World Famous Comics: Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries of Real Events
Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries of Real Events
By: Barry Hampe Publisher: Holt Paperbacks Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Holt Paperbacks Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 320 Publication Date: January 15, 1997
Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos is the perfect text for students of filmmaking who would like to make a documentary. Barry Hampe, who has made more than 150 documentary films and videos, traces the two main approaches to documentary--recording behavior and re-creating past events—and shows students how to do both effectively. Covering all the steps, from conceptualization to completion, the book includes chapters on visual evidence; documentary ethics; why reality is not enough; budgeting; and casting, crew, and equipment selection.
Good book for beginner I haven't read much, but the book is very thorough. Good for someone just getting into documentary films.
not the best guide this really isn't the best guide for documentary filmmaking. especially if your goal is to create an independent project. i wanted a "step 1, step 2. step 3..." guide. this was not it. also, the author's bias is toward behavioral documentaries, for profit.
Great Introductory Book I took a two week documentary filmmaking course recently and this book was our text. The majority of the class had no prior experience with making a movie of any sort so this book became our life. I felt it was very easy to comprehend and gave ALOT of great advice. For those who did have experience in filmmaking, which included shooting, editing, and distrubution, this was a refresher for them. Overall I'd say it was a great reference book to rely on.
More like "documentaries for dummies". If you have absolutely no experience whatsoever in writing to tell a story, filmaking, photojournalism, videography or communicating in any significant way, this book will be helpful if you're suddenly called upon to produce a documentary film or video.
The advice given here is very basic and really doesn't have all that much to do with making a documentary. For example, Hampe describes the roles of the people who might be found on a typical documentary crew, such as the scriptwriter and camera operator. In sum, this is really a book that describes the entire process of creating a documentary from coming up with an idea, capitalizing it, putting a crew together and so on. It really is for someone who has absolutely no experience whatsoever - and while there are many people who may dream of making a documentary, this book will not provide them with the experience they actually need.
The book is also increasingly outdated. Almost all of the technology Hampe describes for lighting, capturing images and sound, editing has been superceded.
The good thing about the book is that it is thorough: Hampe really does cover every step. But its odd that a book on documentary and reality video creation has not a single illustration. Very strange. Another thing in Hampe's favor is his writing style. Except for way too much patting himself on the back for his own work, Hampe writes in a clear manner.
Overall, this is a quick read and useful to those who have no experience whatsoever with the film making process, but have dreams of making documentaries. This book will not really teach you anything about actually making a documentary, but it does an okay job of describing the process.
Jerry
good book great book for his main points regarding the style and elements one should have in the documentary, mostly revolvong around the point of not having too many 'talking head' interviews and 'showing' the point more,,, the book isn't relevant at all regarding technologies, however, as it seems to be written before 1998 or so,,, but it's probably helpful to see everything from the past,,, overall a great book, i think, for someone like me who is just starting out and doesn't know where to begin,, this book definitely has given me a great idea of the directions i want to be heading in,
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