Cinematography magazines?

[Timay]

I live in england and i'm 17, still with another year of secondary school before i leave to uni or college to persue cinematography.

 

I'm wondering though if there are any good magazines like the equvilant to the Architects Journel, but for cinematography of course.

 

So far i have read in previous discussions about the AC and ICG magazines but people have said more bad things than good about them.

 

Please tell me a good magazine, available in the UK, that would be worth while subscribing to.

 

Thanks very much

[Max Jacoby]

I think you will find most people here read the American Cinematographer magazin and to a lesser degree the ICG magazine. They are by far the best source of information available and I cannot remember anyone sayign something negative about them here.

[Simon Robinson]

If your not sure about subscribing to American Cinematographer yet then check out the archive section on the asc website to get an idea what the articles are like.

[Ted_Oakes]

If your not sure about subscribing to American Cinematographer yet then check out the archive section on the asc website to get an idea what the articles are like.

 

have you got a url for that?

[Chris Cooke]

have you got a url for that?

 

Once again, google is your friend but here's an article from AC magazine about how Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC shot The Village.

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/aug04/village/page1.html#

[Ratheesh Ravindran]

Its high time that you should suscribe for AC magazine.AC is a wonderful magazine which will give you hell lot of information.You can refer old editions of AC Manual which you might find in some old bookshops or libraries.Happy learning....

Ratheesh.

[John Sellar]

Hello,

 

does anyone know where to find an e-text of AC mag? I'm looking for issues dating back to the beginning. My next stop will be the new york publick library.

Thanks.

 

-John

[Dominic Case]

does anyone know where to find an e-text of AC mag? I'm looking for issues dating back to the beginning. My next stop will be the new york publick library.

Recent issues of AC mag are available as a download at http://www.zinio.com, but apart from a recent free offer, there's a cost.

 

I don't know of any magazines that have archived their entire back library to the web.

 

My next stop will be the new york publick library.

Good idea. Libraries are great resources. They are full of information, some of it going back to the times before the internet.

 

Is there anything in particular that you are looking for?

[Satsuki Murashige]

You might also try university libraries - a film school like NYU might have something. I checked at my school, San Francisco State University, and they had issues archived back to the 1930's (hard copies, no scans). But then they started organizing last semester, and they put all the old issues up to the 80's into storage! And once they go into storage, they never come out, or so I was told. I can't tell you how bummed I was.

 

As a side note, it was interesting to see all the old advertisements. Ads for the Canon Scoopic 16MS were in every issue in the late 70's/early 80's!

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

AC mag is great, of course.

 

Does anybody read the BSC's mag though? It's too expensive to order it from the US, but I believe it's about a quid in the UK.

 

Check it out: http://www.bscine.com/

 

What's cool about the BSC's website, is they provide the contact information for the DoP's agents, should you want to hire any of'em :)

Edited January 22, 2007 by Jonathan Bowerbank

[John Sellar]

I haven't had much luck at my school's library (I go to NYU). I went on the New York Public library's site and couldn't find anything. I guess I'll just go in person.

 

I'm taking the advice of David Mullen and others, who always talk about how much they learned from AC when they were starting out.

 

-John

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally I find AC back-issues in academy (university) libraries. Here in Los Angeles, you can find them at UCLA's Theater Arts Library and their SRLF storage facility, the main library at USC, the AFI Library, the AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) Herrick Library, the CalArts Library. And that's just the ones I've visited -- I have no idea about the Cal State libraries like at Northridge or Long Beach.

 

I'm sure that in NYC, you could find them at the NYU's cinema arts or photography libraries, probably Columbia, etc. Trouble is that you'd probably have to read them there, not check them out.

[Dan Salzmann]

I think it would be a great resource if AC scanned all back issues from issue #1 and organized a proper database of some kind so all interested parties could access this information online.

I know I would be willing to pay a "subscription fee" to benefit from this service.

I have been subscribing to the magazine since the early 80's and have some earlier back issues but there are a lot that are either unavailable from AC and virtually impossible to find here in France.

[David Mullen ASC]

I've still been waiting for them to create an index the magazine. I gave them my own personal index that I created for the 1970's issues about four years ago.

 

It's the same old problem -- money. They want to hire a trained indexer (i.e. someone with an MLS probably) and that costs money, scanning costs money, etc. You have to understand that the ASC is a very small organization and the magazine staff is small.

[Jim Feldspar]

I haven't had much luck at my school's library (I go to NYU). I went on the New York Public library's site and couldn't find anything. I guess I'll just go in person.

 

I'm taking the advice of David Mullen and others, who always talk about how much they learned from AC when they were starting out.

 

-John

 

If you can make it to Boston, Emerson College has always been referred as a place where

therev are extensive back issues of AC.

 

However, as Satsuki found, libraries reorganize. Still, you could call and your student

i.d. might get you in if you were coming to Boston anyway or if you know anybody who

goes there, you might at least be able to get specific classic articles photocopied and sent to

you.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

But then they started organizing last semester, and they put all the old issues up to the 80's into storage! And once they go into storage, they never come out, or so I was told. I can't tell you how bummed I was.

 

Hey Satsuki,

 

The SF Public Library has issues from 1921 to 1966 on microfilm, and hard copies of issues form 67 on

 

:)

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

The problem with American Cinematographer is that it's great if you are a hugely bigtime DP working on hugely bigtime movies; since most of us never will be - I think we have exactly one of those people posting here out of dozens of regular contributors, which is probably representative - it can be pitched at the wrong level. I know how to solve problems using cherrypickers with 20K HMIs on the end; what I need to know about is what you can do when you can't have these things, and the magazine never covers that sort of end of the business.

 

If you want to vicariously look at the pretty pictures of big lights, it's fine, but for those of us out here in the real world it's of questionable relevance.

 

Phil

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

what I need to know about is what you can do when you can't have these things, and the magazine never covers that sort of end of the business.

 

Hey Phil, I see what you mean. You may want to look into "Student Filmmaker" magazine. It actually does cover productions on the lower budget level and provides a lot of tips for precisely what you speak of.

 

It's free too, if you're a student (or you can just say you go to a school, I don't think they actually check)

[Dan Salzmann]

Sorry but that's just not true.

First there are often in-depth discussions of what the director and DP set out to accomplish and how they did it.

This is clearly of value to many different types of productions.

Second there are many articles that deal with super8 and miniDV.

Third there are many articles dealing with commercials and music videos that didn't have huge lights and cherrypickers.

Fourth, is it not valuable to gain some insight into "bigtime" productions in the event that one day the reader might be involved in said type of production?

Not to mention equipment reviews, retrospective articles etc.

There is a reason that this magazine is and has been a colossal reference to those working or aspiring to work as a DP, operator, AC, producer, etc. on an international level.

The principles and choices of optics affect all film and video productions.

Filmstock and filters are the same whether you shoot 10 rolls or 1000.

The principles of lighting are the same if you light a shoe box or a skyscraper. What changes is the logistics.

Just my 2 cents.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

The problem with American Cinematographer is that it's great if you are a hugely bigtime DP working on hugely bigtime movies; since most of us never will be - I think we have exactly one of those people posting here out of dozens of regular contributors, which is probably representative - it can be pitched at the wrong level. I know how to solve problems using cherrypickers with 20K HMIs on the end; what I need to know about is what you can do when you can't have these things, and the magazine never covers that sort of end of the business.

 

Ages ago it devoted lots of articles to industrial and high end amateur filmmaking.

That was quite a long time ago & you'll have to find them in a well stacked library.

[Nick Mulder]

related enough to hold my interest:

 

www.cinefex.com

 

but maybe too vfx oriented for some...