How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck

Great video gets watched. It gets passed around and recommended, giving it the power to influence, to inform, and build community. Bad video gets turned off.Unfortunately, knowing how to work a video camera doesn't make you a filmmaker any more than knowing how to cut with a scalpel makes you a brain surgeon. But most books on video focus on the equipment, not what you do with it. They're so busy discussing wires and pixels that they never tell you how to make something an audience will want to watch.In Why Bad Video Happens to Good People, a Hollywood director shows readers how to tell a story that's entertaining, effective, and that gets watched. Every chapter contains a clear, concise concept that readers can practice the next time they pick up a video camera (and in fact, each chapter ends with a section called Try This). Enlivened by sidebars and with examples of great video throughout, this book provides the help aspiring video makers really need-not how to work the camera, but how to make great video.

Steve Stockman is a director, producer, and writer of films, television shows, and commercials. He made the feature film Two Weeks (2007) starring Sally Field, Ben Chaplin, and Tom Cavanagh. Every summer he mentors aspiring filmmakers and teaches video-making at Summer Stars Camp. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.