About the Book:

Cinematic Motion is a practical guide that addresses problems encountered when staging and blocking scenes. It has helped directors create a personal camera style and master complex staging challenges.

This excellent companion book to Shot by Shot includes discussions of scheduling, staging without dialogue, choreography, sequence shots, and more. It continues Shot by Shot's discussion of where the camera should be placed and how the actors should move in front of the camera. These staging decisions are best made before any footage is shot. For the most part, the techniques are taught via Storyboards (sketches to illustrate the scenes and patterns of of movement).

Cinematic Motion uses extensive illustrations to explain how to create extended sequence shots, elaborate moving camera choreography, and tracking shots with multiple story points. It also includes interviews with top Hollywood craftspeople who demonstrate how to bring sophisticated ideas to life. Since digital technology has revolutionized filmmaking, Steven D. Katz has updated this second edition of Cinematic Motion, balancing a new chapter on how digital technology can help visual scene and staging design with a new chapter on script breakdown, which is critical to storytelling and character development.

What people say:

"There are few authors or books that reach 'must read' status. The works of Steven Katz have achieved this appellation. Cinematic Motion is a remarkable tutorial for any aspiring or working director. Clear, practical and wise, the book is an essential guide to understanding and implementing staging for the motion picture medium." — Sam L. Grogg, Ph.D., Dean, AFI Conservatory

"There are a precious few ways to learn the subtleties of filmmaking and challenges of cinematography: watch great movies repeatedly; go to a great film school; read Steven D. Katz's Shot by Shot and, Cinematic Motion. The practical and pragmatic information is balanced by the insights of great filmmakers, Allen Daviau, Ralph Singleton and John Sayles. Cinematic Motion is the definitive workbook for both the aspiring as well as the accomplished filmmaker." — John McIntosh, Chair, Computer Art, School of Visual Arts, NYC

"While some of the information in [Shot by Shot and, Cinematic Motion] is beyond the scope of the amateur videographer — they were written for students of filmmaking — there is much here worth reading." — Popular Photography

Steven D. Katz is an award-winning filmmaker with over 25 years of experience in the fields of writing, directing, and editing. He is also the author of Shot by Shot, the now classic text on cinematic style and technique.