The DSLR Cinema book is almost available for order. Amazon lists the official release date as Nov. 2, but it’s available there preorder.
Philip Bloom picked up an advanced copy in Boston last Friday.
What others are saying about the book:
“A huge thank you to Kurt Lancaster for giving a voice to HDSLRs in this new trail-blazing book.”
– (Shane Hurlbut, ASC) (DP of Terminator Salvation)
“This book should be in every camera bag. A rich, comprehensive, and poetic examination of how filmmakers and cinematographers are creating stunning moving imagery with HDLSRs.”
– Rodney Charters, ASC (DP of TV series, 24).
“Kurt has written a masterpiece in HDSLR books — something that everyone starting to make a movie should read. It is like film school 101 and planet5D all wrapped together in a book. The thing that sets Kurt’s book apart from the other HDSLR training DVDs and books is the expanded look at several different short films. Breaking them down piece by piece (not only the images but the story as well) to help the student understand what went into the films and what to learn from each one.
– planetMitch (www.planet5D.com)
“Out of nowhere, two DSLR cameras came out, and over a period of 18 months, they have been embraced by everyone from Lucasfilm to keen enthusiasts. … This is easily the most exciting time I have experienced in my 20 or so years in the business. … It’s really good. Great job!”
– Philip Bloom, DP, Director, Filmmaker (www.philipbloom.net)
“It tells me exactly what I want to know – how to get the LOOK that I need. Hats off to the author for tackling this subject. It make the book INVALUABLE for the DSLR filmmaker.”
– Julian Grant, Producer/Director
“Fantastic Approach! By emphasizing excellent cinematography as a critical aspect of filmmaking (especially cinematography in support of storytelling), he is immeasurably helping myriads of budding filmmakers avoid making crappy-looking films. Correspondingly, by emphasizing a ‘hands-on’ approach, and providing excellent walk-throughs of specific techniques to significantly, measurably improve the reader’s cinematography, he lifts this book high above the pack!”
– Dave Anselmi, Director, Producer, and Instructor, PracticalMysticProductions.com
“It will spread the revolution and introduce people to this way of thinking … it would be a must read for anyone who has been filming for a year or two and still thinks in the old ways of looking through a camera.”
– Andrew Jones, Cinematographer
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Kurt Lancaster, PhD, is the author of “DSLR Cinema: Crafting the Film Look with Video, Focal Press, 2011.” He teaches digital filmmaking and multimedia journalism at Northern Arizona University’s School of Communication.
Jonathan Woolson says:
Posted my review for the book on Amazon. Should be up in next day or so: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0240815513 – in a word: helpful!
Daniel Bean says:
The Kindle Edition of this book has a major problem: IT HAS NO TABLE OF CONTENTS!
I bought this book with the Kindle app on my iPhone 4. I bought it first and foremost as a reference. I’d like to be able to quickly jump to the chapter that deals with gear to buy, and then jump to the chapter that deals with software to use in post, etc. Well, the way you do this in an e-book is through the Table of Contents, which this book does not have! To make matters even lamer, Kindle doesn’t use page numbers, so I’m left with one bar with cryptic “location” numbers as my only means to navigate the book (other than turning one page at a time). I’m so not putting up with that! Please get this issue fixed and get a table of contents on this book’s Kindle edition (better yet, make it available for iBooks! I hate having to use the IMO inferior Kindle app on my iPhone). It’s highly irritating to spend $22 on a digital copy of a book and then not even get something as basic as a table of contents included with it.
Other than this ridiculous problem, it seems like this will turn out to be a good book! I’d really like to use it as my go-to reference for gear and stuff. That’s what makes this problem all the more frustrating…
Kurt Lancaster says:
That’s just wrong. I’ll forward the info to the publisher!
Daniel Bean says:
Thank you so much! I appreciate your quick reply. I really hope they can get it corrected.
Other than that one Kindle-specific issue, I’m loving the book! Great info, very relevant. It’s great to have so many words of wisdom from the masters of DSLR filmmaking that I look up to like LaForet and Bloom.
Daniel Bean says:
Dear Kurt,
The story gets even worse! I sent Amazon Customer Service an email, telling them that the Table of Contents is missing, and to either fix the problem or give me my money back. Then immediately, without my permission, they deleted the book from my device! (I’m using the Kindle app for iPhone.) They actually sent me an email telling me that they sent a request to the publisher to get the Table of Content fixed, but that they were going to refund me and for me to delete the book. I immediately sent an email back telling them to not refund me or delete the book, because since they did go ahead and contact the publisher I wanted to wait and see if the publisher got it fixed. (My goal of course is simply to be able to have the whole book intact book and read it like normal, not to have it deleted.)
This whole time, I was reading the book and writing notes and making highlights. When I read books, I write personal notes to myself and ideas for films etc. I was about halfway through and in the middle of reading it when they deleted it.
Well, at the point where it seemed like things could not possibly be worse, guess what…things got even worse! I thought, okay fine, I’ll go and rebuy it. I was thinking this is ridiculous that I have to go through all this, but whatever, I want to read the freaking book! Well guess what? Now DSLR Cinema is not even for sale on Kindle!! So I can’t even re-buy it and read it on my device, period! They stole it away from me and took it off the Kindle bookstore in one fell swoop. It’s as if there’s somebody out there laughing right now, that for some strange reason does not want me to read this book on my iPhone.
The worst thing about this whole mess is that I kept personal filmmaking notes to myself in the book, and now Amazon literally hacked into my phone and took them! It would be the same if they hacked into my iPhone and deleted my notes from the Notes app.
I really hope and pray that this whole mess will be solved. I’m desperate at this point. I doubt Apple would have ever done something so ridiculous to me. I wish the book was on iBooks instead. I buy all sorts of stuff from Amazon and have an Amazon Prime account, and look at how they treat their customers. Like garbage.
Kurt Lancaster says:
I’ll forward your note to my editor. This sounds really crazy!
Daniel Bean says:
It is crazy, and it’s 100% true. Are you in the U.S.? Go to http://www.amazon.com/DSLR-Cinema-Crafting-Video-ebook/dp/B004FGMSFU/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297801570&sr=1-1
It says right there “This title is not available for customers from: United States” So now nobody in the U.S. can purchase this book on Kindle. So if I were in any other country I could re-purchase the book from Kindle?
After this whole mess is resolved, I would seriously think about getting this book available on the iBookstore. One good thing that came of all this is that in my frustration not being able to finish reading DSLR Cinema, I went to the iBookstore and searched for “DSLR.” What came up were From Still to Motion (Ball, Carman, Gottshalk, and Harrington) and Mastering HD Video with Your DSLR. I gladly bought both and am reading them on the iBooks app.
Kurt Lancaster says:
The publisher will have this resolved, hopefully, fairly soon. Hopefully they’ll have it on the iBookstore, too.