While I haven't done anything as of yet, I recommend "Film Directing: Shot By Shot" and Dov S.S. Simens book "From Reel To deal." Neither of which will tell you about bringing thoughts or emotions, but they will tell you all the basics of filmmaking that you may need to know.

Now if you really want to get thoughts and emotions into your movies, I've got a good suggestion for you. Watch and study Hitchcock. Most of his works can be good teaching tools for how to make movies AND how to make them cheap. Rope was shot for only $5,000. Rear Window takes place in mostly one room. Lifeboat is like a mini-mini-budgeted "Titanic" with more drama.

Hitch is also known for telling stories visually. In other words, Hitchcock focused very much on the visuals as much as he could. You could press the mute button on your TV and you could still understand most of what's going on in a Hitchcock film.

Those are my suggestions. If anyone has better stuff to learn from, let us know.

Writing a screenplay, I would suggest you read a few:
http://www.script-o-rama.com/

Also the Academy Awards jokers have a write-up on Screenplay formatting that is worth a read:
http://www.oscars.org/nicholl/format.html

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

quote:

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Originally posted by filmpixie

I want to articulate thoughts and emotions through film and I need help. I'm going to go to school next year, but right now I'd like to start reading up on things. Maybe make a few home movies and see how they turn out? I have don't know the first thing about writing a screenplay, or directing. If you know of ANY books that'll help me out, let me know.

Thanks 🙂

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Start here: ?url? http://www.wordplayer.com?/url?

And read this: ?url? http://www.amazon.com/Film-Scriptwriting-Second-Practical-Manual/dp/0240511905/ref=cm_syf_dtl_top_3_rdssss0?/url?

And look at the Additional Resources page at ?url? http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com?/url? for a plethora of other books and internet resources that may be able to help you.

Good luck!

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com

http://www.judithweston.com/oldbook.shtml

Directing Actors by Judith Weston is the best book I've read about directing and acting. If you want to know how to get emotions into your films, read this book. It not only makes acting and directing theory make a whole lot of sense, it can inspire you to look at filmmaking in a completely different way. It cost me about 25 bucks.

www.youtube.com/macvogt