Cinematography

I am looking for books that go into aesthetics and artistic expression. Camera angles and there symbolic

meaning and things like that. If anyone knows of a great book that talks about these things let me know.

Thanks for you help.

Do a Barnes & Noble, an Amazon, and a google search on the subject. There's a ton there.

There's many, many good books on this subject, but I suggest starting with this one: "Making

Movies" by Sidney Lumet.

You might be surprised, but the issues you mentioned (selecting the shots) are usually the director's problem. Still, any cinematographer worth his salt should know about it too.

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Far and away the best source of information on this subject is the Hollwood Camerawork Master Course DVD set (http://www.hollywoodcamerawork.us/). Get it and thank me later. If that is too dear, you can read these:

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* "Picture composition" by Peter Ward.<br/>

* "Cinematography" by Blain Brown<br/>

* "Practical Cinematography" by Paul Wheeler<br/>

* "Film Directing: Cinematic Motion" by Steven Katz<br/>

* "Film Directing: Shot by Shot" by Steven Katz<br/>

* "Setting Up Your Scenes" by Richard Pepperman<br/>

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Sign up for American Cinematographer magazine while you are at it. Once you are sick of reading, you might like to watch a movie or two. You could start by looking up the works of Conrad Hall, Janusz Kaminski, Pawel Edelman, Slawomir Idziak, Darius Khondji, and Vittorio Storaro.

I didn't know Lumet had written a book. That would certainly be a good bet as Sydney Lumet is probabably the most accomplished and yet underrated director in motion picture history.

 

I would also recommend the works of the German expressionists of the 1920's, directors like Murnau, Lang, Wiene and Dreyer. They pretty much wrote the book on the universal language of camera movements, a language that is still very much in use today. Study the films "M" and "The Last Laugh" in particular. There's a lot to learn there. And once you realize how innovative these guys were at a time when Hollywood was making movies like a soccer mom taping a High School play, I think you will be rather impressed.

 

The Russians also did a lot of pioneering work about the same time. But the 'montage' movement is more related to developments in the language of editing than it is to in-camera functions.

To all who replied thanks for the advise.