The Five C's of Cinematography

Sometimes people ask me to recommend books that are helpful to an aspiring storyboard artist. One of my absolute favorites is "The Five C's of Cinematography" by Joseph V. Mascelli.

It's an old book (first published in 1965) and I feel like I rarely hear people talk abut it. Granted, it's not very exciting or flashy, it's pretty much a textbook on how to approach "The Five C's": Camera Angles, Continuity, Cutting, Close-ups and Composition. All of these topics are vitally important to any storyboard artist, and Mascelli does a good job of explaining the basics of each one.

It uses a lot of old TV stills to explain the concepts (another reason I think it seems dull and doesn't get a lot of love), and it doesn't really provide any insight into more modern, experimental techniques, so it might seem creaky and outdated to some. But I think it's essential to know the basic, traditional reasons why things like proper cutting and screen direction are so important before you can start experimenting and finding new ways of doing things. With anything artistic, I think it's important to understand the core "rules" of why things have been done the way they've always been done before you can start questioning and breaking those rules. I can't stand it when people are determined to break the rules but don't even know what the rules are or why they're breaking them! The best film makers break rules to help tell the story in the best way or have some sort of effect on an audience. It's an inexperienced and lazy film maker who breaks rules just to be a rebel.

Anyway, here are some scans from "The Five C's" to give you a feel for the type of information the book covers.

There's another book called "Shot by Shot" that's more recent and more popular. It's good too, and I would advise any story artist that wants to be any good to read one or the other at some point.