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 A PLUME BOOK
THE FILMMAKER’S HANDBOOK

is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose films include

STEVEN ASCHER
Troublesome Creek, So Much So Fast, and Raising Renee (trilogy
codirected with his wife, Jeanne Jordan). He has taught filmmaking
at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and in workshops around the world. His awards include the
Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, the Prix Italia, a
George Foster Peabody Award, and an Emmy Award, and he was
nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award. His website is
www.WestCityFilms.com.

pioneering work in personal documentary led to Diaries

EDWARD PINCUS’s
(1971–76). He codirected Black Natchez, One Step Away, Panola,
Portrait of a McCarthy Supporter, and The Axe in the Attic. He
founded the Film Section at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and later taught filmmaking at Harvard. He has received
a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts
grants. He is author of the widely used Guide to Filmmaking and
grows cut flowers commercially in northern New England.

Pincus and Ascher also codirected Life and Other Anxieties.

 THE
FILMMAKER’S
HANDBOOK
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE
FOR THE DIGITAL AGE
FOURTH EDITION
Steven Ascher & Edward Pincus
Drawings by Carol Keller and Robert Brun
Original Photographs by Ted Spagna
and Stephen McCarthy

Completely Revised and Updated by Steven Ascher

With Contributions by David Leitner

A PLUME BOOK
PLUME
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
• Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books
Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, June 1984

First printing (second edition), March 1999
First printing (third edition), August 2007
First printing (fourth edition), December 2012

Copyright © Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, 1984, 1999

Copyright © Steven Ascher, 2007, 2012
Drawings and photographs copyright © Steven Ascher, 1999, 2007, 2012
Drawings copyright © Carol Keller, 1999
Drawings copyright © Robert Brun, 1999
Photographs copyright © Ted Spagna, 1983
All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

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ISBN: 978-1-101-61380-1

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recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright
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PUBLISHER’S NOTE
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers,
Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication,
neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for
changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control
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ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

For Jordan

For Jane
 CONTENTS

Preface

1. Introduction to Digital and Film Systems

Digital Video Systems • The Video Format • What Is
Compression? • Comparing Video Formats • High Definition
Digital Formats • Digital Cinematography Systems • Standard
Definition Digital Formats • Standard Definition Analog Formats •
Recording to Memory Cards, Drives, and Discs • Sound Recording
for Video • Video Editing • Film Systems • Comparing Film
Formats • Sound Recording for Film • Film Editing • Shooting
Digital Versus Shooting Film

2. Before You Begin Production

Getting Your Movie Off the Ground • Formats for the Big Screen
and the Small(er) Screen • The “Look” of the Movie • The Impact
of Sensor Size and Film Gauge • Color and Sensitivity to Light •
Sharpness and Focus • Aspect Ratio Choices • Frame Rate and
Scanning Choices • Choosing a Camera • Planning Your Workflow
• Managing Data in Production and Post • The Importance of
Sound • Coping with Technology

3. The Video Camcorder

Initial Settings • Viewfinder and Monitor Setup • Picture Controls
• Recording to Cards, Drives, and Optical Discs • Types of Media
• Managing Data on the Shoot • Recording to Digital Tape •
Operating the Camcorder • Batteries and Power Supplies •
Camera Sensitivity • Other Camera Features
4. The Lens
Focal Length and Perspective • The Light-Gathering Power of the
Lens • Focusing the Image • Choosing a Zoom Lens • Prime
Lenses • Close Focusing • Lens Quality and Condition • The Lens
Mount • Lens Seating Problems • Care of the Lens

5. The Video Image

Forming the Video Image • The Digital Video Camera’s Response
to Light • Understanding and Controlling Contrast • What Is
Gamma? • Gamma Options When Shooting • Video Color
Systems • Some Image Manipulations and Artifacts • Video
Monitors and Projectors • Timecode • Digital Video Recording—
How It Works • Pixels and Resolution • Working with Digital Data
• Digital Connections • Hard Drive Storage • RAIDs • File Formats
and Data Exchange • Digital Compression • Compression
Methods • A Few Common Codecs

6. The Film Camera

The Film Gate and Shutter • Camera Speed and Motors • Viewing
Systems • The Reflex Viewfinder • Camera Film Capacity • Other
Camera Features • Camera Tests and Maintenance

7. The Film Image

Properties of the Film Stock • Contrast of the Image • Sharpness
• Choosing a Raw Stock • Packaging, Handling, and Purchasing •
The Light Meter and Exposure Control • Light Meters • Taking
Readings • Exposure and Film Stocks • The Film Lab During
Production • Screening the Rushes

8. Color and Filters

Color • Color Temperature • Filters • Matte Boxes and Lens
Shades

9. Shooting the Movie

The Goals of Production • Composition and Shot Selection • The
Moving Camera • Style and Direction • Dramatic Films •
 Documentaries • Preparing for Production • Preparing the Script
and Approach • Scheduling and Planning • Organizing the
Production • The Equipment Package • In Production • Logging •
Supporting the Camera • Slow Motion, Fast Motion, and Judder •
Slow Motion • Fast Motion • Judder or Strobing • Shooting TVs
and Video Monitors • Shooting in 3D

10. Sound Recording Systems

Sound • How Audio Is Recorded • Analog Audio Recording •
Digital Audio Recording • Types of Audio Recorders • Digital
Audio Recorders • Audio in the Video Camera • The Analog Tape
Recorder • The Microphone • Audio Connections

11. Sound Recording Techniques

Preparing for a Shoot • Gathering Gear • The Sound Recordist’s
Role • Recording Technique • Setting the Recording Level •
Music, Narration, and Effects • Other Recording Issues •
Recording Double System for Video and Film • Syncing Audio and
Picture • Operating a Double-System Recorder

12. Lighting
Light • Lighting Equipment • Bulbs • Types of Lighting
Instruments • Lighting Technique • Lighting Styles • Positioning
Lights • Controlling Lighting Contrast • Lighting and Color •
Special Lighting Effects • Location Lighting

13. Picture and Dialogue Editing

Some Film Theory • Approaches to Editing • Dialogue Editing •
The Editing Process • Titles

14. Editing Digital Video

Components of a Nonlinear Editing System • How the NLE Plays
and Edits Media • Postproduction Workflow • What Format or
Resolution to Edit In? • Importing and Organizing Your Material •
Importing Files • Capturing from Tape • Creating and Editing
Sequences • Basic Sound Editing • Working with Double-System
 Sound • Basic Video Effects • Titles, Graphics, and Stills • Mixing
and Converting Formats • Working with 24p and Pulldown •
Editing 24p Footage • Finishing and Output • Managing Media •
Exporting a File • Output to Tape • Creating a DVD or Blu-ray •
Creating a Digital Cinema Package • Color Correction • Tape
Editing • The EDL and Online Editing

15. Sound Editing and Mixing

The Sound Editing Process • Sound Editing Tools • Sound Editing
Technique • Music • Some Sound Editing Issues • Preparing for
the Mix • The Sound Mix • Level and Dynamic Range • Frequency
Range and EQ • Other Sound Processing • Mix Formats •
Deliverables

16. Working with Film in Postproduction

Overview of Film-Video Transfers • Some Film-Digital Workflows •
Film-to-Digital Transfer Devices • Telecine Options and Controls •
Recording Format and Scanning Options • Image Control • Audio
Options • Film Transfer Data • Booking a Transfer • Editing Film
Digitally • Preparing to Edit • Editing Considerations for
Traditional Film Finish • When You’re Done with the Offline Edit •
From Digital to Film • Preparing for the Digital-to-Film Transfer •
Traditional Film Conforming and Blowups • Preparing the Original
for Printing • Blowups • Making Film Prints • Printing Basics •
Answer Prints • Intermediates • Release Prints • Sound for Film
Prints • Analog Optical Tracks • Digital Sound Tracks • Film
Projection

17. Producing and Distributing the Movie

Developing the Project • Funding Sources • Budgets • Business
Arrangements • Legal and Copyright Issues • Protecting Your
Work • Releases for Real People, Places, and Things • Using
Copyrighted Material • Distribution and Marketing • A Last Word

Appendices
A. Adjusting a Video Monitor
 B. Data Rates and Storage Needs for Various Digital Formats
C. Depth of Field Tables
D. Hyperfocal Distance Table
E. Angle of View in Different Formats

Bibliography

Websites

Index
 PREFACE

I f you look at how storytelling in movies changes over time, you

can see moments when new technology has made new kinds of
narratives possible. Sometimes it’s a seismic shift. The introduction
of sound in the 1920s transformed scriptwriting, film acting, and
editing. Or it may be more gradual, but just as dramatic, like the
way digital has led to documentary and fiction films that would have
been technically or financially impossible before.
As a filmmaker, you find that changes come so fast these days
that it’s really daunting to try to tell stories while having to learn and
master so much about your craft. This book, which is for beginners
and for working professionals, can help you. Inevitably, some parts
won’t be as current as the latest information on the Web, but the
book offers something most websites can’t: a view of the entire
filmmaking process from beginning to end. It will give you the
foundation and language to understand new developments as they
come along.
The Filmmaker’s Handbook started out almost thirty years ago,
and through the editions it’s become a stockpot of ingredients added
and removed. In 1984 Ed and I wrote the first edition about working
with celluloid film. After that, Ed bowed out of working on the book
and in 1999 I wrote an expanded second edition to include analog
video; in 2007 I did another major expansion to introduce digital,
doubling the size of the original book. David Leitner—a talented
filmmaker and explorer of technology—contributed his expertise to
that third edition and to this fourth edition. As of this edition, I’ve
had to jettison a lot of material about once-proud film, which is
painful. But digital is the future and the book is already a doorstop
(or the e-book equivalent).
The world of moviemaking is really made up of many separate
but related worlds. I’ve tried to address the needs of fiction and
documentary filmmakers, who may be creating work on their own or
as part of a large organization, to be shown in any number of ways,
for profit or not.
In a sense, all moviemakers start out as independents. More
often than not, beginners must become versed in all aspects of
production—shooting, sound recording, editing, raising money,
distribution—simply because there’s no one else to perform these
tasks. Learning all the facets of filmmaking has advantages no
matter what your future career is in movies. In fact, with shrinking
budgets and the growing power of technology, professional
moviemakers are often expected to have a range of skills that go
well beyond traditional job categories. This book is written with the
assumption that you may be performing all the tasks of making a
movie, or that you’ll at least want to understand them. And of
course, it’s a reference: so read what concerns you and skip the
sections that don’t.
For help along the way, thanks go to Mark Abbate, Benjamin
Bergery, Richard Bock, David Brown, Michael Callahan, Elvin Carini,
Claude Chelli, Frank Coakley, Victoria Garvin Davis, Bob Doyle,
Stefan Forbes, Sandra Forman, Patrick Gaspar, Len Gittleman, Alfred
Guzzetti, Arnie Harchik, Bruce Jacobs, Sam Kauffmann, Rudolph
Kingslake, Dennis Kitsz, Mark Lipman, Julie Mallozzi, Greg McCleary,
Ross McElwee, Matt McMakin, Eric Menninger, Robb Moss, Graeme
Nattress, Michael Phillips, Sami Pincus, Adam Schatten, Moe Shore,
Tim Spitzer, and Serena Steuart.
Thanks to Ted Spagna, Stephen McCarthy, Ned Johnston, and
Andy Young for photographs, to Carol Keller and Rob Brun for
illustrations, and to researchers Joshua Weinstein and Luke
Gasbarro.
Thanks also to the many people, too numerous to mention, who
graciously provided assistance, information, or pictures.
 Particular thanks to David Leitner for his deep knowledge and
precise mind.
Jeanne Jordan, my filmmaking partner and wife, and our son,
Jordan Ascher, both contributed to the book, my work, and my life in
more ways than I can express or possibly thank them for.

Steven Ascher

May 2012
 CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Digital and
Film Systems

T his book is about making movies, whether they are dramatic

features, documentaries, music videos, corporate videos,
multimedia projects, TV programs, commercials, webisodes, or home
videos. Actually, “movie” isn’t the right term to describe all types of
productions; no single word is. You could call them “motion
pictures,” but that has echoes of Hollywood hype (especially when
preceded by “major”). Sometimes the name we use for a production
has to do with how it’s made. For example, if you say you’re making
a “video,” people will probably assume you’re shooting with a video
camera, not a film camera. But often the name has more to do with
how the end product is distributed. A documentary shown in a
theater might be a “film,” but if you saw the same thing on television
you might call it a “show” or a “program.” A two-hour drama may
begin life as a “picture,” be called a “feature” when shown at a
festival, a “release” in theaters, a “movie” when broadcast on
television or streamed on the Internet, and a “DVD” or “Blu-ray” at a
retail store.
This confusion about names reflects how diverse the many forms
of production and distribution have become. There was a time when
a “film” was photographed on celluloid film, edited on film, and
shown on film. Though that is still possible, today a digital
production will most likely be shot in high definition video, or in a 2K
or 4K digital file format using a digital cinematography camera; then
it will be digitally edited and released in a wide variety of digital
media including professional tape cassette, DVD, Blu-ray, and hard
disk drives containing digital media files for Internet streaming and
downloading, digital broadcast and cable, and digital theater
projection.
Because movies are now created, manipulated, and shown in all
sorts of new ways, the old, hard distinctions between filmmakers,
videomakers, and digital video artists no longer apply. In the wake of
the digital video revolution, all approaches now pass through a
computer. This is why the term workflow, borrowed from IT
(information technology) to describe the careful step-by-step
management of a complex project, is now used by filmmakers to talk
about strategies for managing digital production, editing, and
finishing.
The first edition of The Filmmaker’s Handbook was about film
only. The second and third editions added analog, then digital video.
In this fourth edition, the focus is shifted even further toward digital
technologies. This is not because film is dead—it isn’t yet, though its
future is increasingly limited. Equipment manufacturers are no
longer making film cameras, and theaters are steadily converting to
digital. Nevertheless, some of the largest and smallest productions
are still being done with film. This book is written from the point of
view that media makers will reach for whatever tools suit them best
to record, edit, and display their work. Their toolset can include
digital and film technologies in any number of configurations.
Which brings us back to the problem of names. Given the
expansiveness of the media-making process, what shall we call the
work being produced? As this is The Filmmaker’s Handbook, we’ll
call the end product a “film” or a “movie.” This is for convenience
only and is not meant to suggest any limitations in terms of the
media, formats, or equipment used to make or distribute the
production.
This first chapter is intended as an overview of the moviemaking
process, an outline of techniques and equipment.
 Making a Movie
The technical, creative, financial, and social aspects of
filmmaking are tightly interwoven, perhaps more so than in any
other art form. The more you understand about all these aspects of
production, the better prepared you’ll be for the challenges of
making a movie and getting it seen.
Movie production ranges from multimillion-dollar, big-screen
Hollywood epics to a home video of a child’s birthday. Although
movies vary widely in terms of budgets, number of personnel, and
intended audiences, many of the processes used to create movies
are similar for all types of productions. Moviemaking tasks can be
divided chronologically into development, preproduction, production,
postproduction, and distribution periods.

Fig. 1-1. Moviemaking is a collaborative art.

The development phase is when an idea grows into a project that

can be produced. A topic is chosen; research is done. For fiction
projects, a treatment may be written in preparation for a script.
Documentaries may start as a written proposal outlining what is to
be filmed. The producer draws up a budget of the movie’s estimated
cost and arranges for financing. For higher-budget projects, this
usually involves soliciting investors, distributors, grants, or a
television contract. Low-budget projects are often self-financed,
often with the hope of recouping costs after the movie is finished.
During the preproduction period, preparations are made for
shooting. The crew is assembled and locations (the sites where the
movie will be shot) are scouted. For fiction films, casting is done to
choose actors, and all the elements of production design including
sets, props, and wardrobe are determined.
The production period essentially begins when the camera rolls.
This is sometimes called the start of principal photography. Since
movie equipment can be expensive, it is often rented for the
duration of production, or only on the days it is needed. Lower-
priced gear may be purchased outright. Additional photography or
pickup shots are scenes filmed separately from the main production
or after the principal shooting is done. The material that’s been
filmed may be viewed during production, on set, or elsewhere. The
traditional film term for the footage recorded by the camera is
rushes or dailies, because the film is processed and printed at the
lab as fast as possible for daily viewing (these terms can also be
used for digital video, which may or may not need processing before
viewing). Rushes are unedited, though often not all the footage that
was shot gets printed, copied, or viewed.
The postproduction period (often just called post, as in, “We’re
scheduled for eight weeks of post”) generally begins once the
principal shooting is completed. On many films, the editor works
during production, cutting as soon as each scene is shot, which can
give the director and crew feedback in time to make corrections. On
other projects, editing starts after the shooting stops. Editing is done
to condense what is typically many hours’ worth of raw film or digital
footage into a watchable movie. It is usually in the editing room that
the project can be seen in its entirety for the first time. Movies are
often substantially rearranged and reworked during editing.
Documentaries often find their structure and shape in the editing
room, not from a preplanned script. The first edited version of a
movie is the assembly or string-out (all the scenes in order). The
assembly is condensed into a rough cut, which is then honed to a
fine cut. When a satisfactory version is complete (called picture
lock), the various stages of finishing take place. This may include
scoring with original music or adding prerecorded music; sound
editing (to clean up and enhance the sound track); sound mix (to
balance and perfect the sound); and creating titles and any visual
effects that weren’t done earlier.
When a movie that was shot on film is finished, 35mm prints can
be made if the movie is intended for theatrical release. A movie shot
digitally and intended for theaters can also be transferred to 35mm
film; this process is sometimes called a film-out. Whether originated
on film or digital media, movies meant for theatrical release are also
converted to a Digital Cinema Package (DCP), a file format
standardized by Hollywood for digital projection of feature films.
(Whether or not a DCP is made, all movies, regardless of whether
they were shot on film or digitally, are eventually distributed in some
digital form.)
Finally, the movie is released or distributed—sent out into the
world to find its audience. There are many types of distribution,
aimed at different markets. Theatrical release is the goal of most
feature films. A theatrical run may take place in first-run movie
houses or smaller, specialized art houses, which are often part of a
specialty chain. Television distribution may include traditional
broadcast television, cable TV, or satellite. Educational or AV
(audiovisual) distribution usually implies selling or renting DVDs or
Blu-ray Discs or digitally streaming movies to schools and libraries.
Home video release is selling or renting movies either directly to
consumers or through retail outlets. Video-on-demand (VOD) and
pay-per-view (PPV) are cable distribution methods that bridge the
gap between television and home video sales by allowing viewers to
select and/or pay individually for programming when they want it.
Distribution over the Internet—including streaming and downloading
of movie files to laptops, tablets, smartphones, and Web-connected
TVs—is becoming a dominant form of movie distribution. Consumers
and distributors both like the fact that no physical disc need be
purchased or shipped; movies are following the model of music
downloading, which decimated the sales of music CDs.
A given project may be distributed through all of these channels
or in various combinations; moreover, because movies are
increasingly distributed in a global marketplace, issues of multiple
languages, technologies, and venues must be dealt with. Many
decisions you make while you’re producing a movie affect what kind
of distribution is possible, and you must try to anticipate distribution
goals from the very start of your project.

The Moving Image

A video or film camera has a lens that focuses an image of the
world onto a light-sensitive electronic sensor (see Fig. 1-4) or a
piece of light-sensitive film (see Fig. 1-31). This part of the process
is much like a still camera. But how do we capture movement? The
impression of continuous movement in a motion picture is really an
illusion. A film or video camera records a sequence of still images
(frames) in rapid succession (see Fig. 1-2). In film, the standard
frame rate is 24 frames per second, written 24 fps. When the images
are then displayed one after another on a screen (for example, a
theater screen or a TV), if the frames in the sequence change from
one to the next quickly enough and the differences between them
are not too great, the brain perceives smooth, realistic motion. This
effect brings the magic of motion to film, video, and flip books.

Fig. 1-2. All motion pictures—in video or film—are made up of a series of still
images that appear to move when shown rapidly, one after the other. (Steven
Ascher)

Traditionally, this illusion has been explained by something called

persistence of vision, which is based on the idea that the eye retains
an impression of each frame slightly longer than it is actually
exposed to it. According to this theory, when each new frame is
displayed, the eye blends it with the afterimage of the previous
frame, creating a smooth transition between them. There are many
problems with this explanation (for example, afterimages move with
your eyes if you look left or right; they don’t stay in place on the
screen). A perceptual illusion called beta movement describes one
situation in which viewers interpret successive still images as motion.
A static shot of a ball is flashed on the left side of a screen, then on
the right side, and viewers see it as moving from left to right. Think
of a lighted ticker tape–style sign in a store, on which messages
seem to scroll from right to left across the display as the lights flash
on and off.
The full picture of how the brain and eye actually perceive motion
is still under investigation. What we do know is that for a realistic
viewing experience we need to create the illusion of both smooth
motion and consistent illumination. If the images change too slowly
from one to the next, the illusion falls apart. Instead of smooth
motion you see jerky, stop-start motion, and instead of continuous
illumination, the screen may appear to flicker (get brighter and
darker as the images change). For more on this, see Judder or
Strobing, p. 393.
Fig. 1-3. Sony PMW-F3 camcorder. Has a Super 35 sensor and records XDCAM EX
internally and other formats to external recorders. Shown with Zacuto external
viewfinder and follow-focus control. (Zacuto USA)

DIGITAL VIDEO SYSTEMS

Camera and Recorder Basics

We’ve just seen that the concept behind motion picture recording
is to capture a series of still images and then play them back. Let’s
look at how this is done in digital video.
The video camera focuses its image on the flat surface of a solid-
state electronic chip that is sensitive to light. This chip is the
camera’s sensor or imager. There are two types of sensor chips:
CCD (charge-coupled device) and CMOS (complementary metal
oxide semiconductor). CMOS is now the most common chip used in
video cameras because of its versatility and lower cost and power
consumption. The surface of a sensor is divided into a very fine grid
of light-sensitive sites called pixels (from “picture elements”) or
photosites. Each photosite in the chip acts in some ways like a tiny
light meter that reads the brightness of the light at that spot. When
a photosite is struck by light, it creates and stores an electric charge.
The more light that strikes it, the more charge builds up (this
process can be compared to a bucket filling with rainwater; see Fig.
5-25). A given sensor may have millions of pixels in a chip that is
less than an inch across. To capture the whole picture, the charge at
each pixel in the grid is read out at an instant in time and the output
from all the pixels taken together is reassembled into the video
frame.
Fig. 1-4. Video camera and monitor. The camera’s lens focuses an image of the
world onto the sensor, which contains light-sensitive pixels. The camera converts
the image into a digital video signal, which can be displayed on a monitor. The
monitor’s surface is made up of pixels that emit light. (Robert Brun)

In the earliest days of television, the only way to preserve the

image from a live TV camera was to record it on black-and-white film
using a kinescope, basically a 16mm camera aimed at a TV. In 1956
the videotape recorder (VTR) was introduced, which records on
magnetic tape. VTRs are sometimes called tape decks, video decks,
or just decks. Later tape decks used tape in cassettes, although the
term videocassette recorder (VCR) was usually reserved for
machines used in the home. These days, video recording is also
done to solid-state flash memory media, to hard disk drives, and to
recordable optical discs. When a camera and recorder are combined
in one unit, it’s called a camcorder. Today, devices capable of
recording video include mobile phones, tablets, and DSLRs (digital
single-lens reflex cameras), which are also called HDSLRs (high
definition single-lens reflex cameras). DSLRs were originally
designed to shoot still images, but like many devices these days they
can now shoot both stills and motion video.
Video can be viewed on a display called a monitor. Types of flat-
screen monitors include LCD (liquid crystal display), which is what
many computers use, OLED (organic light-emitting diode), and
plasma. Video can also be digitally projected onto a large screen
using a number of technologies. The traditional analog TV was
based on the cathode ray tube, or CRT, which is no longer made.
For more on monitors, see p. 216.

Fig. 1-5. Videotape recorder, or VTR. Panasonic AJ-HD1400 plays and records
high definition DVCPRO HD. Can also play standard definition DVCPRO, DVCAM,
and DV. (Panasonic Broadcast)

Analog Versus Digital

Until the 1980s, video and audio production was done with
analog equipment. In analog tape recorders, continuously changing
video or audio signals are recorded as continuously changing
amounts of magnetism on tape. In today’s digital recorders, the
video or audio signal is digitized—converted to a set of numbers that
can then be stored in various ways (for more on how digital works,
see p. 227).
Though most countries have already or will soon stop
broadcasting analog TV, echoes of these obsolete, standard
definition analog broadcast standards survive into the digital era.
They include the NTSC (National Television System Committee)
standard, which was used for broadcasts in North America and parts
of Asia, including Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and the PAL
(Phase Alternating Line) standard used in the UK, western Europe,
Australia, and parts of Asia and South America.1 As we’ll see below,
various aspects of digital video formats depend on whether you’re in
a former NTSC country or a country that used PAL. It’s worth noting
that the terms “NTSC” and “PAL” properly refer only to analog
formats, not digital formats that have similar frame size, even
though many people use the terms loosely to mean either analog or
digital.
Ironically, digital video equipment often includes analog
components, such as CCD or CMOS sensors (yes, they’re analog) or
analog microphone inputs on a digital audio recorder. It’s common to
convert sounds and images back and forth between analog and
digital forms when needed, though there is some quality loss each
time you do.2 Ideally, once the video and audio are in digital form,
they should remain digital for as much of the production process as
possible.
Fig. 1-6. Digital single-lens reflex (DSLR). The Canon EOS 5D Mark II played a
key role in sparking the use of DSLRs for filmmaking. (Canon U.S.A., Inc.)

THE VIDEO FORMAT

Video format refers to how many lines or pixels form an image,
the basic shape of the picture, how a signal is processed or
compressed along the way, what medium it’s recorded onto, what
broadcast standard is used, and a host of other technical aspects of
how video is captured, transmitted, or reproduced. There are many
formats in use today—so many that even professionals get confused
trying to keep track of them all. Though video formats are defined
by their key differences, they all have a lot in common. Let’s look at
the ways that video formats capture images and sounds.

How Many Pixels: Standard Definition, High

Definition, and Beyond
A digital video image is formed by a rectangular grid of pixels
(see Fig. 5-26). Each pixel represents the brightness (and color, if
any) of that part of the image. The frame is all the pixels that can be
seen in the picture (these are known as active pixels). It helps to
visualize the pixel grid as a set of horizontal lines stacked on top of
one another, since that’s how the picture information is processed.
Each horizontal line, or scan line, is a row of horizontal pixels, and
the total pattern of all the lines stacked together is called the raster.

Fig. 1-7. Pixel counts in different digital formats. This shows the number of pixels
in standard definition 480i (NTSC countries) and 576i (PAL countries), high
definition 720p and 1080i/p, digital cinema projection in 2K and 4K, and Quad HD.
Note that the number of pixels in a digital recording format is not the same as the
physical size of the sensor (see Fig. 2-7). For example, if you have an HD camera
and an SD camera, the sensor on the HD camera could have a smaller surface
area, even though the HD recording format has more pixels (it depends on the
camera). As shown here, NTSC- and PAL-based formats have different pixel
counts, but when viewed on screen, the shape of their frames is actually the same
(which is accomplished by using different-shaped pixels). (Steven Ascher)

Video formats differ in how many pixels and how many lines they
have (see Fig. 1-7).
Standard-definition television (also called SDTV, SD, or standard
def) has the smallest number of pixels of the broadcast formats. As
a legacy of the analog era, there are two flavors of digital SD used in
different parts of the world (see above for the specific countries).
In NTSC territories, today’s digital standard definition frame is a
rectangle of about 480 horizontal lines, each 720 pixels wide (this is
often indicated as 720 x 480 and pronounced “720 by 480”). In
former PAL countries, the digital SD picture has 576 horizontal lines,
also 720 pixels wide.
 High-definition television (HDTV, HD, or high def) uses more
pixels per frame. How many more? There are also two sizes of HD.
The larger HD format, sometimes called Full HD, is 1920 x 1080
(1080 horizontal lines, each 1920 pixels wide). This format has a
total of around 2 million pixels, or two megapixels (Mpx). A smaller
HD format, usually referred to as 720p, is 1280 x 720, which is a
little less than 1 Mpx. Both of these formats are worldwide standards
used in both former NTSC and former PAL countries.
Why do we care about the number of pixels? As the pixel count
goes up, so does the ability to record fine detail in the image,
allowing for a clearer, sharper picture. Formats that have more pixels
are considered higher resolution (there are other factors that
contribute to resolution, as well). On a very small screen, you might
not be able to see a big difference between SD and HD. But the
larger the screen size, the worse SD looks: there may be an overall
fuzziness or lack of detail and you may see the individual pixels,
which makes the picture look “digital” and not natural. High
definition formats allow you to display the image on a bigger screen
while still maintaining sharpness and clarity. Bigger screens give a
more cinemalike viewing experience.
Fig. 1-8. (top) When you enlarge a low-resolution image, it starts to look
unsharp. You may begin to see individual pixels and unwanted artifacts like the
jagged line on the edge of the nose. (bottom) When a higher-resolution image is
enlarged, it retains more of its sharpness and clarity. This is one reason why high
definition video looks better than standard definition, especially on a big screen.
(Steven Ascher)

When it comes to an actual cinema experience—widescreen

projection in a large theater—there are digital motion picture
formats that use higher pixel counts than HD video. Many theaters
are equipped with digital cinema projectors that can display a 2K
(2048 x 1080) or 4K (4096 x 2160) image. At these resolutions,
digital images rival or surpass the resolution of projected 35mm film.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Joseph
Hergesheimer, an essay in interpretation
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Joseph Hergesheimer, an essay in interpretation

Author: James Branch Cabell

Release date: December 2, 2023 [eBook #72292]

Language: English

Original publication: Chicago: The Bookfellows, 1921

Credits: Bob Taylor, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOSEPH

HERGESHEIMER, AN ESSAY IN INTERPRETATION ***
Joseph Hergesheimer
An Essay in Interpretation
 Joseph Hergesheimer
An Essay in Interpretation

By
James Branch Cabell

“And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he: we dreamed

each man according to the interpretation of his dream.”

CHICAGO
THE BOOKFELLOWS
1921
One thousand small paper and ninety-nine tall paper copies of this monograph
have been printed for The Bookfellows in August, 1921. The edition is the first;
Mr. Cabell the author is Bookfellow No. 513 and Mr. Brewer the printer is
Bookfellow No. 14.

Copyright 1921 by
James Branch Cabell
 To
JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

with friendship and large admiration

as goes the past, and with
cordial faith in what
is to come.
 ONE

O say they, speak they, and tell they the tale, in “literary
gossip,” that Joseph Hergesheimer “wrote” for a long while
before an iota of his typing was transmuted into “author’s proof.” And
the tale tells how for fourteen years he could find nowhere any
magazine editor to whose present needs a Hergesheimer story was
quite suited.
It is my belief that in approaching Mr. Hergesheimer’s work one
should bear constantly in mind those fourteen years, for to me they
appear, not uncuriously, to have shaped and colored every book he
has thus far published.
The actual merit of the writing done during that period of
“unavailability” is—here, at least—irrelevant. It is not the point of the
fable that he high-heartedly wrote a story to which, when completed,
his unbiased judgment could not quite honestly deny such deference
as is due to a literary masterpiece; and which, through some odd
error, was rejected by a magazine that every month was publishing
vastly inferior stories; and which was later declined by another
magazine, and by a host of magazines, with a dispiriting bland
unanimity not unsuggestive of editorial conspiracy. Meanwhile—of
course—he had written another tale, which was much better than the
first, and which proved to be an equally faithful chaperon of return
postage. So story followed story, each dreeing the same weird....
And he used to wait for the postman, no doubt, and to note from
afar that it was a large envelope; and would open the damned thing
with a faint hope that perhaps they just wanted some slight changes
made; and would find only the neat, impersonal, and civilly
patronizing death-warrant of hope. So Joseph Hergesheimer kept on
with his foolishness, without any gleam of success, or even (they
report) any word of encouragement. And doubtless his relatives said
the customary things....
Yet none of these circumstances, either, is the point of the
apologue, because in all save one detail the comedy has been
abraded into pointlessness by over-constant repetition; and is, of
course, being futilely performed at this moment in one prefers not to
reflect how many thousand homes. The leading rôle, though, is too
unprofitable and irksome for any quite sane person to persist in
enacting it for fourteen years. This Joseph Hergesheimer did: and
that is the fable’s significant point.
 TWO

ES, it is the boy’s illogical pertinacity that is the fable’s point,

because it so plausibly explains why nearly all the men in Mr.
Hergesheimer’s books are hag-ridden by one or another sole desire
which spurs them toward a definite goal at every instant of their
mimic lives. These men but variously reflect, I take it, that younger
Hergesheimer’s “will to write,” that unconquerable will. To Mr.
Hergesheimer, even to-day, it probably seems natural that a man’s
whole living should be devoted to the attaining of one desire quite
clearly perceived, because his own life has been thus dedicated. The
more shrewd mass of practical persons that go about in flesh are
otherwise; and comfortably fritter through the day, with no larger
objective at any time in mind than the catching of a car, the rounding
off of a business transaction, the keeping of an engagement for
luncheon, and the vesperal attendance to some unmental form of
recreation, with one small interest displacing another in endless
succession, until bedtime arrives and the undertaker tucks them in.
It explains to me the Hergesheimer women, too, those troublingly
ornamental odalisques. They are fine costly toys, tricked out in
curious tissues: and, waiting for the strong male’s leisure, they smile
cryptically. They will divert him by and by, when the day’s work is
dispatched, maintaining their own thoughts inviolate, even in the
instant of comminglement wherein the strongest man abates
reserve: but their moment is not daylit, for the Hergesheimer women
are all-incongruous with what is done during office hours, nor are
they to be valued then. Sometimes they are embodied ideals, to be
sure, remotely prized as symbols or else grasped as trophies to
commemorate the nearing of the goal: but for the most part they rank
candidly as avocational interests. I find nowhere in Joseph
Hergesheimer’s stories any record of intimacy and confidence
between a man and a woman.... And this too, I think, reflects that all-
important formative fourteen years wherein, whatever may have
been Mr. Hergesheimer’s conduct of his relatively unimportant
physical life, his fundamental concernments were pursued in a
realm, of necessity, uninhabited by women. Indeed, no woman can
with real content permit the man whom she proprietorially cherishes
to traffic in this queer lonely realm, and she cannot but secretly
regard his visits thereto as a personal slight. So the creative literary
artist is (when luckiest) at silent feud with his women, because the
two are perpetually irritated by the failure of their joint effort to ignore
the fact that she ranks necessarily as an avocational interest.
 THREE

HAT, though, was the precise goal of the fourteen years of

visually unproductive “writing”? Those earlier stories have
never been printed, so that one perforce advances on a bridge of
guesswork. But certainly, in all that is to-day accessible of Mr.
Hergesheimer’s creative feats—with one exception duly noted
hereinafter—there is a patent negligence, and indeed an
ostentatious avoidance, of any aiming toward popularity. That during
the fourteen years young Hergesheimer labored toward the applause
and cheques of a “best seller,” is to the considerate inconceivable.
Nor could that well have been a motive strong enough to sustain him
thus long, since the maker of reading-matter, like any other
tradesman, has need of quick returns where the artist battens on
immediate rejections.
No, Mr. Hergesheimer’s monomania, one estimates, was then, just
as it seems to be to-day, to write for his own delectation—in large
part because he could not help it, and in part with the hope of,
somehow and some day, obtaining an audience with the same or, at
any rate, a kindred sense of beauty.... This, to be sure, is always a
vain aspiration. That which, in effusions such as this, we loosely talk
about as “beauty” probably does not exist as a vital thing save here
and there in the thoughts of not too many and not to be too seriously
taken persons. In life, rather frequently, one appears to catch a
glimpse of something of the sort just around the corner or over the
way, but it is rarely, and perhaps never, actually at hand. Sometimes,
of course, one seems about to incorporate the elusive thing into
one’s daily living; and, striving, finds the attempt a grasping at an
opalescent bubble, with the same small shock, the same disrupting
disillusionment.
“Beauty,” thus, is by the judicious conceded to be an
unembodiable thought, not even quite to be grasped by the mind;
and certainly never nicely nor with any self-content to be
communicated via the pages of a book, wherein are preserved, at
best, the faded petals and the flattened crumbling stalks of what
seemed lovely once to somebody who is as dead as are these
desiccated relics of his ardor and of his disputable taste.
In brief, it may be granted—and by Mr. Hergesheimer most
cheerfully of all persons—that during these fourteen years Mr.
Hergesheimer was attempting the preposterously impossible.
 FOUR

OW, to my thinking, there is something curiously similar to

that unreasonable endeavor to be found in all the
Hergesheimer novels. Here always I find portrayed, with an
insistency and a reiteration to which I seem to detect a queer
analogue in the writings of Christopher Marlowe, men laboring
toward the unattainable, and a high questing foiled. No one of the
five novels varies from this formula.
Anthony Ball, of The Lay Anthony, strives toward the beauty of
chastity—not morally concerned one way or the other, but resolute to
preserve his physical purity for the sake of a girl whose body, he
finds at last, has long ago been ravished by worms. Again there is in
Mountain Blood no hint of moral-mongering—for Mr. Hergesheimer
is no more concerned with moral values than is the Decalogue—
when Gordon Makimmon toils toward the beauty of atonement, to
die in all a broken man, with his high goal yet gleaming on the
horizon untouched. The three black Pennys flounder toward the
beauty of a defiant carnal passion, which through the generations
scorches and defiles, and burns out futilely by and by, leaving only
slag where the aspiring lovely fire was. And through the formal
garden ways of Java Head pass feverishly at least five persons who
struggle (and fretfully know their failure to be foredoomed) toward
the capturing of one or another evincement of beauty, with the
resultant bodily demolishment of three of them and the spiritual
maiming of the others.
That which one, for whatever reason, finds most beautiful must be
sought; it is a goal which one seeks futilely, and with discomfort and
peril, but which one seeks inevitably: such is the “plot” of these four
novels. Such is also, as I need hardly say, the “plot” of the
aforementioned fourteen years wherein not anything tangible was
achieved except the consuming of youth and postage....
Nor does the dénouement differ, either, in any of these novels: the
postman comes with the plethoric envelope which signals from afar
that the result of much high-hearted striving is not quite suited to the
present needs of this world’s editor; and sometimes the postman is
Age, but more often he is Death.
 FIVE

OW the fifth, and incomparably the finest and loveliest, of the

Hergesheimer novels is Linda Condon, which renders self-
confessedly a story of “the old service of beauty, of the old gesture
toward the stars”—“here never to be won, never to be realized”—of
the service which “only beauty knows and possesses”.... For Linda
Condon is to be valued less as the life-history of a woman than as
the depiction—curt, incisive, and yet pitying—of a shrine that,
however transiently, was hallowed.
At the exacting workaday pursuit of being a human being this
Linda fails, fails chilled and wistful. She has, like more of us than
dare proclaim the defect, no talent whatever for heart-felt living, so
that most persons seem but to pass grayly upon the horizon of her
consciousness, like unintelligible wraiths gesticulating,—and always
remaining somehow disjunct and not gravely important,—the while
that all the needs and obligations of one’s corporal life must be
discharged with an ever-present sense of their queer triviality.
Toward nobody, neither toward Linda Condon’s mother nor lover, nor
husband, nor children, may she, the real Linda, quite entertain any
sense of actual attachment, far less of intimacy....
Meanwhile she has her loveliness, not of character or mind, but a
loan of surpassing physical beauty. And to Linda Condon her own
bright moving carcass becomes a thing to be tended and preserved
religiously, because beauty is divine, and she herself is estimable, if
at all, as the fane which beauty briefly inhabits.... And by and by,
under time’s handling, her comeliness is shriveled, and her lovers
are turned to valueless dust: but first, has Linda’s lost young beauty
been the buried sculptor’s inspiration, and it has been perpetuated in
everlasting bronze. The perfection of Linda Condon’s youth is never
to perish, and is not ever to be dulled by old age or corrupted in
death. She comprehends this as she passes out of the story, a
faded, desolate and insignificant bit of rubbish, contented to know
that the one thing which really meant much to her is, as if by a
miracle, preserved inviolate. The statue remains, the immutable child
of Linda’s comeliness and Pleydon’s genius, the deathless offspring
of transitory things.
Beauty is divine; a power superior and even elfinly inimical to all
human moralities and rules of thumb, and a divinity which must
unflinchingly be served: that, in this book as always, is Mr.
Hergesheimer’s text. For this is the divinity which he, too, serves
unflinchingly, with strangely cadenced evocations, in striving to write
perfectly of beautiful happenings.
It is an ideal here approached even more nobly than in the
preceding Hergesheimer books. Nowhere has Joseph Hergesheimer
found an arena more nicely suited to the exercise of his most
exquisite powers than in this modern tale of domnei,—of the worship
of woman’s beauty as, upon the whole, Heaven’s finest sample of
artistic self-expression, and as, in consequence, the most adequate
revelation of God; and as such a symbol, therefore, a thing to be
revered above all else that visibly exists, even by its temporary
possessor. That last is Mr. Hergesheimer’s especial refinement upon
a tenet sufficiently venerable to have been nodded over by Troy’s
gray-bearded councillors when Helen’s skirts were rustling by,—and
a refinement, too, which would have been repudiated by Helen
herself, who, if one may trust to Euripides’ report of her sentiments,
was inclined less elevatedly to regard her own personal appearance,
as a disaster-provoking nuisance.
Well, and to Linda, also, was beauty a nuisance—“a bitter and
luxurious god,” that implacably required to be honored with sacrifices
of common joys and ties and ruddy interests, but was none the less
divine. Sustained by this sole knowledge, Linda Hallet passes out of
the story, when youth is over, regarding not very seriously that which
is human and ephemeral, even as embodied in her lovers and her
children, nor in herself, but rather always turning grave blue eyes
toward that which is divine; passes, at once the abandoned
sanctuary, the priestess, the postulant, and the martyr, of that beauty
to which fools had once referred as “hers”; passes not as the
wreckage of a toy but as an outworn instrument which has helped to
further the proud labor of a god; and passes, as all must pass,
without any sure comprehension of achievement, but with content.
That, really, is The Happy End....
 SIX

HICH reminds me that for the most part I am rattling very old
bones. Those seemingly unfruitful fourteen years are to-day at
one with those other fourteen years which brought an elder Joseph
into Egyptian publicity. Mr. Hergesheimer has “arrived”: his books
have found their proper and appreciative audience; whereas his
short stories are purchased, and probably read, along with the
encomiums of ready-made clothing and safety razors, by the I forget
how many million buyers of the world’s most popular magazine....
Now, here, I think, one finds stark provocations of uneasiness. I
speak with diffidence, and am not entirely swayed, I believe, by the
natural inclination of every writer to backbite his fellow craftsman. In
any event, dismissing Gold and Iron (after some reflection) with
unqualified applause, I take up The Happy End; and of the seven
stories contained therein six seem to me to display a cornerstone of
eminently “popular” psychology, ranging from the as yet sacrosanct
belief that all Germans are perfectly horrid people, to the axiom that
the quiet and unrespected youngest brother is invariably the one to
exterminate the family enemies, and duly including the sentiment
that noble hearts very often beat under ragged shirts. And I am
made uneasy to see these uplifting faiths—these literary baking-
powders more properly adapted to the Horrible Trites and the
Gluepot Stews among reading-matter confectioners—thus utilized by
a Joseph Hergesheimer.
I am made uneasy because I reason in this way: when Mr.
Hergesheimer consciously is writing a short story to be printed next
to advertising matter in some justly popular periodical, Mr.
Hergesheimer, being rational and human, cannot but think of the
subscribers to that popular periodical. I forget, I repeat, how many
millions of them have been duly attested upon affidavit to exist, but
certainly not many thousands of our fellow citizens can regard Mr.
Hergesheimer at his best and purest with anything save bewildered
abhorrence. So he must compromise,—subconsciously, I believe,—