Readings 2011
The textbook for the course is
Mollison, Martha. Producing Videos: a Complete Guide. 3rd Edition. NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2010
Please note, this text can now be accessed as an ebook through the library.
Other extremely useful books are
Cohen, Hart, Salazar, Juan Francisco and Barkat Iqbal. Screen Media Arts: An Introduction to Concepts and Practices. Victoria: Oxford University Press, 2009
Rabiger, Michael. Directing the Documentary. Burlington:Focal Press, 2004 for documentary, obviously, and for tips on editing and designing a narration/voice over
These books are available in the high use section of the Physical Sciences Library just across the road from Building 78. So you can borrow them for a couple of hours and get access to the chapters set for the readings.
Week 2
Required Reading
Reading 1: Script Format Readman, Mark. Teaching Scriptwriting, Screenplays and Storyboards for Film and TV Production. London: BFI Education, 2003
Reading 2: Beginning the First Draft (Documentary Script Format) Rosenthal, Alan. Writing, Directing and Producing Documentary Films. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.
Reading 3:The Classic Hollywood Narrative System Reference included in header of document
Reading 4: Mollison's Chapter 15 "Safety on the Set"
Recommended Reading
Handheld, tripods and lens cleaning.Artis Anthony Q. The Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide: a Down and Dirty DV Production. Amsterdam; Boston: Focal Press, 2009
Proper Script Layout Screen Australia website criptwriting page.
A useful online exhibition website on Screen Australia for short films
Week 3
Required Reading
Reading 1: The Continuity Style Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin. Film Art: An Introduction.Boston: McGraw Hill, c.2008
Reading 2: Yale Film Studies Web Site, Read pages on Ediitng
Reading 3: Martha Mollison Producing Videos Chapter 5 "Telling the Story"Reading 4: Storyboard Basics Readman Mark, Teaching Scriptwriting, Screenplays and Storyboards for Film and TV Production. London: BFI Education, 2003
Recommended Reading
Tom Nelson's script Blind Date. You can view the video he made from this script by clicking on "Student Videos" in the sidebar of the website.
Daniela Bandelli's documentary script exampleBush Foods Today.It also contains an example of an outline that you are asked to write in the first assignment.
Three Act Stucture Readman, Mark. Teaching Scriptwriting, Screenplays and Storyboards for Film and TV Production. London: BFI Education, 2003
Michael Rabiger on scripting for documentary referenced above
Disjunctive Editing Caldwell, Thomas. Film Analysis Handbook: Essential Guide to Understanding, Analysing and Writing on Film. Mentone. Vic. Insight Publications, 2005.
Planning a Project notes Teaching Scriptwriting, Screenplays and Storyboards for Film and TV Production. London: BFI Education, 2003
Useful web site for documentary (but keep it simple) http://www.chicagomediaworks.com/2instructworks/3editing_doc/3editing_doctranscripts.html
Screen Media Arts Ch 12 The Documentary Screen
Week 4:
Required Reading
Martha Mollison Chapters 1 The "Camera" and 2 "Image Control"
Chapter 17 Martha Mollison "Using Lighting Equipment"
Yale Film Studies Web Site, Read pages on Cinematography
The following short exerpts from the Yale film studies web site and the Mollison chapters on camera
may be useful.
Shot sizes Mollison 2003 edition
Headroom, looking room Mollison 2003 edition
Zoom and focus, depth of field Mollison 2003 edition
Framing for shot-reverse-shot Mollison 2003 edition
also crew roles and responsibilities Mollison
Recommended Reading
Martha Mollison Chapters 3 "Composition"and Framing" and 4 "The Camera's View"
Screen Media Arts Ch 7 The Production Process and Directing (Visual Style)
Week 5:
Required Reading
Mollison Chapter 15 Microphones and
Chapter13 Location Sound
Yale Film Studies website on Sound
Read Chapter 23 in the third edition of Martha Mollison. The following is the chapter on
Preproduction Chapter 25 from an earlier edition (2003), which is fairly similar.
You should be preparing for production this week, so this chapter will be very useful.
All the sound clips from the DVD of Screenmedia are very useful.
See Resources tab at left.
Boom and pistol grip miking, which mike and audio levels Screen Media see above
location recording UQ lecture notes
field recording guide: UQ lecture notes
Sync and Wild Sound: UQ lecture notes
Crew protocol Mollison 2003 edition
Recommended Reading
Mollison Chapter 12 "Having the Right Connections"
Screen Media Arts: Ch 5 Preproduction
Useful website: Screen Australia
Audio Techniques (more comprehensive, longer article) Millerson, Gerald. Video Production Handbook. Oxford: Focal Press, 1992
Week 6:
Required Reading
Reading 1: Mollison Chapter 16 "Lighting"
Refer back to Chapter 17 "Using Lighting Equipment" which you read in week 4.
Reading 2: Lighting Summary
From the Kodak Web site, this is a concise summary of the nature and kinds of light, the calculations that go into creating the ratios for balanced lighting,
and some set-ups. The black rectangles with a semicircle attached represent a light meter and thus the points at which
light will be measured in order to judge and balance the ratios of light..
Reading 3: Yale Film Studies web site on Miise en scene. Look up the definition for Mise En Scene (Basic Terms). Read pages on Mise en Scene, but in particular, there are a couple of brief paragraphs on lighting within this section .
Recommended Reading
Mollison Chapter 16 Having the Right Connections
Bordwell Lighting Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin. Film Art: An Introduction.Boston: McGraw Hill, c.2008
Week 7
Required Reading
Reading 1: Mollison, Martha Producing Videos. Chapter 6: Video Formats, p. 97.
Mollison's Chaper 7 Video Storage: Thanks for the Memory
Mollison's Chapter 8 Editing Basics
Recommended Reading
Reading 2
All of the Final Cut Studio application manuals are installed digitally on all the machines. Just use the help menu
in the application you are using and you will get the complete manual as a PDF that you can search.
Lynda - this site has useful basic video tutorials for final cut Pro
Creative Cow is a useful site for technical questions in relation to digital video production and this particular site has video tutorials
on some basic aspects of Final Cut Pro.
An interesting link to a tutorial on guerrilla filmmaking by Robert Rodriguez is:
The ten minute film school
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UOa7tkByrw
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLxqNwc1oYU
Week 8:
Required Reading
Refer back to Mollison's Chapter 6 Video Formats and Chapter 7 Video Storage:
Thanks for the Memory from last week
Also Chapter 9: Editing Concepts
Also
Refnements of Editing This reading from Michael Rabiger's Directing the Documentary.see reference above. It is useful for a
discussion of counterpoint and overlap editing referred to in the lecture
Recommended Reading
Final Cut Pro tutorials (cont.)
Perhaps the best way to search the many useful tutorials on the web is through Google.
If you are looking for video tutorials use Google video search
youtube also has a lot of tutorials that are short and effective.
The Apple website discusses the latest Final Cut Pro version X. The version we use is FCP7.2
http://www.apple.com/au/finalcutexpress/tutorials/#capturing-from-tape on Final Cut Express.
There are quite a lot of differences with Final Cut Pro 7.2, but some discussions may be relevant,
for example compressor.
All of the Final Cut Studio application manuals are installed digitally on the machines in both the labs. Just use the help menu
in the application you are using and you will get the complete manual as a PDF that you can search
Week 9:
Required Reading
Explore this excellent website filmsound.org
Chapter 14 Sound Post-Production in Mollison
Chapter 32: Copyright in Mollison
Creative Commons Sites (see also Resources tab at left)
This is a list of sites from which you can use media free, to varying degrees, from copyright.
It may depend on what kind of use you wish to make of it; e.g. ther are different categories that specify
whether you may use it unrestricted, or must attribute authorship or
whether you may use it provided it is not for commercial purposes.
Recommended Reading
Screen Media Arts Chapter 6 Legal Issues in Media Production
This chapter can be found in the general catalogue for the Social Sciences and Humanities Library
or the high use section of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Library. I recommend it for its
discussion of copyright issues.
A range of articles that may be of interest on Final Cut Studio
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/fcp_homepage_index.html
This link below from the Apple web site has some interesting videos and articles from filmmakers
about the various packages from Final Cut Studio, of which Final Cut Pro is one.
We have most of them on the computers in lab 108.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/in-action/
Week 10:
Required Reading
Chapter 10 Editing: Getting More Technical in Mollison
Narration from Michael Rabiger see reference above
Recommended Reading
These give a quick run down on the process of burning to DVD.
See also the iDVD manual on the computers in the labs
This reading from Apple is for those who want to know more about the Apple Prores 422 video format, which
we recommend you use as an intermediate format to work on in your timeline. This brief reading gives some
more information about its use in this context.
Week 11
Required Reading
Final Cut Pro 7 Quick Reference Guide:Output
Recommended Reading
Film Analysis: Introduction Film Analysis: A Norton Reader. Ed. Jeffrey Geiger and R.L. Rutsky. New York: W.W. Norton, c2005.
This is a helpful look at analysing films, written in very clear language. The section on "Media, Culture and Ideology" may be useful
for those who are dealing with difference of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or class in their videos.
Week 12
No reading required
Week 13
Required Reading
Chapter 33 Distribution in Mollison
Recommended Reading
Chapter 9 Screen Media Arts:Distribution