The Visual Story: Seeing The Structure Of Film, TV And New Media Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
The Visual Story offers students and professionals in cinematography, production design, directing and screenwriting a clear view of the relationship between the story/script structure and the visual structure of a film or video. An understanding of the visual components will serve as the guide in the selection of locations, set dressing, props, wardrobe, lenses, camera positions, lighting, actor staging, and editorial choices. The Visual Story divides what is seen on screen into tangible sections: contrast and affinity, space, line and shape, tone, color, movement, and rhythm. The vocabulary as well as the insight is provided to purposefully control the given components to create the ultimate visual story. For example: know that a saturated yellow will always attract a viewer's eye first; decide to avoid abrupt editing by mastering continuum of movement; and benefit from the suggested list of films to study rhythmic control. The Visual Story shatters the wall between theory and practice, bringing these two aspects of the craft together in an essential connection for all those creating visual stories.
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (April 23, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0240804678
ISBN-13: 978-0240804675
Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.7 x 10 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #712,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #127 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Cinematography #175 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Television > Direction & Production #856 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Video > Direction & Production
This book is a revelation! If you are all serious about making movies (or getting the most out of watching them) you must have this book. Bruce Block's theories will open your eyes to a hidden world of communication encoded into film. You will learn how visuals and their structure are just as effective and important as story and dialogue. You will see all films in a completely new and exciting way. You will gain the insight and tools to make your own movies visually compelling and powerful. I've also attended Bruce's visual expression classes in Los Angeles and can honestly say they were the most formative and enlightening of any film theory class I've ever had. Read this book and you'll never see movies the same way.
"The Visual Story" really is unlike anything out there for its emphasis on the ways in which the structure of an image or of images in sequence -- its shape, its apparent spatial dimensions, its movement, its complexity, its rhythm and texture, its color dimensions -- can all work together to support the emotional and thematic dimensions of the story it aims to tell. His explanations are simultaneously simple and insightful, and spending time with this book can really open your eyes to the wide range of ways in which moving images can be meaningful at a level that can be independent of the actual content of the image (who is in it, what is being shown). Essential reading for filmmakers who aspire to take advantage of the potentials of the medium, this book would also be enormously revealing and useful for students of film, for film lovers, and even for those who have a broad interest in the visual arts. His chapters on space and on color, and his discussions of their emotional as well as their formal content, are especially valuable and full of insight. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Eye-opening is an understatement, Bruce Block turned film editing for me from a mystery into a language. I was fortunate enough to attend his seminar once, the single most useful lecture on anything I've ever been to. My notes are falling apart from constant use, finally he has a book out!Going beyond the usual editing basics of clarity and information delivery, this book explains with how to use shapes, colour, and motion on screen to control pacing and feeling. No film student should be without it; also screenwriters, comic artists, web designers, anyone who deals with visual storytelling. Five stars, I'd give it more if I could!
This is a fantastic book. The book explains many visual tools used to make better films. I can't recommend this enough. Take your films from an amatuer level to professional level. Helps you to build great visual style.
Having taken Bruce Block's visual expression class while getting my MFA at USC Film School I highly recommend this book. It's one of the few classes I took in film school that has had any lasting value. It should be part of any filmmakers foundation.
As a beginner to working in video a friend recommended this book to me and I'm so glad he did. The way it is written is such that anyone can understand it. There are plenty of visual examples to help understand exactly what is being discussed. Also, the author provides many films to see to show examples of what he is talking about.In the past I'd never thought too much about video/filmmaking so much as a visual medium. I focused on acting, script and just pointing the camera and shooting. This book helps to take the filmmaker to the next level of understanding color, depth, contrast and affinity and how to use the principles when setting up the shot.As I think about it, I really can't think of anything that I do not like about this book. It's very well written (for the novice), there are plenty of films in which to reference what he's talking about, and most important being that most readers are probably visual learners, there are examples of what he's talking about. I do belive this is a must buy for a novice or even those who need to brush up on the fundamentals.
I can't recommend this book strong enough - I've been compiling course material - this book was an explosion of light at the end of a dreary tunnel of books on visual literacy - the film school should have had this as compulsary reading. Clearly set out with good graphics and in plain english. It marries the theoretical with the practical. The best book on the topic I have read so far.
Film is all about the image, and Bruce Block gives you a visual toolkit. With this, you can construct images that help to tell your story, set the mood, and control how the image affects the audience. His techniques can make any film stronger. I highly recommend it.
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