|
Monday, 24 October 2005 |
What do Dreamworks Animation, Pixar, Disney Feature Animation, BBC and many others have in common? They all use Hollywood Camera Work. With this 6 DVD-bundle you get an in-depth look in professional camera work including High-end Blocking and Staging, rules for Framing and Perspective, explanation of all camera-basics like shot-sizes, -types, focal-length, image-compostion etc.
General
The 6 DVD-bundle comes in 6 separate cases and in general everything
makes a professional first impression. A friendly female voice guides
you through all of the sessions. The tempo all topics are being
presented in is sometimes somewhat speedy, but thatīs not a problem,
since it is anyway highly recommended to watch the sessions more than
just one time to really get all issues. And it's just fun to watch all
the sessions and getting more and more an idea what a difference in
storytelling good camera work can make. The video-quality is very good.
The DVDs have an easy to navigate menu and all sessions are skipable.
The bundle is splitted into the following DVDs:
Volume I + II - Stationary Blocking
Volume III + IV - The Moving Camera
Volume V + VI - Staging Highend-Scenes
Volume I + II concentrate first of all on all the common basics like
shot-sizes and -types, choosing the right perspective and framing,
important classic rules of image-composition, as well as all the issues
dealing with stationary cameras like managing the line, right-angle and
parallel cameras etc. Volume III and IV concentrates on all aspects of
blocking and staging scenes with multiple moving cameras.
In contrast to the first 4 Volumes, which present all topics in a more
teaching and abstracted style, the last two Volumes V and VI actually
set up complicated "Highend"-Scenes as projects, where all rules learned
in the first 4 Volumes are heavily applied.
Content
As you can see on the screenshots, the main concept behind the sessions
is to show very abstracted and not facial-animated, resulting in
non-emotional figures to be able to really concentrate just on the
camera work. This was a very wise decision; the differences in good
framing and camera-moves have never been so transparent and clear. All
topics are being presented very in-depth, meaning you definitly learn a
lot in a short period of time, which is sometimes too much, but, like
already said, it is recommended to watch the sessions on and on to
really hammer all the rules into your brain. The style the topics are
being presented is very technical and not personal, which again is good.
Just donīt expect a freaky tutor, who constantly gets off-topic,
telling from his last film-project. With these DVDs just facts come out
of the screen.
Conclusion:
This DVD-bundle is great. It really teaches you professional and state
of the art camera work that greatly helps you in the process of good
storytelling. Thatīs also the main reason why all these sessions are not
just useful for live-action camera-operators but for everyone -
including 3d-animators - who want to tell a good story with images.
For more information or for ordering, go to www.hollywoodcamerawork.us.
reviewed by: Boris |
