Appendix .

Bibliography

You’ve probably never read an introduction to a bibliography before. If you’re

like me, you hardly have ever read the bibliography itself, dismissing it as
nothing but a few pages of densely packed text at the back of the book that
might be useful to a researcher somewhere but certainly is not something
worth spending a lot of time on. Which is part of the reason I wanted to write
an introduction to this, so I can try to convince you to really make use of these
pages. You’ll notice that this isn’t a terribly large bibliography. Instead of trying
to impress you with the number of sources I consulted while writing this book,
I thought I’d try to list those few books (and magazines) that I found to be real‐
ly worthwhile. In effect, I weeded out all the crap so you don’t have to. You can
thank me later. If you really want a huge list of further references on all the
various topics covered in this book, go to the library, or get some of the books
I’ve listed below and read their bibliographies.

This list is not intended to be a recommendation of the “if you only own one
book on this subject” sort. Far from it, since I can make absolutely no claims
for having surveyed the literature nearly that broadly. If you find a better
book on any of the subjects listed, let me know. In the meantime, be assured
that the books that are listed are worth reading and owning. All of these books,
as well as several additional recommendations, can be found via links on the
www.digitalcompositing.com website.

American Cinematographer Manual, 9th ed.

ISBN: 0935578242

This is the bible for cinematographers and camera operators.

Discusses cameras, film, lenses, filters, and a number of special
techniques, from underwater cinematography to ultraviolet photog‐
raphy to stereoscopic technologies. There is also a companion vol‐
ume, the American Cinematographer Video Manual that deals with
many of the same issues from a video and television perspective.

Rogers, Pauline B. The Art of Visual Effects: Interviews on the Tools

of the Trade.

ISBN: 0240803752

Interviews with a variety of well-known visual effects supervisors.

Adams, Ansel. The Camera.

ISBN: 0821221841

Adams, Ansel. The Negative.

ISBN: 0821221868

Adams, Ansel. The Print.

ISBN: 0821221876

There are so many books out there on photography and the camera
that it would probably take a separate book to list them all. Some of
them are excellent, many are not. But if you have to recommend a
book on the subject, who can complain if you mention one written
by Ansel Adams, quite possibly the most famous photographer ever.
His justifiably classic book The Camera (as well as the companion
volumes The Negative and The Print) is available as a reasonably
priced, high-quality paperback and should be easily locatable. He
discusses the science of the camera as well as the art. Yes, these are
all discussing “pre digital” technology, but there’s plenty to be
learned here! Buy these books to look at the pictures, if nothing
else, but I hope you’ll read them and then be inspired to actually go
out and take some photos yourself.

Lynch, David K., and Livingston, William. Color and Light in

Nature.
ISBN: 0521775043

There are a number of good books about how light behaves in the
natural environment but this one is reasonably technical without
being heavy and is particularly well-illustrated.

Konigsberg, Ira. The Complete Film Dictionary.

ISBN: 0140513930

If you work in the film business, or want to, or just like to know
about the (often intentionally arcane) terminology that is used by
film professionals, you must get a copy of Konigsberg’s book. It has
everything from specific technical details about camera equipment
to comprehensive essays on various film genres. A great reference,
and a lot of fun to just poke around in.

Wright, Steve. Digital Compositing for Film and Video.

ISBN: 0240804554

Steve goes into great detail on many practical digital compositing

techniques, from keying to color-correction, and provides an excel‐
lent companion to the book you’re now holding.

Allen, Damian, and Connor, Brian. Encyclopedia of Visual Effects.

ISBN: 0321303342

A huge collection of tips and techniques related to visual-effects cre‐

ation. Even the introduction is worth reading!

Reinhard, Erik, Ward, Greg, Pattanaik, Sumanta, and Debevec, Paul.

High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display, and Image-
Based Lighting, 1st ed.

ISBN: 0125852630
Written by the leading researchers in the field of HDR imaging, this
book is extremely complete in its coverage of the subject.

Vaz, Mark Cotta, and Barron, Craig. The Invisible Art: The Legends
of Movie Matte Painting.

ISBN: 081184515X

A great look at the history of the matte painting, with all kinds of
classic images.

Rock, Irvin. Perception.

ISBN: 0716750015

This book covers a huge range of issues relating to how the human
eye and brain are able to perceive the world. It also gives a number
of examples of how to fool the eye/brain into thinking that it sees
something that it doesn’t. This information is useful more often
than you might think.

Brugioni, Dino A. Photo Fakery: The History and Techniques of

Photographic Deception and Manipulation.

ISBN: 1574881663

This one is both fun and a bit chilling. Looks at the historical use of
photographic manipulations, touching on everything from commu‐
nist propaganda to the Kennedy assassination.

Perisic, Zoran. Visual Effects Cinematography.

ISBN: 0240803515

Goes into far more detail about the process of photographing visual
effects elements than what was covered in Chapter 12.

Goulekas, Karen. Visual Effects in a Digital World.

 ISBN: 0122937856

Karen’s massive dictionary of visual effects terms contains over

7000 entries and a good number of illustrations. Even if you’ve been
in the industry for a long time, I guarantee that you’ll be able to
learn a few new things (or relearn a few old things) after thumbing
through this book.

Finally, there are a number of other references that are worth considering.
The conference proceedings from the yearly SIGGRAPH conferences (www.sig‐
graph.org) will usually have a variety of technical papers that touch on digital
compositing techniques. The classic paper by Porter and Duff was presented
for the 1984 session of this conference:

Porter, Thomas, and Duff, Tom. Compositing Digital Images. Computer Graphics
18, no. 3 (July 1984): 253–259. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ‘84.

There is also a fine magazine named Cinefex (www.cinefex.com) that has

been covering feature-film visual effects for over a decade now. Every issue
will provide you with a number of discussions about how digital compositing
techniques are being used in the real world. As a bonus, you’ll also learn about
model making, pyrotechnics, and makeup effects.