Video Editing Books

I bought this book because I was having several technical issues for a long form project and I was hoping to get some insight into solving those problems. However, there was no pertinent information for trouble shooting my issues.

This is probably a great book for a beginner but if you are experienced at all, you won't find any useful information here.

This book is suprisingly bad, considering that it's put out by Avid. I agree completely with the other reviewer who compared this book unfavorably with the Final Cut Pro books put out by Apple's Training Series. Those books have clear exercises and go through the processes you're learning in a thorough step-by-step way. This book doesn't even explain the interface clearly. Then, suddenly you are instructed to hit keys that have never been mentioned before. The writer doesn't even tell you what footage he's working with most of the time. A real disaster.

Editing with Avid Xpress Pro and Avid Xpress DV is a terrific book for beginners and for intermediate editors as well. It doesn't waste time trying to interject "personality" into the text, it dives straight into teaching the Avid interface, buttons and basic editing techniques. It's organized well and can be used for quick reference, but it also contains exercises and short quizzes at the end of each chapter. The exercises contain real world footage that ranges from a PSA on the rainforest to an emergency room drama. The book gives you two ways to go through the exercises as well: 1. with detailed step-by-step instructions perfect for beginners or 2. with an outline of basic instructions that allows an intermediate editor to hone his/her skills when those step-by-steps plod you into a state of hypnosis.

It's a terrific guide with good sample footage and clear, concise explanations.

This book is put out by peachpit and frankly I'm surprised at the mediocre quality of it. I also purchased the Visual Quickbooks Xpress Pro book (also put out by Peachpit) and found it to be superior in every way but one. The single area in which the official Avid book stands out is the inclusion of a dvd of source material to be used in exercises. I consider this to be an absolute necessity when learning any complicated piece of software. However, the Avid book disappoints in its implementation. The Apple pro training series Final Cut Pro book incorporates the exercises directly into the chapters, meaning that you follow along as you learn. The Avid book on the other hand is laid out so that you read a chapter on how to do something, quiz yourself on your knowledge retention and then are provided an excersise section in which to practice what you have learned. Personally, I find it extremely difficult to read about a software interface without using it simultaneously. For this reason I greatly prefer Apple's layout. If this book didn't come with the DVD, I would have given it 2 stars.

Few books are written by *educational* departments. Most software books are written by people who managed to land a book deal.

Avid's own books is focused on *how to make the software work*. Editing aethetics come from you...not this book.

When finished you'll know what's important - soup to nuts how the software works. You should also pick up the Intro effects and the color correcting book.

In other words, each book of the series goes into how to make the tool work - having consulted with editors, Avid presents the materials in a logical, concise method to learn how the software works in the most efficient manner.

Like an onion, in layers, the difficulty increases throughout each of their books.

This book isn't worth the paper it's written on. There are too many other books worth reading on this subject, look for another option.

Although this book MAY be well received in many circles, this book is NOT for someone who is looking for basic instruction or new to Avid editing OR working in video. The total text is devoted to film and film editors. Video is NOT covered at all nor is working in broadcasting covered, so if you use a Avid in these fields (TV), buyer beware! This is directed towards MAC users so if you use a Windows (PC) system this book will be totally useless to you.

BUT...if you DO work in film and you want to know the advanced in and outs of some older Avid systems and are looking for contacts and information on becoming a "Hollywood editor"....this book is for you. Printed in 1999, this is very dated material with bad printing and should be priced as such. I suggest you pass unless this is a badly needed piece of reference material.

I'm returning it. Nuff said!

A wonderfully written, concise and easy to follow book that should be in easy reach of every edit room, digital or not. Mr. Solomons manages to answer all the questions for the beginner, provide a reference for the experienced, and a good read all around. If you edit, or wish to, you should read this book.

I've been in the NLE arena for 8yrs now and consider myself pretty quick on the uptake. I finally got out of the M100 ratrace and into Avid...yahoo..This book is very well laid out and easy to understand, not an like an engineers book. It's great for going over the things that every editor should keep in the Noogan on top of your shoulders. However, for someone who's never touched an Avid system, and even worse, for a person new to NLediting, this is not the book for you. It doesn't cover some of the basics that are need, esp. when making the switch from one nle to the other.(like keyboard shortcuts) All in all though, i'm definitly glad i bought the book..it is truely for any editor to use.

This book is less of an in-depth look at the AVID software and more of an orientation to the systems and procedures of digital editing. It's well written and laid out - but if you're looking for more nuts and bolts about the editing software itself, this is not the best book.

This book should be offered as a throw-in by Boris as it expends more words praising the program than actually teaching how to use it. Some features of the software have useful and informative tutorials, i.e. splines and masking, but others, such as motion tracking have only a press-release type blurb and are useless. The author writes well, just not enough about things that count. Don't buy unless you can look through it and see if it covers the topics you need.

Technically good book, but Boris is not intuitive, so I would have preferred a book with lots of examples on what the amazing Boris does and how to achieve the effect, rather than to sit down and wade through the interface, the preferences, open GL etc. Perhaps I should have watched someone doing it on a DVD instead.

My company has had Boris Red since version 2.2. Not having any formal training with the program, I shied away from it. I never had the time to teach myself to use it, nor to wade through the thick manuals that came with the software.

This book allowed me to sit down and very quickly create an effect that was responsible for securing an extremely large job for my small company. When I showed my boss the effect I created, he was literally speechless. The client was even more impresssed.

The software is not hard to use, but this book takes the guesswork out of getting started. I recommend you buy this book if you use any of the Boris products. There is much more in this book than the online documents or the manual offer, and it's much easier to sort through.

The description of this book says, "Documentation and training materials have been notoriously lacking for these applications" and this book continues with that tradition. I pre-ordered this book thinking I could add some advanced graphics to my video projects for school (Vegas 5 and Boris Graffiti) - Boy, was I wrong! This book is nothing but an expanded description of features offered by BORIS. It does not provide whatsoever any insight to instructing you on how to use this product effectively, or teach you techniques that can help WOW your targeted audience. You're better off going to the BORIS web site and reading what it has to offer. In fact you can download their PDF manuals directly and gain more knowledge. Do not waste your money! I know - I learned the hard way![....]

You can't beat what you get for the price. This book lays out in plain English how to use the Boris interface to do all the things you need to do and more. Many comparable technical books cost twice what this one costs or more and don't deliver any more for your money. Within minutes after looking through this book I had successfully accomplished something I had tried to create four times before with no luck. This book has earned a spot next to my computer.

Now, to reply to the negative (and what I consider unfair) review posted here:

"I pre-ordered this book thinking I could add some advanced graphics to my video projects for school (Vegas 5 and Boris Graffiti) - Boy, was I wrong!"

Indeed, you were. First of all, Graffiti is a titling tool -- you won't get many effects out of it since it only does titles. You need FX or RED to create effects. Secondly, there is an entire section in this book dedicated to using Boris with Vegas 5. Similar material can be found on the Boris website, but if I'm not mistaken, the author of this book is also the author or a contributor of those tips.

Having said that, if you only use Graffiti, this may not be the right book for you. If you want to know how to get the most out of FX or RED, it may be the best $25 you can spend.

This is a very funny book, with a lot of vivid characters and entertaining incidents. Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren are only a few of the famous figures who are shown here in unguarded moments. And the blighting of Hollywood by the Blacklist is shown in intimate portraits of the destruction of both individuals and families.

It is, however, only secondarily the story of Ben Barzman, a promising screenwriter forced into thirty years of European exile. The main story is about Norma Barzman, a talented writer herself, who falls in love with a man who is aggressively progressive on most subjects, but has reactionary ideas about women working.

Norma and Ben fall in love almost at first sight (and do they ever meet cute!). Though she is a working writer when they marry, he forces her to quit her job. He then takes her movie story ideas and passes them off as his own (as in "El Cid"), takes joint projects she initiated and demotes her to "researcher," or steals her work completely. Basically, he gets apoplectic and abusive every time she gets within hailing distance of professional recognition.

Norma Barzman loves and takes pride in the many children she raises, but the book laments the complete destruction of her self-confidence in her own talent. She stays married to the man who tries to destroy her, but occasionally strays into other men's beds in her unhappiness (which will disturb prudish, superficial and judgmental readers, but sadden the rest of us.)

When her husband dies after 47 years together, she slowly but surely regains her writing voice. The results are both satisfying and uncomfortable, as the Blacklist had a tendency to deform the personalities of its victims. But the story has more universal resonances than just the sad song of a life bent out of shape by circumstance and a tyrannical husband, and is well worth the read.

Please read the "Look Inside" to make your own mind up, rather than take heed of the two reviews by "A Customer" (are you allowed to write multiple reviews?) who obviously has a (political?) ax to grind.

God, this book is so sexy and thrilling, compared to the other worthy, dull, snoozy blacklist memoirs out there. Ms. Barzman has really lived a very full life and leaves no stones unturned, about her personal and professional frustrations, her life as a commie, her hubby being jealous, the umpteen affairs, her glitzy starstudded life in Hollywood and in Europe...the gossip is worth the price alone, but its much more than that; its fiercly political, feministic...and get this, she's still a political toughie, uncomprising and stilling fighting the good fight! Bravo!

This book is really not good. I am very interested in the blacklist period and screenwriting - despite the title this book does an awful job of telling you anything about those things.
All you learn about is Norma Barzman herself, and even though you only hear her side of the story, by the middle of her book you come to hate her, condemned out of her own mouth as a self-obsessed hypocrite.

How is she a hyprocrite? She's a supposed "communist" living in luxury in a South of France estate, employing servants to raise her kids.
She's a wife who shags all her loyal husband's friends behind his back.
She's someone who to this day calls herself a screenwriter when she has only one produced screenplay to her name, a 1953 Italian B-movie. She was shagging the friend of her husband who agreed to produce it.

It's a very irritating book, and really is best avoided.

This memoir of the alleged struggles of blacklisted, privileged, self-centered writer and adultress Norma Barzman reads like the chore list of some spoiled Beverly Hills trophy wife. Her supposed Communist ideology is all arm's length and she doesn't seem to have suffered at all after being exiled from the U.S. - in fact, as she puts it herself, she had "the time of her life" in France. So what's this drama queen's beef?

Mr Tone's book is informative, but not anything that cannot be found for nothing on the net for nothing. He is evidently well informed, possibly this is a prelude to something more substantial.

I found this book to be very helpful. It has a lot of information in one place that IÕve had only previously seen spread over three or four different books. It gets right to the point without any fluff. The tables that explain the different types of time code, how pull-downs work and the different types of digital audio alone make this worthwhile.

This is an excellent reference. It quickly and easily covers the main steps to getting through a project. It's short and to the point, which I liked. It doesn't go into great detail but it does give you a good overview of all the hows and whys for dealing with digital audio. Despite a few typos and its homegrown feel, it is well worth the money.

This book really only covers pull-down/pull-up in any depth, and that information is incorrect. It repeatedly refers to pulldown/pullup from film to video as being 1%, when it is actually .1%, a mistake by a factor of 10! That would make it hard to stay in sync! If you already know anything at all about film audio post, this book is too basic. If you don't, there are better sources, such as the Protools reference manual.

This book is more for inspiration, praises and introduction for the motion graphics works done by 18+ experts in the field.

Most examples are not really explained or guiding you in details. Many folders in the companion DVD do not contain the actual examples for you to follow. (This may be because as the book title said that these are studio secrets).

Read this book for leisure only but do not dwell on it.

I put the companion CD into one of my CD players and it doesn't work. I put it in another one of my CD players and it works fine...Some of the files on the CD are absolutely worthless...more fluff than substance...I will wait for Creating Motion Graphics with After Efects Volume 2 which is due out in March, 2003...Trish and Chris Meyer whose first book is excellent...continue with their expertise in the subject of After Effects and explain various applications that can be used with this application...Don't waste your time with this book...If there was a 0 star rating I would have given it that...but 1 is the lowest Amazon.com allows...

On the DVD accompanies this book in CHAPTERS folder many foldres are
empties

This book won't teach you the basics of Premiere and After Effects. What it does is look into the heads of 21 top artists. Very inspiring! These techniques could help me take my own digital art to a higher level.

You might find this book interesting if you've never read another book on screenwriting or human behavior. If you've read any of the other books in the field you will find this one inferior. Linda Seger's books on characterization are much better. I'm only glad I bought this title used from Amazon.com -- and I waited to sell it before I posted this review.

Well, I must say that =I= find Michael Halperin's book an essential screenwriting reference. Dr. Halperin was one of the best screenwriting instructors I had at USC's School of Cinema-Television, where he taught the future pros of the industry. His advanced screenwriting classes were some of the toughest in the school--and therefore the most worthwhile.

What's so good about Halperin's book? For one thing, he doesn't talk down to you as a screenwriter. In fact, he presumes that you know what you are doing. Imagine that! So he's not going to hold your hand through the elementary parts of introductory screenwriting. Try Syd Field for that. Instead, Halperin shows the already competent writer how to improve his or her script's ultimate impact by significantly improving characterization.

Although I may agree that script consultant Linda Seger's books are excellent and beneficial, it should be pointed out that she has never written a single screenplay in her life.! Dr. Halperin is a =working= writer in the film industry, and his book is a winner. Enough said.

As an aspiring screenwriter, I have devoured most of the commonly read texts currently available on the topic. Halperin's book does _not_ stand up favorably. In fact, not only is his writing style stilted and vague (e.g., non-specific use of "it" and "they", and more dumped quotes than you can shake your mouse at), his ideas are nothing more than lame banalities. For more info on writing pick up any of Syd Field's books, and for info on psychology any basic primer will do. His examples are not illustrative and his film analysis is at the middle-school level. Don't waste your money on this book like I did.

With all the screenwriting books on format and career success on the market it seems odd that there are only a handful of books devoted to the most important element of any good story--the CHARACTERS. Halperin's book is a welcome text on the subject, but it lacks the depth of Linda Seger's "Creating Unforgettable Characters. The chapters touch on essential elements found in successful stories such as myth, culture, and interior lives, but the examples and in-depth analysis are minimul. Many exercise questions at the end of each chapter fail to get the mind to develop the skills and ideas presented previously. The final chapter details what the author considers great characters from Citizen Kane to Forrest Gump, but I would have preferred more intense study of these characters within the subjects of each chapter. While I like this book for its contribution to a little written about subject I finished it feeling a bit shortchanged.

If you use the Macintrash and has tons of money for high-end software, this may be for you. For 99% of the world, this book doesn't give you anything you can put to use. Avoid.

I have been using a camera for many years (... has my boating/flying clips), know how FireWire Macs work, can throw a decent amateur home video together, and now with my PowerMac G4 and Apple's movie making magic apps I am begining to expand my horizons. So, I was pleasantly surprised at how much useful information I got from this book. I think the title is a bit misleading. FireWire has nothing to do with film making, IMHO. After all, that is like saying that I can become a better writer if I have DSL at home instead of a dial-up connection. (I do have DSL, and believe me, it did not make me a better writer ;-) ).

So, it is more appropriate to say that is is an excellent book for people planning to use FireWire ENABLED devices to get into the art, business or hobby of making movies. (Interesting that we still call it Film making when in fact most of the stuff we do on these technologies will never see a frame of film).

The book simplifies many of the mysteries that novice moviemakers may face as they not only try to learn how to use things like Final Cut Pro (or iMovie/iDVD etc. from Apple {... is a great resource)) but also figuring out what and how FireWire can do for them. This book simplifies that part quite a bit. I do most of my moviemaking with a decent consumer FireWire equipped Panasonic DV-701 and found this book helpful in deciding what level of camera to buy, for example, and why some day I will want to buy a 3-CCD camera instead of the one this camera is based on. It helped me understand what kind of techniques I could use in making movies with my equipment. It helped me understand some of the issues I would face if I wanted to make movies that would play in non-US parts of the world that use a different standard, etc. In short, I found the book extremely useful, extremely easy to read, detailed enough to be useful, not so detailed as to be boring and left unread or put on a shelf and forgotten.

If you are looking into making movies, ideally with a FireWire equipped set of tools, this is a great book, but even for people not ready to invest in all that FireWire equipment yet, the book will be a useful addition to their toolset.

This is overall a good book, although I did not find it too
useful for myself or my son (he is 12 and into moviemaking).
Not useful for two major reasons:
- mostly (if not exclusevely) oriented towards Mac hardware
and software (and higher end software),
- is for more advanced users, since it discusses semi-pro and
pro video equipment, and more than trivial editing tricks
and effects.
Nevertheless it is entertaining and educational to read and
includes a DVD ...

I think this was probably the first book on the market covering Adobe's new 6.5 version of Premiere and it's quite obvious.

Unfortunately even in the hands on "Quickstart" at the very beginning of the book there are several type-O's and incorrect wording. It's not spelling mistakes but incorrect words. As an example they tell you that you can preview the transition effect by "double-clicking the Transition icon in the Transition palette" when in fact you should double-click the Transition icon in the Timeline, NOT the Transition palette.

Additionally their numbers don't correspond when they tell you how long to make the example clips and where they should fall on the timeline.

There are several other examples just in the first few pages and for a newbie it makes following the example rather frustrating and confusing.

Since I'm only just this little bit into the book I can't say for certain if it gets better or worse or stays the same but it's very evident this book was rushed to market.

Funny enough too that even though the book is for Premiere 6.5 the CD includes a tryout version of Premiere 6.0!

There's no excuse for this kind of shoddy penmanship (typemanship??) and I highly recommend you wait for other books that are forthcoming - read: more thoroughly edited!

This book was very helpful in getting me started. I didn;t have a background in video but needed to do some work related projects. I found chapter 6 (editing audio) for seperating audio tracks helpful and chapter 7 (transitions) a big help for adding great effects to my videos!

It taught me what I needed to know about editting video with this powerful Adobe tool! Love the Bible series.

I don't know how helpful the book really is yet but I have a problem with paying $60 for a book that sells new for $35 I always access Amazon first because of the great deals this was a disappointment.

If you're the typical Mac enthusiast, you've dabbled in all the i-Apps, including iMovie. If you're like me, you've outgrown iMovie for many of your video projects. If you're also like me, you haven't got the kind of cash to splurge on Final Cut Pro, which costs as much as one arm, one leg, and some spare skin from the other leg. Final Cut Express fills the gap, allowing the video editor who works exclusively with the DV format a way to afford a powerful editing program.

The book being reviewed here, lest I forget and go off into Apple rapture, is Final Cut Express for Dummies. This book is a fine example of the For Dummies series of books from Wiley Publishing, Inc. Author Helmut Kobler is a well-known author on the subject of Final Cut Pro.

The For Dummies series of books is usually the way to go when learning a new application, in my opinion. This book is no exception. It's simply written, and well laced with a practical writing style that works well when mired in the complexities of a software application like Final Cut Express. The humor is not as prevalent as in other For Dummies books, but that's well compensated for in the straightforward way the information is presented. I definitely feel that I could use Final Cut Express to edit and output my next training or wedding video.

The book progresses in orderly and clearly written fashion, from importing, capturing and organizing your video media to editing basics and some more advanced techniques. Of special note is the nice way he discusses audio techniques within Final Cut Express. The first noticeable thing about any amateur video is the inadequate sound, and the author takes a fair amount of space helping you get the best audio tracks from your raw audio media.

Another great section is the ten tips for becoming a better editor, and the ten tips for making your editing easier. Nothing is worse than reading the Final Cut manuals, but not having any practical experience to using them in a real world way. These two sections go a long way toward helping the novice editor get a leg up on real-world application of the techniques that can be used in Final Cut Express.