Cutting Rhythms Book Review by ChristineMM

My Star Rating: 4 stars out of 5 = I Like It

Summary Statement: Describes a Hard to Articulate Intuitive Process - Impressive - Not for Amateurs

My intention with this book, which I'd not seen in my hands before ordering it, was to read it and use it with my young teen and preteen sons who were fooling around with making amateur movies and who wanted to learn more about editing. They were serious with their intention so I'd call them "serious beginners".

As soon as I began reading the book I realized this book is a serious book for filmmaking students or professional filmmakers. This was over our heads and my family was not the appropriate audience for this.

I have read other books by Focal Point Press and some have been fine for serious beginners and others have been niche books for those seeking a career in or who already have a career in the field. This book I feel is not for serious beginners.

I am a process oriented amateur artist and amateur photographer so I appreciate books about process. In order to describe one's process a person must make the discussion personal as they are telling their viewpoint and their experience, the two are enmeshed. I find that process oriented or right brained creative people can still read a personal viewpoint process book and learn things or start to think about things they want to do, even if what they personally wind up doing is not just copying what that person does. The other type of book that the more left brained people prefer is one that lays out a procedure in steps to follow, this is not that kind of book.

I was impressed with the undertaking of this book, the attempt to put into words how to find a good rhythm and to try to do something that relies so much on intuition. Even though I was not the appropriate audience for this book I still rate it 4 stars = I Like It because the book is full of inspiration and discusses an important topic. I recommend this book for filmmaking students but not for amateurs.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the Amazon.com Vine program for the purpose of publishing a review on Amazon.com. For my blog's full disclosure statement see the link near the top of my blog's sidebar.