Gustavo Mercado is an award-winning independent filmmaker who has worked as a writer, director, and cinematographer on narrative films for over a decade. "The Filmmaker's Eye: Learning and Breaking the Rules of Cinematic Composition," his first book in the Filmmaker's Eye series, has been translated into French, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean, and is used in film programs at colleges and universities around the world.

This is the only book that combines conceptual and practical instruction on how to create polished and eloquent images for film and video, as well as the technical know-how to do so.

The Filmmaker's Eye is a focused, easy-to-reference guide that shows you how to become a strong visual storyteller through smart, effective shot choices. It is packed with hundreds of full-color examples. It is regarded as one of the best books on filmmaking.

Following a brief introduction to fundamental concepts, a variety of shots are deconstructed in the following format:

• Why It Works: an overview of a specific type of shot
• How It Works: Callouts explain exactly how the shot works—the visual rules and technical aspects in action.
• Technical considerations include the equipment and techniques required to capture the shot.
• Breaking the Rules: Examples of brilliantly subverted "rules"

This book:

• This quick, focused, and visual guide to cinematic composition will help you make smart visual choices.
• The book teaches you how to master the rules before breaking them.
• Examples and discussions from a variety of international films are included.

Author: Gustavo Mercado

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Filmmakers-Eye-Learning-Cinematic-Composition/dp/0240812174/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 468 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #364,141 in Books

#29 in Photography (Books)

#41 in Film & Television

#42 in Cinematography (Books)

More than fifty Academy Award nominations have been given to Sidney Lumet's films. He has been nominated for Best Director by the Directors Guild of America seven times. In addition, he has been honored with an honorary lifetime membership in the Directors Guild of America, as well as the guild's most prestigious award, the D. W. Griffith Award. He received the National Arts Club's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993.

Why does a director select a specific script? What must they do to keep actors fresh and true in take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout in the heart of New York's diamond district with over a hundred extras and three colliding taxis? What does it take to please the studio executives? Making Movies is a master's take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdote from the first rehearsal to the final screening.

Sidney Lumet, one of our most consistently acclaimed directors, provides us with both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture in this book. Lumet explains how painstaking labor and inspired split-second decisions can result in two hours of screen magic, drawing on forty years of experience on films ranging from Long Day's Journey into Night to Network and The Verdict, and with stars such as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino.

Author: Sidney Lumet

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Movies-Sidney-Lumet/dp/0679756604/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 1046 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #16,134 in Books

#3 in Video Direction & Production (Books)

#10 in Movie Direction & Production

#205 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies

DAVID MAMET is a director, novelist, poet, and essayist, as well as an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. He has written screenplays for over twenty films, including The Verdict, The Untouchables, and Wag the Dog, and has been nominated for an Academy Award two times. Phil Spector, a 2013 HBO film starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing.

David Mamet explains how a film is made using his unique perspective as a playwright, screenwriter, and director of his own critically acclaimed films such as House of Games, State and Main, and Things Change. He examines every aspect of directing—from script to cutting room—to demonstrate the numerous tasks directors undertake in order to achieve their primary goal: presenting a story that is understandable by the audience and has the power to be both surprising and predictable at the same time. On Directing Film, based on a series of classes Mamet taught at Columbia University's film school, will be invaluable not only to students but to anyone interested in an overview of the craft of filmmaking.

A film director, according to David Mamet, must think visually above all else. The majority of this insightful and amusing book is written in dialogue and is based on film classes Mamet taught at Columbia University. He encourages his students to tell their stories through the juxtaposition of uninflected images rather than words. Mamet contends that the best films are made up of simple shots. The great filmmaker understands that the burden of cinematic storytelling is not so much in the individual shot as it is in the collective meaning that shots convey when edited together. Many of Mamet's ideas about directing, writing, and acting are influenced by Russian masters such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Sergei M. Eisenstein, and Vsevelod Pudovkin, but he presents his material in such a delightful and lively manner that it is revitalized for the modern reader.

Author: David Mamet

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/0140127224/

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 797 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #69,041 in Books

#36 in Video Direction & Production (Books)

#42 in Screenwriting (Books)

#61 in Movie Direction & Production

Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of the illustrated books Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going about creativity in the digital age. He also wrote Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems created by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. His books have sold over a million copies worldwide and have been translated into dozens of languages.

Steal Like an Artist is an inspiring guide to creativity in the digital age, presenting ten transformative principles to help readers discover their artistic side and build a more creative life. It is among the best books on filmmaking.

Nothing is unique, so embrace influence, educate yourself through the work of others, remix, and reimagine your own path. Follow your interests wherever they lead you—what appears to be a hobby may turn out to be your life's work. Instead of writing what you know, write the book you want to read or make the movie you want to watch.

Finally, stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring in your daily life so that you can be wild and daring in your imagination and work.

Author: Austin Kleon

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Steal-Like-Artist-Things-Creative/dp/0761169253/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 10454 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #4,171 in Books

#7 in Popular Psychology Creativity & Genius

#19 in Entrepreneurship (Books)

#25 in Creativity (Books)

Patti Bellantoni received her training from renowned color theorist Josef Albers. She now teaches directors, cinematographers, editors, producers, screenwriters, and production designers about color and visual storytelling. Her teaching experience includes the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles, the world's premier film conservatory.

If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die is a must-read for all film students, professionals, and others interested in the industry. This enlightening book assists filmmakers in making the right color choices for their films, as well as moviegoers in understanding why they feel the way they do when watching films that incorporate certain colors.

Bellantoni has grouped more than 60 films under the spheres of influence of six major colors, each of which triggers very specific emotional states, based on her twenty-five years of research on the effects of color on behavior. The author, for example, explains that films with a dominant red influence have themes and characters that are powerful, lustful, defiant, anxious, angry, or romantic, and then discusses specific films as examples. She delves into each film, explaining how, why, and where a color influences emotions in both the characters on screen and the audience. Each color section begins with an illustrated Home Page that includes examples, anecdotes, and advice on how to use or avoid that specific color.

Bellantoni draws on her research and experience to show how powerful color can be and to raise readers' awareness of the colors around them and how they affect how we feel, act, and react.

• Discover how your choice of color can affect an audience's moods, attitudes, reactions, and interpretations of your film's plot.
• View your favorite films in a new light as the author highlights important uses of color, both instinctive and intentional.
• Learn how to use color effectively in your film and in your life.

Author: Patti Bellantoni

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1138426075/

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 123 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #8,874,352 in Books

#6,264 in Video Direction & Production (Books)

#7,410 in Movie Direction & Production

#38,717 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies

Steven Ascher is an Oscar-nominated director best known for his films Troublesome Creek and So Much So Fast. He has taught film at MIT and served as a visiting professor at Harvard University. He is currently working on HBO's Our Towns.

Diaries and One Cut, One Life are two films directed by Edward Pincus. He founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Film Section and taught film at Harvard.

Among the best books on filmmaking, The Filmmaker's Handbook is the definitive resource for creating, directing, shooting, editing, and distributing your video or film. This comprehensive guide is the first step in turning a hobby into a career, whether you aspire to be a great filmmaker or are looking for a gift.

The Filmmaker's Handbook, widely regarded as the bible of video and film production and used in courses all over the world, has been completely updated with the most recent advances. This indispensable handbook covers all aspects of filmmaking for students and teachers, professionals and beginners alike.

• Techniques for creating feature films, documentaries, and short videos and films.
• DSLRs, video, film, and digital cinema cameras were used.
• Lenses, lighting, sound recording, editing, and mixing are all covered in detail.
• Understanding the differences between HDR, RAW, Log, 4K, UHD, and other formats.
• Understanding the commercial aspects of funding and producing your project.
• Having your film screened in theaters, on television, on streaming services, and online

Author: Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Filmmakers-Handbook-2013-Steven-Ascher/dp/0452297281/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 870 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #27,815 in Books

#1 in Cinematography (Books)

#9 in Video Direction & Production (Books)

#20 in Movie Direction & Production

Bret Stern began making feature films the day after graduating from college. Bret and his fanatical friends waited for the campus to empty out during Christmas break, and after taking the stuff in the school's equipment room, Bret and his crew spent seven days cranking out a feature film — the only setbacks were foreign students raiding the set for reading materials and the fake blood with chicken giblets that backed up the dorm's drainage system.

You're probably wondering, "What kind of information is in this cute yet stylish guide?" There are other books that will walk you through the filmmaking process, and if your name is Beaver Cleaver, you might be interested in them.

However, you should be aware that filmmaking is a battle, and this book will guide you through it like no other. These pages contain information gleaned from years spent in the trenches of filmmaking.

Anyone with a credit card can rent a camera and purchase film stock; however, who can:

• Renting a camera for two weeks and only paying for two days?
• Set the camera's exposure without a light meter?
• Could you feed a crew of twenty on yesterday's chicken soup?
• There aren't many.

Do you want anything else? Then flip the book over. How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000 will teach you how to film a sex scene and what a stinger is. If you need help writing your script, the author will give you some scenes to copy right into your script – and yes, the author will even supply the characters. In a nutshell, this book contains everything you need to know about real-world filmmaking. Everything. The author will even assist you in selecting the appropriate baseball cap to make you look like a big-time director.

Author: Bret Stern

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Feature-Film-Under-Jail/dp/0060084677/

Ratings: 4.1 out of 5 stars (from 60 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #236,855 in Books

#92 in Movie Reference

#170 in Video Direction & Production (Books)

#247 in Movie Direction & Production

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and attended Princeton and Cambridge Universities. His writing career began at Time magazine and continued with The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. McPhee received the Academy of Arts and Letters' Award in Literature in 1977. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World in 1999.

Draft No. 4 is a master class in writing technique. John McPhee shares insights gathered over his career and refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades, in a series of playful, expertly crafted essays. McPhee provides definitive guidance in the decisions about arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, as well as excerpts from his work that are subjected to wry scrutiny. In one essay, he considers the delicate art of persuading sources to reveal information that they would not otherwise reveal. In another, he discusses how to use flashback to insert a bear encounter into a travel narrative, noting that "readers are not supposed to notice the structure." It's supposed to be as visible as someone's bones." As a result, the writing process is vividly depicted, from reporting to drafting to revising and revising and revising.

Draft No. 4 includes numerous diagrams as well as personal anecdotes and charming reflections on the life of a writer. McPhee discusses his long-standing relationships with The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as his time at Time magazine. Draft No. 4 is infused with his keen sense of writing as a way of being in the world throughout. The book is considered one of the best books on filmmaking.

Author: John McPhee

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Draft-No-4-Writing-Process/dp/0374537976/

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars (from 560 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #46,811 in Books

#40 in Authorship Reference

#117 in Author Biographies

#122 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)

Will Storr is a novelist and award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Sunday Times, New Yorker, and New York Times. Selfie: How the West Became Self-Obsessed and The Unpersuadables: Adventures with Science's Enemies (The Overlook Press/Abrams Press) are two of his books. His writing workshops are among the most popular at the Guardian Masterclasses and the Faber Academy.

Our identities are shaped by our stories. They motivate us to live out our dreams and ambitions, as well as shape our beliefs. Storytelling is an important aspect of what makes us human. So how do master storytellers persuade us? Will Storr, award-winning writer and acclaimed creative writing teacher, applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes in The Science of Storytelling to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change.

Will Storr's superbly chosen examples include Harry Potter, Jane Austen, and Alice Walker, Greek drama, Russian novels, and Native American folk tales, and King Lear, Breaking Bad, and children's stories. The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, with sections such as "The Dramatic Question," "Creating a World," and "Plot, Endings, and Meaning," as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to "The Sacred Flaw Approach." It ranks alongside creative writing classics such as John Yorke's Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic Writing. The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all genres, whether they are novelists, screenwriters, playwrights, children's authors, or writers of creative or traditional nonfiction.

Author: Will Storr

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1419747959/

Ratings: 4.6 out of 5 stars (from 1227 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #20,309 in Books

#2 in Playwriting (Books)

#14 in Screenwriting (Books)

#38 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)

Walter Murch has won several Academy Awards for his work as a film editor and sound designer. The Conversation, American Graffiti, Julia, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather (parts II and III), The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Ghost, Crumb, Romeo Is Bleeding, First Knight, The English Patient, and The Talented Mr. Ripley are among his many notable credits.

Among the best books on filmmaking, In the Blink of an Eye is a vivid, multifaceted, thought-provoking essay on film editing by celebrated film editor Walter Murch. Murch takes the reader on a wonderful ride through the aesthetics and practical concerns of cutting film, beginning with what may be the most basic editing question: Why do cuts work? Along the way, he shares his unique perspectives on editing, dreaming, and reality; the criteria for a good cut; the blink of an eye as an emotional cue; digital editing; and much more. Murch reconsiders and completely revises his popular first edition's lengthy meditation on digital editing (which accounts for a third of the book's pages) in light of technological changes that have occurred in the six years since its publication in this second edition.

Author: Walter Murch

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-Perspective-Film-Editing/dp/1879505622/

Ratings: 4.7 out of 5 stars (from 1436 reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #19,082 in Books

#6 in Video Direction & Production (Books)

#15 in Movie Direction & Production

#23 in Movie History & Criticism