What's on your bookshelf?

I love me a good book, so I thought I'd post my film & FX bookshelf for all to see! The aim being that it might inspire some people to get the books I recommend, and in turn I can get some recommended to me.

So from left to right:
- Teach Yourself Screenwriting by Raymond Frensham. Haven't read it!
- Story by Robert McKee - Brilliant book on the art of putting a story together for film
- Raindance Writer's Lab - Write + sell the hot screenplay by Elliot Grove - Nicely written, plenty of good tips. I'd recommend this and Story for writers out there
- Directing Actors by Judith Weston - Recommended by Stu. Great book. I'm currently taking some of her advice and taking an acting class!
- Digital Moviemaking - 2nd Edition by Scott Billups - Scott Billups is pretty outspoken on how digital movies should be made (use a Viper!). An entertaining read
- The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook by Chris Jones and Genevieve Jollife - now available in it's third edition I think, this is the first. Loads of good advice on how to make a proper movie!
- The DV Rebel's Guide by Stu Maschwitz - Written by some bloke who does effects or something like that. Not bad. Wink

- Grammar of the Film Language by Daniel Arijon - Recommended by loads of people on Amazon, it's very dense and very tough going. I much prefer...
- Film Directing Shot by Shot by Steven D. Katz - Also one of Stu's recommendations. Brilliant for learning framing devices, storyboarding and camera moves.
- Night and Low Light Photography by Gibbons and Wilson - I picked this up at our local discount book shop. Useful for reference
- Painting with Light by John Alton - A classic, in my collection for reference and to look at the pretty film noir pictures
- Cinematography by Blaine Brown - To my shame, another unread book! One day I promise!
- Color Correction for Digital Video by Hullfish and Fowler - Got this ages ago before there was such a thing as the DV Rebel handbook. However it has some useful tips on grading and using scopes
- Great Sound for Digital Video by Jay Rose - Every rebel film maker should have a book on good audio. This is one such book. Tips on using booms, clip mics, edit suite setup, etc.
- Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects (6.5) Vols 1 and 2 by Trish and Chris Meyer - Undoubtedly two of the most valuable books on my shelf. Indispensable advice on almost every aspect of AE. Less on the VFX side but still great nonetheless.
- After Effects in Production by Trish and Chris Meyer - Good in-depth case studies on AE motion graphics, which have been useful in everything I've done with AE
- After Effects and Photoshop by Jeff Foster - Not sure why I bought this; there's nothing new in it really...
- Maya 6, the Complete Reference by Meade and Arima - the first of my Maya book collection. Not a bad book really. Covers all of the Maya "Complete" toolset with good examples, particularly around rendering for compositing
- Stop Staring by Jason Osipa - Want to model and animate a human head, and do it well? This is the book for you. Too daunting for me to complete at the moment, but I've started it... Another bargain book shop find (£7!)
- Maya 6 Killer Tips by Hanson, Ibrahim and Nijmeh - The greatest Maya book ever (until Maya 8.5 Killer Tips!). If you use Maya, buy this!
- Learning Maya 6 Rendering
- Learning Maya 6 Modeling
- Learning Maya 6 Dynamics
- Learning Maya 6 Character Rigging and Animation - All of these are good solid introductions to the core Maya skills they describe. Haven't used the Character Rigging book yet though.
- Creating Striking Graphics with Maya and Photoshop - Another bargain book, I think this is really just a book of Maya examples. Not really much use for everyday reference
- Learning Maya 6 Foundation - The book I got when using Maya PLE, I did all the tutorials then went out and bought Maya! All the official Alias Press books have now been superceded of course, as Maya is now on version 8.5 under Autodesk's ownership.

There ya go! Some great, some good and some not so good. But I'm sure I'll dip into them all for reference now and again.

I've got the Mark Christensen After Effects book Stu recommends on order - can't wait for that addition to the shelf!

So, what you got on your bookshelf?

Christian.

Last edited by ChristianLett on Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:39 am; edited 1 time in total

excellent thread idea. I'm going to take take a pic tonight and summarize...

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Wow. You're organized. My books are scattered across the office! If I clean it up, I'll take a photo.

My bookshelves these days seem to be dominated by Stephen King and Robert Jordan novels. Wink

J

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See if you can spot Stu's book in here (Kind of a rebel Where's Waldo thing):

http://www.b-scenefilms.com/books.jpg

Not embedding the pic here - it's a bit large...Shot with 18mm lens Smile

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Wow! Thanks to whoever edited my post with links to the books! I'm guessing it was Stu because of the extra url params for click-thru from ProLost for The DV Rebel's Guide Smile

I was a bit pressed for time yesterday unfortunately, which is why I couldn't put the links in myself, so thanks for taking the time out to do that.

Are we going to see your bookshelf Stu?

Shaughan - that's a lot of books! I like the eclectic mix including the Windows 95 books and all those screenplays! Looks like you've got a lot of the same books as me. How is the Photoshop Killer Tips? As I mentioned in my post, the Maya version is one of my favourite reference books. Might check out the Photoshop one if it comes recommended.

Cheers, Christian

The Killer Tips book is great. Lots of great info in there. I was going to ask how your DV books on AE Motion Graphics are? Creative AE7 is OK, but I am looking for something a bit more broadcast oriented for AE.

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The Creating Motion Graphics with AE books are very, very good books. They cover pretty much everything you can do in AE in great detail (6.5 is the most recent version covered I think so it won't have any reference to 32 bit colour). The section on blending modes is useful for a start as it explains how each one works to help you make a more informed choice. I learned most of what I know of AE from these two books, and now they're a great reference.

The After Effects in Production book is by the same authors and has twelve in-depth tutorials (more on the DVD ROM) and numerous case studies. I haven't worked through all of the tutorials in this book, but I've found it a useful resource. There's a compositing tutorial in there, but it's mainly aimed at a motion graphics audience.

Cheers, C.

	shaughan wrote:
	See if you can spot Stu's book in here (Kind of a rebel Where's Waldo thing): http://www.b-scenefilms.com/books.jpg Not embedding the pic here - it's a bit large...Shot with 18mm lens

Is that someone's scalp I see at the bottom shelf there?? Shocked

Are those screenplays on the bottom right?

Good stuff.

George

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God bless you and your films

Yeah, those are screenplays and, yes, I have read em all!

Good eye on the scalp there. Back in my Cowboys and Indians days as a child, I took the game a little too far and scalped my best friend Brent. OK, not really. My hair used to be almost to my waist and when I cut it, the wife wanted to save it. So there it sits. What I need to do is to donate it to one of those cancer groups that makes wigs for cancer patients.

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Pontificatious Ramblings

nice collection of books u guys have. Think only two pics are up right?
Only thing that struck me was Shaughans gear. If I'm not mistaken, u got two books
on Mars and Venus and they ain't astronomy, know wha'm sayin'?

Nice collection both. Ill try to get off my ass and take a pic of my shelf one of these days

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What do we know, and how do we know it?

Does anyone know of any good AE expression books?

	Quote:
	If I'm not mistaken, u got two books on Mars and Venus and they ain't astronomy, know wha'm sayin'?

Yeah, a few of the wife's books mixed in there Smile

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	TekTor wrote:
	Does anyone know of any good AE expression books?

Are there any AE Expressions books?
Here are some pretty good video tutes:
http://toolfarm.stores.yahoo.net/afefexb1bu.html

This should get you started:

http://jjgifford.com/expressions/index.html

http://www.motionscript.com/

Creating Motion Graphics With After Effects by Trish & Chris Meyer
What can you say? This masterpiece (especially Vol. 2) contains the best expressions reference in print today.

Arthur

I am an an Avid comic book reader so a lot of my stuff is inspirational in nature

I have a signed edition of the hardback Rocketeer comic ( hard to find). I also have a pull from the mold of the helmet that was used in the film. I used to work at a place called Danger Productions Years ago and one of the mold makers gave m a copy of it.
I have a bunch of japanese and Star Wars Toys
I have a slab from teh set of Star Wars. It is a piece of the Death Star

The Star Wars Manga collection ( must see/have)
I have a book on XSI 4 . I borrowed a lot of conventions from that book to create my own rigs in C4D ( and of course now C4D has changed its whole rigging scheme)
Another book on Rigging in Maya ( Iused to do a lot of rigging btu sufferred pretty bad burnout about a year ago, Im just trying to9 take it easy and just do illustration and compositing these days.

I have a ton of After effects books that focus on version 5 ( any takers?)
I have the Art of Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back ( totally inspirational from a color theory background)

And a bunch of really obscure books on Ultraman and also garage kits.

cheers yo,
-Danny[/img]

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