Book Review: The DV Rebel’s Guide – A Must Have Book for Independent Filmmakers

Welcome to the DOJO!

I haven’t done a good independent filmmaking book review in a low time…in fact, I think I’ve only ever done one before and it was many moons ago (over a year ago with my review of Dov S-S Simens’ book “From Reel to Deal”). It’s funny, I read quite a bit (1-2 books a week), but I can never seem to find the urge to write up a review of any of the books. It must be some sort of left over rebelliousness from high school and how much I hated doing book reports. My incredibly evil 9th grade english teacher, the satanic Ms. Thom, must have done more mental damage with her class than I had realized! Today’s post is my little way of healing that damage.

Back at the end of 2007, I was trying to find a cool book for independent filmmakers. There are literally thousands of books (and quite a few really good ones) on theoretical filmmaking. What I really wanted, though, was something more practical. I wanted a book that was a nuts-and-bolts, real world instruction book for an independent or no-budget filmmaker. Something that gave actual examples of guerrilla filmmaking techniques and showed how to replicate and use them.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I was looking for was a book called “The DV Rebel’s Guide: an all-digital approach to making killer action movies on the cheap.” Yes, I realize it has an unbelievably long name and I am usually morally opposed to unbelievably long names for products. This time, however, I’ll make an exception because this unbelievably long name tells you EXACTLY what the book is about.

“The DV Rebel’s Guide” was written by a man named Stu Maschwitz. He is also an amazing independent filmmaker, post-production guru and founder of the special effects company, The Orphanage. If you don’t know what the Orphanage is, please stop reading this blog…go back to school for accounting or something lame like that and leave the world of independent filmmaking behind. You suck. Get out!

Ahem.

Anyway, Stu and his company have worked on everything from Sky Kids to Sin City to Iron Man to Grindhouse to The Spirit…uhh…forget I said that last one…and what he does in “The DV Rebel’s Guide” is bring his vast experience of digital filmmaking and effects down to the low / no budget film level and gives an incredibly clear, incredibly concise bunch of practical tips and techniques. This is not a book on theory. Stu goes out of his way to explain the how’s and whys of every technique and short cut in his book. He tells you what you need to do, why you need to do it and then shows how to get it done.

The book covers a lot of ground, including: proper cinematic framing, lighting techniques, using Airsoft guns effectively for action scenes, compositing with After Effects (he spends a lot of time with After Effects and what it can do to help a microbudget filmmaker — the DVD plug-ins alone are worth the price of his book), editing, color correction and about 1000 other things. “The DV Rebel’s Guide” is easily the best book for a no budget filmmaker on the market today and should be required reading for anyone seriously conteplating independent filmmaking as a career.

Stu Maschwitz shows you how to take your no budget film and make it look like a million dollars and he does it all for less than $35. This book is better than any independent or guerrilla filmmaking workshop you’ll find and will not only help keep you from going over budget but it will show you how, with a little bit of After Effects wizardry, you can achieve some amazing things even with no budget at all.

If you haven’t read “The DV Rebel’s Guide” then you are missing out on some of the most invaluable low budget independent filmmaking tips around.

That’s it for today. Until next time, Keep Shooting!

-Mat Nastos, the Film Sensei
http://www.FilmSensei.com

Leave a Reply