Friday, April 5, 2013

Review of CINEMATIC STORYTELLING by Jennifer Van Sijll

In the earliest days of filmmaking filmmakers had to come up with ways to tell a story without the use of dialogue because the ability to sync sound to film was still a thing of the future. This limitation forced filmmakers to be creative in how they conveyed a story on screen, considering such things as camera movements and transitions between scenes. CINEMATIC STORYTELLING by Jennifer Van Sijll looks at 100 ways to tell a story visually using techniques like camera angles, lighting, editing, sound, etc.

While dialogue is an important part of storytelling, filmmaking is obviously a visual medium and the author teaches writers and other filmmakers to keep in mind the conventions that the visual medium naturally encourages. The book includes excerts from scripts and screen shots throughout to help illustrate the techniques.

CINEMATIC STORYTELLING will help screenwriters become better visual communicators and filmmakers as a whole tell better stories.

Review copy provided by Michael Wiese Peoductions

Photo Credit: Michael Wiese Productions

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