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General Research Resources

SCC Library Books & eBooks

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Business for Filmmakers

This practical guide teaches readers the skills and business acumen required to build a career in the film industry from the ground up. From creating a business model, dealing with taxes and funding, finding and managing clients, networking, investing, cashflow, and planning for the long-term, Business and Entrepreneurship for Filmmakers provides real-world, pragmatic advice on navigating a freelance film career.

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A Chronology of Film: A cultural timeline from the magic lantern to the digital screen

A Chronology of Film presents a fresh perspective on the medium by tracing the complex links between technical innovations, social changes, and artistic interventions in the order that they occurred.

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Directing Screen Performances

Directing performances for the screen starts well before the actor is cast and finishes well after the last slate is shot. In this book you will learn how to analyze a script, brief the casting director, rehearse the actors, decide on the visual treatment that enriches their performances, direct effectively on set and finesse the character in the edit.

Smartphone Filmmaking

Explores diverse approaches towards smartphone filmmaking and interviews an overview of the international smartphone filmmaking community. This book not only develops a framework for the analysis of smartphone filmmaking but also reviews contemporary scholarship and directions within the creative arts and the creative industries.

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The Documentary Filmmaking Master Class

Everything you need to know to make a documentary: from preliminary research on topics and audiences, to developing a business plan and securing funding, to working with a production team and interviewees, to post-production, marketing, and distribution.

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Cinematography: Theory and Practice

This book covers the artistry and craftsmanship of cinematography. It includes detailed information on the latest lighting and camera equipment, shooting on a budget, color spaces with emphasis on the new UHD standards, the decision-making process in choosing what lights and equipment to use, considerations concerning power issues, safety and what electrical supply is needed for various types of lights, and an examination of the cinematographer’s role in preproduction.

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Clearance and Copyright

This is a guide to almost every conceivable rights issue that filmmakers, videomakers, television producers, and Internet content creators might encounter.

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The Empire of Effects

How one company created the dominant aesthetic of digital realism. Just about every major film now comes to us with an assist from digital effects. The results are obvious in superhero fantasies, yet dramas like Roma also rely on computer-generated imagery to enhance the verisimilitude of scenes. But the realism of digital effects is not actually true to life. It is a realism invented by Hollywood--by one company specifically: Industrial Light & Magic.

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The Collaborative Art of Filmmaking

This book explores what goes into the making of Hollywood's greatest motion pictures.  It includes interviews with over 80 well-known artists in their fields including writers, producers, directors, actors, editors, composers, and production designers. 

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Documentary Editing

Documentary Editing offers clear and detailed strategies for tackling every stage of the documentary editing process, from organizing raw footage and building select reels to fine cutting and final export. 

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Adobe After Effects: A complete course and compendium of features

This is your guide to editing and enhancing videos in Adobe After Effects. Whether you're animating text or objects, changing a scene's setting, or creating a 3D scene, After Effects is the tool for you--and this book will teach you what you need to know.

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Special Effects on the Screen

Special effects are a burgeoning field of scholarship. With the emergence of a digital cinema, and the development of computerized visual effects, film theorists and historians have been reconsidering the traditional accounts of cinematic representation, recognizing the important role of special effects. Special effects are a major technical but also aesthetic component of filmmaking and an important part of the experience for the audience. In this volume, new directions are charted for the exploration of this indispensable aspect of the cinematic experience.

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Filmmaking for Dummies

Filmmaking for Dummies is your definitive guide to bringing a project to life, from the comedy antics of loveable pets to the deepest, most meaningful independent film. Bryan Michael Stoller is your friend and guide, sharing his knowledge gained over 100 productions to show you how to take your movie from the planning and storyboarding stage, through shooting and editing, to making it available to your adoring audiences through television broadcast, streaming online or in movie theaters.

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Digital Compositing for Film and Video

This book condenses years of production experience into a guide suitable for both working and aspiring visual effects artists. It addresses the problems and difficult choices that professional compositors face on a daily basis with an elegant blend of theory, practical production techniques and workflows. It is written to be software-agnostic, so it is applicable to any brand of software. This book provides many step-by-step workflows, powerful new keying techniques and updates on the latest tech in the visual effects industry.

Library Database: Computer Science

Spotlight on JSTOR. JSTOR is a key research database for film studies sources.  Use it to search and find full text books and journal articles.

JSTOR Logos: Use & Permissions – JSTOR Support

Check out select streaming videos below from the library's databases. View additional videos from Films on Demand and Academic Video Online

Watch Streaming Videos from the SCC Library

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Vincent Laforet's Directing Motion

Commercial Director and Pulitzer-Prize winning Photographer Vincent Laforet teaches filmmakers of all levels the precise cinematic language of motion, and how to move not only the camera itself, but also the components in your scene in order to bring a richer viewing experience while enhancing the story. This course will give you a solid foundation in camera movement, blocking, lensing, and sequencing, and show you how to direct any crew precisely and effectively to execute your vision.

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Philip Bloom's Cinematic Masterclass

Travel with filmmaker Philip Bloom as he guides you through the art and science of filmmaking, and shares his most important advice for capturing the style of cinematic images that have made him one of the world's most beloved independent filmmakers.

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Art of Film

The Art of Film explores the many layers of the world of filmmaking, exploring styles, themes, eras, genres, studios, partnerships & the many sensibilities that have & continue to shape cinema since it’s beginnings to today. 

The Directors

This series looks at the 20th century’s iconic film directors; the real innovators whose breakthrough direction made film into the movies. Their early lives, often escaping war or poverty found expression in theatre, then film, forming the fundamental art that is cinema.

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Cinema Sound

In this detailed course, seasoned audio guru Mark Edward Lewis guides you through every aspect of sound that you'll ever need to know as a filmmaker. Recording, dialogue, sound effects, foley, ADR, mixing, fixing - it's all here for you to master in the most comprehensive audio-for-film series ever created.

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The Definitive Guide to DaVinci Resolve

The Definitive Guide to DaVinci Resolve is Blackmagic Designʼs official training course for people wanting to get a basic overview of the editing, motion graphics, color correction and audio tools in DaVinci Resolve.

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Other People's Footage: Copyright & Fair Use

Other People’s Footage: Copyright & Fair Use uses on-camera interviews with 19 noted documentarians along with several legal experts to examine the three questions crucial to determining fair use exemptions for documentary filmmakers. The documentary presents illustrative examples from nonfiction films that use pre-existing footage, music and sound from other individuals' creations—without permission or paying fees.

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Becoming Iconic

This documentary examines the process of filmmaking from the ground up through the eyes of top directors as they tell their stories and share their wisdom.