CUT PRINT
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Beyond the Matte
A Guide for Digital Artists
by Bill Stetz
Digital Compositing for Film and Video, Second Edition
By Steve Wright
Focal Press, 2006
452 pps, paperbound, $54.95
ISBN 13:978-0-240-80760-7
Steve Wright has created a well-written and thorough text for the digital technician. This in-depth approach to compositing is steeply based in the theory and the background of processes for the digital artist. Wright’s experience in feature films and television speaks for itself; his credits include work as a compositor on features Ray, Ali, Traffic, Air Force One, Batman & Robin. This book is a welcome addition to any technical library. His knowledge and ability spans from conventional film backgrounds to contemporary and future digital transitions that are commonplace today.
It is not light reading, although written in a very systematic and complete way so as to explain the basis for all compositing technique in the digital world. This book does not deal specifically with any one compositing platform or application, though examples based on Adobe Photoshop are used to explain methods of technique and demonstrate what actually occurs when compositing is implemented through other contemporary compositing tools. The book covers the fundamentals of pulling mattes from image files, as well as defines the various types of mattes commonly used. Also covered are how to refine mattes created from image files and apply those mattes in the process of compositing.
Wright does not leave the uninformed totally in the dark when it comes to teaching basics either. There are discussions of how basic computer concepts can level the playing field for those whose knowledge of bit depth, gamma and color blending modes is insufficient for understanding the more detailed aspects of achieving desired effects. Those who already know the fundamentals of color channels, color mixing, tonal curves and the principles of mattes will still find something to learn even in the review of the basics.
This Focal Press release meets the high standard of other offerings from this publisher with its clear and well-illustrated diagrams (notably in color) and example images, which make the book very pleasing to read––even if the material is somewhat dense for the casual reader or novice compositor. For those with an intermediate or advanced knowledge in the digital realm of filmmaking or image manipulation, this book makes for a clean and particularly thought-out guide to explain how compositing is best approached, how the underlying actions for matte creation and compositing operate, and what techniques make for the best methods of dealing with various types of images.
Digital Compositing for Film and Video also includes the graphic device of a series of three running icon indicators that denote to the reader 1) locations in the text which coincide to the accompanying DVD-ROM’s related exercises, 2) text in which Photoshop-specific tips appear, and 3) general tips for easier execution of the discussed technique.
Broad, yet complete, the text proficiently covers areas as specific as lighting and its relationship to greenscreen/bluescreen applications; motion tracking/smoothing; color matching; camera lens simulations such as defocus, glare and depth of field; film simulations such as grain; and the process and details of putting the digital images onto film for exhibition (with discussions of film aspect ratios, gamma curves and film recorders).
While this book is not designed for the merely curious, it is a very good foundational work for those who “know enough to get in trouble.” If you have a solid understanding of digital processes and photographic principles, you may find that Digital Compositing will push your knowledge and understanding to a new level. Although the learning curve may be steep, those seeking more technical information about compositing will find this a most helpful, precise and attractive read.
Bill Stetz is the art director of Editors Guild Magazine. He has taught motion graphics at the Art Institute of California and designs motion graphics for film and television.
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Annual Gift Guide
Movies by the Book
by Ray Zone
In keeping with our year-end tradition, a garland of books on movies is presented for your consideration, as Guild members are usually film buffs who love the history and art form of narrative moving images––whether captured and presented on film or other digital means. Editors can also be film theorists, historians and philosophers of the visual image.
Offered here are five books that will appeal to anyone who loves the movies, but especially, I think, to those who shape them. The titles selected run the gamut from the historical to the theoretical and are all recently in print.
The Power of Film
By Howard Suber
Michael Wiese Productions
456 pps, paperbound, $27.95
ISBN 1-932907-17-3
Arranged like a dictionary listing storytelling and motion picture concepts from A to Z, this unusual volume is a distillation of Howard Suber’s lifetime of teaching film at UCLA. Suber has taught more than 65 different motion picture courses in 40 years, founded the UCLA film archive, and was instrumental in establishing the School of Theater, Film and Television at the university.
By taking examples from memorable popular films, Suber examines why certain films “work” and continue to do so for many years. The films meet two criteria: they were popular in their own day and remain popular for at least a decade. Drawing not just on film culture but classical drama and other disciplines, Suber gets down to the bedrock of what storytelling means and its importance in our lives. “Memorable popular movies do not show us just the world,” writes Suber. “They show us a just world—one in which the people we identify with not only stand for the things we would like to stand for, they stand up for what we would like to believe are the most important values of individuals and societies.”
The Way Hollywood Tells It:
Story and Style in Modern Movies
By David Bordwell
University of California Press
309 pps, paperbound, $24.95
ISBN 0-520-24622-5
The author of Film History: An Introduction (with Kristin Thompson, 2002), David Bordwell’s newest book is about the art and craft of Hollywood cinema since 1960. Bordwell is one of the foremost scholars examining the narrative techniques of classical Hollywood which he claims are “astonishingly robust” in engaging “millions of viewers for over 80 years.” These techniques, Bordwell demonstrates, are a lingua franca for worldwide filmmaking in blending both “artistic change” and “a dynamic of continuity.”
Examining a recent film like Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire in detail, Bordwell argues that nearly all of the American movies made since 1960, despite their diversity, “depend on storytelling principles established in the studio era.” As “triumphs of craftsmanship,” they “are great yarns boasting compelling situations and characters.”
Using film frames showing individual shots, Bordwell analyzes narrative motifs and strategies that enable contemporary filmmakers to create innovation within a classical approach.
The Director’s Idea:
The Path to Great Directing
By Ken Dancyger
Focal Press
356 pps, paperbound, $29.95
ISBN 0-240-80681-6
Organized in two parts, Ken Dancyger’s latest book came out of his teaching experience with production students at New York University and it articulates the storytelling tools of the director. Part I of the book provides a detailed overview of “What the Director Does,” with a hierarchy of directing and “the sense that there is a distinct path to improved directing and that the path requires a premise, a director’s idea, to the choices the director makes.”
Part II of the book is made up of 14 case studies of the work of individual directors and examines the articulation and application of the director’s idea. Scenes from each director’s work are analysed in detail and the eclectic gamut of directors in this section include Sergei Eisenstein, John Ford, George Stevens, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Margarethe Von Trotta, Lukas Moodysson, Catherine Breillat and Mary Harron. An excellent companion volume to the first two books on this list.
The First Lady of Hollywood:
A Biography of Louella Parsons
By Samantha Barbas
University of California Press
442 pps, hardbound, $29.95
ISBN 0-520-24213-0
Once the most powerful woman in Hollywood, Louella Parsons, her voice and position in the motion picture industry, are thoroughly portrayed with extraordinary scholarship in this biography by Samantha Barbas. From 1915 to 1960, Parsons was America’s premier movie gossip columnist. At the height of her fame, she reached 40 million readers through the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst.
With insight and scholarly discipline, Barbas examines the connections between publicity, journalism and filmmaking in Hollywood’s classic era. Parsons became notorious in 1941 with her attempts to suppress Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, and she was not above using blackmail in the service of Hearst’s political agendas. Any movie lover or student of Hollywood should find this account of Parsons life completely engrossing.
Silent Traces:
Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin
By John Bengston
Santa Monica Press
312 pps, paperbound, $24.95
ISBN 1-59580-014-X
A follow-up to his previous book for Santa Monica Press (Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood through the Films of Buster Keaton), John Bengston’s new work is a splendid compendium of cinematic archaeology. Juxtaposing archival and contemporary photographs of Los Angeles with individual frames from Charlie Chaplin films, Bengston identifies actual sites of locations, from Chaplin’s earliest movies produced for the Keystone Studio to his later films made for United Artists.
Both a richly detailed history of Los Angeles and a loving look at Chaplin’s
artistry over the course of his career, this book will drive its readers out
into the streets of the city to see the locations from the films. Contemporary
photography of the sites as they appear today will facilitate such efforts
and, of course, readers will want to revisit the films themselves, most of
which are still available today on DVD. Film history at its most accessible,
this volume is a treasure for Chaplin fans.
Happy gifting!
Ray Zone can be contacted at r3dzone@earthlink.net.