This reading is for class on April 22nd. Please do the reading before class, but it’s OK if you do the Moodle posting after class.
Since I am not going to ask that you read a film book, I have some alternative suggestions. I am torn as to which one is right, so bear with me while I give you a list…
- Movies in the Mind’s Eye by Hochberg and Brooks (a chapter in a book on Film)
(pdf here)
This is a chapter that gives a nice overview of the perceptual aspects of film, and why it works at a low level. It used to be required reading for the class (as a complement after you learned about the film things) - Virtual Videography by Heck, Wallick, and Gleicher (publication page)
A system we built a few years ago that tries to embody some cinematic knowledge in order to do automatic video editing. - Re-cinematography by Gleicher and Liu (project page, includes video) (publication page)
A system we built a few years ago to do video stablization on steroids, based on observations about cinematography.
None of these are actually about film. The first one is about the psychology of perception of film, and the latter two are about applying ideas from film to solve video problems.
I would like everyone to read #1, and either #2 or #3. (yes, there’s a little bit of “vanity press” here, but these are two of the things I’ve done that I am most proud of). When you read #2 or #3, don’t worry about the implementation details. Just look at what they learned from the art of cinematography. The Moodle Question (due by the end of the day on Monday, April 22nd) asks about this.
