Lighting for Emerging Filmography DVD's, any good?

[Ray Sigmond]

I was looking at these 2 DVD's on B&H called "Lighting for Emerging Filmography" Volumes 1 & 2 by Foster Denker / Birns & Sawyer and was wondering if anyone knows anything about them? Are they a good source of reference and worth the money or not worth looking into?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=292529&is=REG
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=292530&is=REG

Ray

[Ray Sigmond]

I did find a review by Ken Tanaka on dvinfo

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/lighting/tanaka1.php

Summary:

Birns & Sawyer's "Lighting for Emerging Filmmakers" would be a worthwhile investment for nearly any amateur filmmaker who has not had the advantage of direct exposure to professional lighting techniques. Like the old saw, "A picture is worth 1,000 words.", watching a master lighting technician do his magic and listening to him discuss what he is doing are probably worth 1,000 books. You will not become an instant master of lighting after watching these DVD's. But it is very likely that you -will- have a much better understanding of the thought processes involved in lighting a scene. At the very least you will most assuredly have an answer to that nasty question, "Now what?".

[Ray Sigmond]

I did find another good DVD called "DV Enlightenment" by DV Creators
http://www.dvcreators.net/products/d...ghtenment.html

I found a good review by Ken Stone of the DV Enlightenment DVD here :
http://www.lafcpug.org/reviews/revie...ghtenment.html

Conclusion

Over the years I have worked with a number of tutorials from DVcreators.net and have always felt that the production values of their products are excellent, this DV Enlightenment tutorial is true to form. I found this tutorial to be exceptional. It explains and demonstrates the different components of lighting and does so in a clear and interesting manner, it makes professional lighting seem intuitive (which it really is once you have understanding). There are reasons that this tutorial works so well. It is thorough and covers the basics of four point light, who's understanding is fundamental to producing professional lighting. It demonstrates that you can produce professional light 'on the cheap', with just a few basic lights and inexpensive accessories. It teaches you how to use creative lighting that will help add visual mood and ambience to your work, which will help you tell your story. It does all this on screen, you actually see the crew setting up lighting for different situations; indoors, outdoors, mixed light and green screening. You see how light is controlled and shaped for use, testing and controlling exposure using the zebra stripes in your camera, work with different color temperature light, the positioning of lights for effect and even the aesthetics of light and the uses for spectral (point source) and soft light. This DV Enlightenment tutorial from DVcreators.net is one of the best I have ever seen.

[Glenn Gipson]

DV Enlightenment is not worth the price to me. The DVD only covers extremely basic lighting set ups. You would be better off buying John Jackman's book, "Lighting for Digital Video & Television."