Review: The Movie Making Book

Click here to go to my disclosure policy.

You know how sometimes you can run across a book and think….wow.. this is just a fun how-to book?   Well, The Movie Making Book is one such book.   In this book you will find skills and projects to help you make better movies.  Loads of helpful tips and suggestions for the budding movie director. 

Nine Sections make up this creative, colourful book that is just loaded with good ideas to help the budding movie maker learn the necessary skills to be great. Also has a getting started and equipment Guide. 

• Getting started
• Movie Shots
• Movie Skills
• Special FX Shots
• Editing Your Movies
• Super Sounds
• Movie-making Projects
• Making Programs
• Movie-making Stories
• Share Your Movies
• Equipment Guide

This book is brought to us by Dan Farrell and Donna Bamford who have been leading film-making schools for young people for more than 10 years.  They have a wealth of experience in teaching young people the film industry. 

Each lesson is set out in an organized fashion, listing the equipment, along with letting us know why a lesson is important to learn, pro tips and how-to’s.  Though it’s not pictured in the image below, each lesson comes with plenty of images to help cement the learning.   The text is written to be clearly understood by youth without talking down to them.  Creativity is encouraged, along with the sense of “you can do this”.  Lots of helpful how-to’s are given along the way from adding music, to how to shoot an angle to give the impression you are not on land, how to make an introduction and more. 

The pro-tips that are included throughout the book were spot on and helpful. 

It would be so easy to use this book, and all it’s accompanying projects to do a movie-making credit with your students.  Teach them how to do a storyboard, costumes, sound effects and more.

My Thoughts:

This is a fascinating and helpful book, geared to helping younger people figure out the ins and outs of making a movie.  Filled with helpful tips, reasons why it’s important, and great images to help bring concepts to life. If you have a student eager to make movies, this well put together book will meet their needs quite nicely. 

 

The Movie Making Book: Skills and Projects To learn and share Dan Farrell Donna Bamford Chicago Review Press Page 144, middle school Trade Paperback Reviewed for Chicago Review Press. Where to find it: Amazon Link.