Production & Technology

From an amateur video maker to a pro in a week (or less) – discover how to produce high quality professional videos without breaking a sweat or buying costly equipment

Are you expected to make a video presentation at work, a professional webinar, or as fun content for social media, but you feel inadequate?

Would you like to include videos in your content marketing strategy but have no clue where to start?

Maybe you’ve tried making a few videos, but the outcome has not even been half of what you see online, and you can’t figure out why.

Don’t worry – many people feel clueless when starting, but they learn the necessary skills with the right guidance.

The average online user spends more time watching videos than browsing images or reading text.

Over 70% of online traffic is video content, indicating a high likelihood of internet users viewing videos.

Videos are popular to consume because they are easy to watch and deliver versatile messages while keeping the user engaged.

While video content has all these perks, it remains less competitive because making high-quality videos is a rare skill that only a few possess.

Would you like to join the elite team?

You are in luck, because all the tools needed to sharpen your skills are outlined right inside.

In Video Making for Beginners, you will find an in-depth guide on how to create professional-grade videos for any project – no matter the subject area and is divided into 5 distinct sections, covering all aspects of video production. You’ll also discover:

• How to choose the appropriate equipment and accessories without exceeding your budget
• How to plan and prepare including budgeting, goal setting and avoiding common mistakes
• How to create video scripts from scratch and develop winning storylines for different audiences and project needs
• A detailed guide on the video-making process to empower you and boost your confidence by improving your skills
• How to prepare your space – whether at home, outdoors, or in a formal setting – for filming to ensure you get the best shots
• Everything you need to create the perfect shot – with recommendations for both beginners and expert videographers alike
• Expert-approved guidelines to follow when producing videos to ensure you end up with crisp-clear content for your professional and personal uses
• Marketing and optimization hacks for your videos on whichever platform you may want to post on
• How to polish and fine-tune the raw video content for a more professional outcome that will trend for weeks

And there is a lot more!

You may assume that video production is too complicated to learn, but this guide will show you just how straightforward it can be.

Making videos for YouTube, work, or social media marketing is easier than most think it to be.
All you need is to grasp the basic concepts inside, and you’ll acquire invaluable skills to last you a lifetime – or two!

If you want to increase your following by making high-quality videos, then go ahead and grab your copy right now.

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Timing for Animation has been one of the pillars of animation since it was first published in 1981. Now this 40th anniversary edition captures the focus of the original and enhances this new edition with fresh images, techniques, and advice from world-renowned animators. Not only does the text explore timing in traditional animation, but also timing in digital works.

Vibrant illustrations and clear directions line the pages to help depict the various methods and procedures to bring your animation to life. Examples include timing for digital production, digital storyboarding in 2D, digital storyboarding in 3D, and the use of After Effects, as well as interactive games, television, animals, and more. Learn how animated scenes should be arranged in relation to each other, how much space should be used, and how long each drawing should be shown for maximum dramatic effect.

All you need to breathe life into your animation is at your fingertips with Timing for Animation.

Key Features:

• Fully revised and updated with modern examples and techniques

• Explores the fundamentals of timing, physics, and animation

• Perfect for the animation novice and the expert

Get straight to the good stuff with simple, no-nonsense instruction on the key techniques like stretch and squash, animated cycles, overlapping, and anticipation.

Trying to time weight, mood, and power can make or break an animation—get it right the first time with these tried and tested techniques.

Authors

Harold Whitaker was a BAFTA-nominated professional animator and educator for 40 years; many of his students number among today’s most outstanding animation artists.

John Halas, known as “The father of British animation” and formerly of Halas & Batchelor Animation Studio, produced more than 2,000 animation films, including the legendary Animal Farm (1954) and the award-winning Dilemma (1981). He was also the founder and president of the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA) and former Chairman of the British Federation of Film Societies.

Tom Sito is Professor of Animation at the University of Southern California and has written numerous books and articles on animation. Tom’s screen credits include Shrek (2001) and the Disney classics Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). In 1998, Tom was named by Animation Magazine as one of the 100 Most Important People in Animation.

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Unleash your Creativity and Master the art of Video Editing with “Adobe Premiere Pro 2023 – An Illustrated Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners.” Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced editor, this book is designed to help you achieve your video editing goals with ease. It provides step-by-step instructions and detailed illustrations to help you navigate through Premiere Pro and create high-quality videos effortlessly.

Inside the book, you will learn how to navigate through Premiere Pro’s interface, organize media files, edit video and audio tracks, create and customize transitions and effects, utilize color grading and correction tools, work with text and titles, add music and sound effects, and record and edit voiceovers.

Additionally, you will learn how to apply keyframes and motion graphics to your videos, export your finished projects, use proxies, third-party plugins, masks, and tracking, as well as edit for social media platforms, and troubleshoot common issues.

Don’t let video editing intimidate you any longer – pick up this illustrated step-by-step guide and start creating Amazing videos today!

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The reviewer of the Boston Globe said point blank: “Over the years, I’ve read hundreds of books on Hollywood and the movie business, and this one is right at the top.” As the elusive, tyrannical head of the Music Corporation of America (MCA) until the 1990s, Lew Wasserman was the most powerful and feared man in show business for more than half a century. His career spanned the entire history of the movies, from the silent era to the present, and he was guru to Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and Jimmy Stewart, and to a new generation of filmmakers beginning with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. For more than four years, Dennis McDougal interviewed over 350 people who knew the man with the giant dark horn-rimmed glasses,colleagues, relatives, rivals,and drew on tens of thousands of pages of documents to produce this extraordinary and first-ever portrait of a legend and his times, a book that the New York Times Book Review called “thoroughly reported and engrossing” and that the Daily News called, simply, “a bombshell.”

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A deep dive into the emergence and success of independent filmmaking in America
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
The most important development in American culture of the last two decades is the emergence of independent cinema as a viable alternative to Hollywood. Indeed, while Hollywood’s studios devote much of their time and energy to churning out big-budget, star-studded event movies, a renegade independent cinema that challenges mainstream fare continues to flourish with strong critical support and loyal audiences.
Cinema of Outsiders is the first and only comprehensive chronicle of contemporary independent movies from the late 1970s up to the present. From the hip, audacious early works of maverick David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and Spike Lee, to the contemporary Oscar-winning success of indie dynamos, such as the Coen brothers (Fargo), Quentin Tarentino (Pulp Fiction), and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Levy describes in a lucid and accessible manner the innovation and diversity of American indies in theme, sensibility, and style.
Documenting the socio-economic, political and artistic forces that led to the rise of American independent film, Cinema of Outsiders depicts the pivotal role of indie guru Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival in creating a showcase for indies, the function of film schools in supplying talent, and the continuous tension between indies and Hollywood as two distinct industries with their own structure, finance, talent and audience.
Levy describes the major cycles in the indie film movement: regional cinema, the New York school of film, African-American, Asian American, gay and lesbian, and movies made by women. Based on exhaustive research of over 1,000 movies made between 1977 and 1999, Levy evaluates some 200 quintessential indies, including Choose Me, Stranger Than Paradise, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet, Desperately Seeking Susan, Slacker, Poison, Reservoir Dogs, Gas Food Lodging, Menace II Society, Clerks, In the Company of Men, Chasing Amy, The Apostle, The Opposite of Sex, and Happiness.
Cinema of Outsiders reveals the artistic and political impact of bold and provocative independent movies in displaying the cinema of “outsiders”-the cinema of the “other America.”

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This is a manual for screenwriters and filmmakers in the form of notes. These provide a step-by-step, common sense guide, with suggestions on how writers can best present themselves to the industry. This book does not explain how to write a screenplay. Instead, it provides insider confidences from established industry players and peers on how to have a professional approach to writing. A revelation for all would-be screenwriters, this is a guide to living the screenwriter’s life: the habits, creative processes and writing atmosphere.

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Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were true visionaries of British cinema, creating glorious Technicolor masterpieces including A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948).

Delving into their magical and obsessive worlds, this lavishly-illustrated publication presents fresh perspectives on the filmmaking duo, shining the spotlight not only on them, but also on their circle of talented collaborators. Thelma Schoonmaker, Caitlin McDonald, Alexandra Harris, Mahesh Rao, Sarah Street, Ian Christie and Marina Warner write about the key figures who shared Powell and Pressburger’s creative journey, and Tilda Swinton, Tim Walker, Sarah Greenwood, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Sandy Powell, Joanna Hogg and Stephen Jones reflect on the ways in which Powell and Pressburger’s stories and images have haunted and inspired them in their own work. The Cinema of Powell and Pressburger draws on the BFI’s stunning design and archive collections, as well as key objects held in other public and private collections.

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Wedding production is unique in that every shot must be obtained in a single take, as in documentary filmmaking, but the client expects the finished product to look like a feature film, with perfect capture of every moment. Getting good-looking footage, while fighting problems such as loud settings, uncontrollable light and rapid scene changes, make wedding videography very challenging compared to other types of filmmaking. “”Wedding Videography: Start to Finish”” is the first technical guide that explains how to balance the expectations of the bridal couple with the realities of single-take shooting. These discrepancies will be explained through lessons in gear selection, shot set-up, how to work in poorly lit conditions, and how to make the best of bad angles, audio and light. The book further explains how to improve and stylize footage through editing and post production techniques. With “”Wedding Videography: Start to Finish,”” video amateurs and professionals new to wedding coverage alike will find a complete guide on every aspect of becoming a successful wedding videographer, from selecting production gear and software through the shooting and editing process, and even the business aspects of the wedding industry including client expectations, wedding etiquette, legal issues and product delivery.

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Stop motion animation is a challenging and time-consuming skill that requires patience, adaptability, and a close eye to detail. Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation, 3rd Edition is the essential guide to help stop motion animators overcome these challenges of this highly-skilled craft. Author Susannah Shaw provides a step-by-step guide to creating successful stop motioin films. Starting with some basic exercises, the reader will learn about developing a story, making models, creating sets and props, the mechanics of movements, filming postproduction, and how to set about finding that first elusive job in a modern studio.

Key Features

• Interviews with current stars,

• step-by-step examples,

• coverage of Rapid Prototyping and Dragonframe Software　

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This is a comprehensive and systematic history of British film studios, arranged in alphabetical order and cross-referenced throughout. It also studies the roles of directors, producers and stars including Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor.

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The International Film Business considers the independent film sector as a business, and the specific skills and knowledge that it requires. It describes both the present state of the independent film industry and the significant technological developments that have begun to take place, and what changes these might effect.

The International Film Business:

• describes the present organization of the entirety of the film industry as a business
• discusses how digital technology is currently and how it potentially may change the structure of the industry in the future
• gives information and advice on the different business skills that are necessary to navigate what is a very high-risk, pyrotechnical industry.

Taking an entrepreneurial perspective on what future opportunities will be available to prepared and informed business students and emerging practitioners, this text includes case studies that take students through the successes and failures of a variety of real film companies/projects and exclusive interviews with leading practitioners in all sectors of the industry, from production to exhibition.

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Hit and Run tells the improbable and often hilarious story of how two film packagers well known for spending other people’s money and ripping off credit for other people’s work went on a deliberate campaign to reinvent themselves as studio executives. With the exception of Batman, Jon Peters and Peter Guber were barely involved with the most successful films they “produced.” Steven Spielberg wouldn’t allow them on the set of The Color Purple, and they werre on the set of Rain Man only once, briefly. With the help of one of Michael Milken’s top lieutenants, they succeeded. It was the most audacious sales job of their careers: This unlikely team got Sony to give them the richest deal in Hollywood history.

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Here it is: the first-time look at the remarkable American multinational mass media empire and its century of entertainment―the story of Twentieth Century Fox (1915–2015). Or, to borrow the title of a classic 1959 Fox film, The Best of Everything. This is the complete revelatory story―bookended by empire builders William Fox and Rupert Murdoch―aimed as both a grand, entertaining, nostalgic and picture-filled interactive read and the ultimate guide to all things Twentieth Century Fox. The controversies and scandals are here, as are the extraordinary achievements. Among other firsts, the book offers fun tours of its historic production and ranch facilities including never-before-told stories about its stars and creative personalities (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, James Dean, and Shirley Temple got started there). Finally, it is the first such work approved by the company and utilizing its own unique resources. The authors primarily tell a celebratory tale, but most importantly, an accurate one.

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Ealing Revisited provides a major reappraisal of one of British cinema’s best-loved institutions, Ealing Studios.

During its heyday, Ealing produced a string of classic comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955), but there is much more to Ealing than these films, as this volume of new writing on the studio shows.

Addressing both known and less familiar aspects of Ealing’s story, its films, actors and technicians, the contributors uncover what has gone unexplored, or unspoken, in previous histories of the studio, and consider the impact that Ealing has had on British cultural life from the 1930s to the present.

Listed in the Independent on Sunday’s Cinema books of 2012

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/ios-books-of-the-year-2012-cinema-8373713.html

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Anthony Minghella, the writer and director behind films like Truly Madly Deeply, The English Patient and The Talented Mr Ripley, here explores his own work and the art of film-making. He offers candid commentary and fascinating insights with chapters on subjects from the practical – ‘Writing’ or ‘The Business of Film’ – to the philosophical – ‘Structure’ or ‘Theories, Poetry and Mortality’.

With a preface by Sydney Pollack, this book is essential for admirers of the director’s work, or indeed for anyone enthusiastic about cinema in general. Minghella on Minghella is an opportunity to know what went on behind the camera – and the eyes – of one of the genre’s greatest modern practitioners.

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