Basic Cinematography ― A Creative Guide to Visual Storytelling

The cinematographer must translate the ideas and emotions contained in a script into something that can be physically seen and felt onscreen, helping the director to fulfil the vision of the film. The shots may look good, but they will not serve the story until the composition, lenses, and lighting express, enhance, and reveal the underlying emotions and subtext of the story. By making physical the ideas and emotions of the story, the cinematographer supports blocking as a visual form of the story through these tools.

Rather than delve into technical training, Basic Cinematography helps to train the eye and heart of cinematographers as visual storytellers, providing them with a strong foundation for their work, so that they’re ready with creative ideas and choices on set in order to make compelling images that support the story.

The book includes tools, tables, and worksheets on how to enhance students and experienced filmmakers

with strong visual storytelling possibilities, including such features as:

• Dramatic script analysis that will help unlock blocking, composition, and lighting ideas that reveal the visual story
• Ten tools of composition
• Psychological impact of lenses, shot sizes, and camera movement
• Six elements of lighting for visual storytelling
• What to look for beneath the "hood" of cameras, including using camera log, RAW, and LUTs
• Dramatic analysis chart and scene composition chart to help plan your shoots
• Case studies from such visually cinematic shows and documentaries as Netflix’s Godless, Jessica Jones, The Crown, and Chef’s Table, as well as examples from classroom exercises
• Features insights from the DP of Jessica Jones, Manuel Billeter, and the DP of Chef’s Table, Adam Bricker.

Kurt Lancaster is the head of Creative Media and Film at Northern Arizona University and has written several books on filmmaking, including DSLR Cinema (3^rd edition), Production House Cinema, and Cinema Raw. His documentaries have screened at national and international film festivals and his award-winning students have gone on to start their own production house businesses, work as freelancers, as well as securing other positions within the industry. His filmmaking clients include the Grand Canyon National Park, Timpanogos Caves National Monument for the National Park Service; the American Community School in Amman, Jordan; Ha:san Preparatory and Leadership School in Tucson, Arizona for the National Institute of Health; Altez Ecofarm at Hasta Gard in Stockholm, Sweden; Louis L’Amour Enterprises, Inc; and the Institute of Tribal Environmental Professionals at NAU.