Chapter one of
Cross-Cultural Filmmaking (twenty pages) is a
mini-history of styles in documentary filmmaking. Chapter two (sixty
pages) considers issues of methodology, ethics, and collaboration
(especially between filmmakers and anthropologists). I found these
two chapters really interesting, but, being a dunderhead even with a
point-and-click camera, the rest of
Cross-Cultural Filmmaking was way
outside my ken and I only glanced at a few sections. Part two ("Nuts and
Bolts") covers the technical details of shooting, recording, and choosing
equipment; part three covers preproduction, production, postproduction
and distribution.
Cross-Cultural Filmmaking is very much a practical
handbook rather than a theoretical treatise: the goal seems to have been
to provide
all the information a novice filmmaker would need. It is
obviously aimed at students, but would probably be useful more broadly.
January 1998
- External links:
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- buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
- details at University of California Press
- Related reviews:
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- more ethnography
- books about film + television
- books published by University of California Press