the final cut.

I found the book quite informative, and learned more about film editing than I had expected.

This book is excellent for beginners (as is the 6.x version). It's chock full of tutorials. I wouldn't recomend it for the advanced user, however. I believe that the "Bible" series is appropriate for more advanced users.

This book is a great start on your journey into the world of using Photoshop 5. You will be amazed at how easy the software is to use when you use the examples in this book.

This book is amazing! I got it on a friday and by saturday night I had finished it. The book is not short, mind you, I just couldn't put it down. I no trouble with any of the tutorials. I breezed right through them! Not only does it give you training on how to use the software, it also offers tutorials on basic editing techniques. Despite what other reviewers might have said, this book's CD is easy to navigate, I had no trouble finding any of the files, and if you don't know what "fading titles" are you obviously made the wrong decision purchasing this book and the software it refers to. I had a blast with the book and tutorials, and rushed to purchase the AfterEffects Classroom in a Book shortly after reading it.

If you've never used Photoshop before, this book is a great guide. Each chapter focuses on a few tools, so you don't get overwhelmed. And, each chapter is a lesson devoted to the use of those tools. The enclosed CD contains all the lessons used in each chapter.

During my Master's work in Design and Digital media, we were required to train in photoshop and illustrator. This was the text for that training. From the perspective of a student in a teach yourself environment, I felt this book presented itself well. The layout and information was informative. The lessons are great if you learn best through hands on application. I really recommend this series if you have the time to dedicate yourself to it. You will learn a firm foundation in which to advance yourself on your own. These books now serve as a reference on my bookshelf.

This book's title should be - "How to write a formulaic TV movie of the week screenplay"

Quote from the book:

"...is the main reason why flashbacks, flashforwards, and narration are generally undesirable as storytelling devices today. These devices call the audience's attention to the fact that they are watching a movie..."

-Sorry Lew, this may be true in writing flavor of the week made for TV films (which is what Lew is famous for) which thrive on mundane factoids and hype from news stories, but you are simply wrong. Gee, lew, what could have made them realize that they are watching a movie, perhaps that they ARE STARING AT A FREAKING BOX ON THE WALL? This guy is a completely inept buffoon. I agree that flashforwards are generally useless, but flashbacks and narration are very useful tools which can enrich a good story.

In another section, he defines what a melodrama is:

"Melodrama is most simply a story in which guns are available to solve the character's problems."
"Melodramas nearly always have chase sequences in their running screen time"

-Uh, sorry Lew, but that is not the definition of a Melodrama, the term you are looking for is ACTION FILM! I am not going to go into the definition of melodrama. why waste my time? The point is that this guy is quite simply WRONG in many regards and therefore should not be trusted to give advice to someone who actually wants to make quality flicks.

He stresses research. Research is secondary or even tertiary. Trying to needlessly incorporate a bunch of superfluous facts is a good way to lose an audience's interest.

The book is long-winded, boring, self-indulgent, and lacking insight. If you have any kind of natural storytelling talent, this guy will only de-evolve your thinking.

Oh, by the way, the book's lessons are structured often off of Lew's own godawful screenplays. I WILL not be finishing this book because it has already wasted enough of my time, and I will be starting syd field's book which I have heard good things about. I will be throwing this book in the trash can right after I finish typing this sentence.

This is basically Hunter's class that he teaches at UCLA. It really is great stuff and invaluable for screenwriters. Take heed all of the advice given between the covers. 434 will show you the ways and means to finish a screenplay. The only thing this book lacks is a close knit group of creative minds to read and edit your work.

Very helpful. Takes you through the screenwriting process step-by-step. Inspiring and grounded in Lew's own experience as an award winning screenwriter. He's one of the few authors of screenwriting how-to books who's actually made a living as a successful screenwriter himself.

This book is especially good for those who know some screenwriting basics. Lew offers great examples and probes the writer into digging deeper and not taking the cliche' route. If you write, you should read this book. In fact, directors, editors, actors, cinematographers, etc. should also read it.

In the process of getting my MFA in Creative Writing, I picked up many books to learn more about becoming a professional writer. Lew Hunter's Screenwritiing 434 was one of most interest, due to my evergrowing desire to break into the screenwriting business once I finish my degree. I finished it immediately and wasn't able to put it down.

Many might sratch their head and think, "what does a small-town Nebraskan know about screenwriting?" The answer is, "A HECK of a lot." Hunter has been a screenwriting professor at UCLA since 1979 and before that worked as a writer for television shows such as "Batman" and "Bewitched." He knows the business and has been a creative consultant for many writers working in the business today. Many of his alumni are prominent screenwriters today, such as David Koepp, Joel Schmacher and Alexander Payne. Steven Spielberg has claimed that Hunter is the best screenwriting teacher going. Pretty good evidence of his skill and knowledge, don't you think?

Hunter writes in a way that encourages, but at the same time is realistic. He wants people reading the book to open their mind and follow what they want. He also wants to make sure they know the do's and don'ts of the business. He gives excellent examples and explanations of what to do. Basically, he tells people that besides following a few certain groundrules, there is no one right or wrong way to write. A little bit of creativity, imagination and dedication will get the writer further than they ever thought possible.

I also went to one of Lew Hunters screenwriting colonies in Superior, Nebraska and must say that I have never had as great of an experience as that. So comfortable, peaceful, helpful, essential and enjoyable. Kind of like this book. Pick it up today.

The book was useful, but the service from Amazon was terrible! It took two weeks to deliver and they still delivered it somewhere else. Had to get a replacement. After all the wait, the book was surely not worth the headache.

Wow! What a comprehensive and thorough tool for creating effective treatments and how to use them. I have no doubt that the information in this book will help writers sell their work and prevent unnecessary efforts that will not get results.

I enjoyed the book on writing treatments that sell. It was in very excellent condition. It covers a lot of areas. It really help in letting you konw how the hollywood industry work.

Very well written, easy to follow, guides you in the right direction. Whether what they tell you will really work or not is up to you, but it's an awesome guide. See ya on the red carpet!

The book provided insightful ideas about how to craft movie and tv movie and series treatments (many of which I incorporated into my own treatment), and provided somewhat dated guidance about registration of the treatment and other protections with the Writers' Guild (you can now do it online), but fell dramatically short (sorry!) of providing insight as to how to market it.

All I wanted was to quickly find out how to view my video
on screen. this is a simple task in IMovie. The book spends
lots of time on editing. How about explaining how to view the
video and select which parts to keep and which to eliminate?

Frustrating experience. this is the first Peachtree book that
truly disappointed me.

Though the book is informative and well worth the money it doesn't even begin to cover the multitude of bugs asscoiated with FCP which is what really would have helped me.

I'm befuddled by the fact that anyone would give this book a positive review. The book essentially is just a restatement of the program manual, which, itself, is worthless.

A wonderfully comprehensive index helps one go back and find that special tool or effect you're looking for and how to implement it. One reviewer criticized, and said this book requires you already have a basic knowledge of non-linear editing; if you aren't a serious editor and already have some knowledge of the basics, you shouldn't even be thinking about Final Cut Pro. That being said, this book is a fabulous tool that I have parked by my G 4 to help me "remember" what I learned two months earlier the last time I used FCP. A huge asset!

I teach Final Cut Pro at United Digital Artists (UDA.com) in New York City and this is the book that we give to all of our students. It is an excellent reference guide and by my side when I edit.

BUT

Final Cut Pro 2.0 has just been released and it comes with a 1400 page manual. I look forward to Lisa's revision.

This was one of the most aggravating books I've ever read. The book purports to explain color correction but does not guide you through the process. Instead it gives you directions like "first adjust the black levels, then move on to fine tune the colors..."

Without actually telling you how to perform any of the adjustments the book is describing it's almost worthless. The reader is left with the same questions they had before they read it.

Great book that I have been looking for. This book was written in a style that I, an offline editor trying to move up to online work, could understand. It deals with how to color correct - not just how to use a specific tool (though it does that also). Well worth the money!

I never get desappointed when I get a new book from DV collection.
This book was an excellent acquisition, it goes into details and shares the experience of the author. It is not only for the video enthusiast but for professionals who work on video as a reference book.
It shows a broad collection of tools that will help us make a better video and also correcting those shots made by consumer DV cameras.

This is a fantastic book - required reading for anyone producing video.

Everyone will have tried basic color correction and been confounded by the number of parameters that all seem to do the same thing, yet interact to produce worse results than you started with. This book goes into great detail about how luminance and color influence your image and leads you through excercises to try on your own material, and images provided on the enclosed CD.

Although it is a technical subject, it is written in a very readable way.

It is amazing the changes that happen with quite subtle adjustments. That is the key to everything. Subtlety that creates great results.

The book covers color correction to match other footage, but also correction to create special effects and drama. There are even examples of how to highlight the subject from a confused background.

A, MUST READ book that should be on everyone's shelf.

The book does a good job of being an overview for color correcting video - but unfortunately because it avoids anything application specific it fails to show you how to do stuff in your specific NLE. Training dedicated to a specific application & color correction- like my FCP training DVD by Digital Film Tree is much better because it teaches the theory AND the tool - so you cover both angles while this was just the theory. But that may be what you want - or your NLE may not have a book about color correction dedicated to it. If you're a FCP user, there's a book called 'Advanced Finishing Techniques' in the Apple Training Series that I would recommend over this one.

This seems to be a strong resource but I honestly have not gotten that deep into.

I am moving through this book and very much appreciate the charts for reference, the clarity in his explanations, the repetition of important distinctions, and the repetition shortcuts throughout the exercises so that by the end of the book, you really can use the shortcuts. So far, I especially appreciate the in depth explanation of blending modes, that I have never found in any of the other adobe introductory books read to date.

This Flash book is very thorough and the tutorials are simple to follow. I love it includes a disc that holds all of your tutorial files to help you along the way. I definitely recommend this book to someone who is new to the program and wants to learn it all!

Todd Perkins is the worst teacher I have ever encountered. He's very good at explaining over and over everything that is obvious, and he leaves out what you need to know in order to actually do anything. It's frustrating.

I've used the previous two versions of this book to teach from, as well as this one, and the amount of space devoted in this book to practical applications of Flash is very small. 2 versions back most of the exercises focused on creating a flashed based site and the last two versions get into that less and less - as a matter of fact there is hardly any content in this latest edition that would help a novice build a flash site. Several files were missing or incomplete. Some screenshots were not updated from previous editions where the exercise had changed and the screenshots themselves were very small - no one had a good time trying to read the code in them. Half the books fell apart as well. I'll be looking for another book for next time.

Consider this book well-researched, but written by an outsider. As such, if you follow it religiously you'll find your scripts always smell a little bit like heartland spec.

You're better off with a book written by someone who's worked in Hollywood with scripts, in the trenches, reading till his eyes bleed. There are other guides written by such industry insiders -- decorum prohibits me listing them here, but they're easy enough to find.

Put it this way: do you really want a screenwriting guide written by a guy who lives in Massachusetts? :-)

This book is so incoherently and terribly written that I only got through the 3rd page of the intorduction out of morbid fascination. Consider a sentence from the author's biography that illustrates, simultaneously, his lack of grammatical ability and credits:

"Awarded a Playwriting Fellowship by the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, he is a former Boston and Washington D.C. editor, reporter and photographer."

That is, by the way, the most specific sentence of his four-sentence bio, besides "He graduated from Boston University".

A few sentences from the introduction:

"There will be some repetitious information on these pages. But, there are no wrong examples to remember. The Elements of Style for Screenwriters was not written to teach screenwriting, or to give you an insight into the dramatic art, although it might come close and I beg your forgiveness."

I accidentally bent the cover, but I am sure Barnes and Noble will take it back out of shame.

Yes, you'll use this book fewer times as you keep writing screenplays simply because you'll commit more of it to memory. Yes, you'll want one for your shelves, one for your briefcase, and one for your office. Yes, they'll all be well used. And yes, this will be as invaluable a tool to you as your best loved dictionary and thesaurus. I require it of all my screenwriting students who are discouraged from ever selling it back to the bookstore, especially if they plan to take an advanced class with me. I also recommend this to all my workshop participants.

Get this book, read it through cover to cover once, and then flip through the alphabetized screenwriting terms when you need to refresh yourself as you write your script. Good luck with your project!

This book is basically an extensive glossary of screenwriting terms, and will help the beginning (and the experienced) screenwriter make sure that his or her screenplay is formatted correctly and that it uses the correct terms. The book is arranged alphabetically, so if you need to look up "Fade In" or "Margins," you can turn right to the correct pages.
The book lists a lot of terms, however, that you should never use in a spec script that you just want to show to producers and investors. Use this in conjuction with other screenwriting books to get a better idea of this.
The book is not always perfectly written either--and don't let its title fool you into thinking it has anything to do with Strunk and White--but it is helpful, and when I'm writing a screenplay, I use it often.

If you're into writing screenplays, this is THE Essential Screenplay Writer's Guide. I used it to write a couple of screenplays for Triggerstreet.com. In all of the feedback I received, not one person knocked the style of my works.

In the couple of weeks since receiving the book from Amazon, I have systematically gone thru the lessons for Adobe Premiere Elements 4. The book does an excellent job of introducing the learner to the program. What I can't remember how to do, I can go back later to refresh my memory. Problem is, I am running into program crashes now that I've begun to use PE4 with my own video. I've converted my video to AVI (huge files!) and am hoping I can eventually come up with a finished product using the nice features to which I was exposed thru the Classroom in a Book lessons. So, buy the book but don't assume learning to use the program will be the end of it. What a hassle!

When I got the product, an Adobe photoshop Software, I tried to install it on my computer. I got a message: "you need to call adobe photoshop assistace customer service". I called the Adobe and I was asked about the serial number. I gave the serial number, they told me it was a pirate copy, the serial number was unknown!
When you buy a software, make sure it has a correct serial number because Window Vista recognizes some pirate products and will prevent you to install it.
Bye.

Because Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 & Adobe Premeier Elements 4 do not
come with a manual then I needed to get a book to use the softwear. I
have purchased other Classroom in a book- manuals before and found that
I learned so much using them. The DVD that comes with it is very good also. Well worth the money - & time using it.

Being the sort of person who likes to show a quality slide show I decided to buy this learning tool. I had used both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements starting with versions 4 and 2 respectively. Since I don't use these products excessively I suffer from cold storage from time to time. A little over a year ago my daughter got married and I was compelled to become proficient(using versions 5 & 3 at the time), quickly with both products and ultimately was able to author a very nice DVD covering her wedding shower, gown selection, a myriad of other little important things regarding the wedding preparation along the way, the rehearsal dinner and of course the main event, as well as, the morning after gift opening breakfast.

Needless to say when the wedding was over I presented them with their special DVD and immeditaely set the products aside. I recently purchased the current bundled versions of PS6 & PE4. I was preparing for a one-week trip to Yosemite National Park with my new Canon VIXIA HV30 HI Def camcorder. Before the trip I decided to get familiar with the new bundled versions of Photoshop 6 and Premiere Elements 4 that I had recently bought. At first blush they looked familiar, but I realized the more I played with them that the user interface had significantly changed - I believe for the better. So I decided to buy this aid, 'Classroom In A Book' for PS6 and PE4. Since the largest changes involved the User Interface for Premiere Elements 4, I started working on those exercises and immediately became familiar with all the facets of this great product again simply by working through the exercises, in the book.

I would highly recommend this learning aid, particularly if you are a casual user who needs to get up to speed quickly. For those who wish to become advanced, frequent users, there are other excellent reference and instructional/informative books, ie., Steve Grisseti and Chuck Engels.

This is an excellent learning tool for those beginning to use Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. There are very few "rough edges" in the presentation that can confuse the starting learner due to editing that was not thorough enough. (Please note, it is my biased opinion that any self-learning product should be held to a much higher level that a text book that is used in class.) In any case, I found it to be very useful and instructive. Highly recommended.