How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck by Steve Stockman (review)

The title of Steve Stockman’s book, How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck, is unfortunate. It’s too flip, too cool, and offensive—so bad that I cannot imagine ordering it for my classes because for an academic text, I want a book whose title at the very least conveys the seriousness of the endeavor. This one does not. Worse, the book fails to offer much beyond a cursory introduction to the foundational elements of videomaking. And although Stockman writes in the opening section, “A Couple of Notes,” about the “the practical pointlessness of the distinction” (n. pag.) between film and video, there is one, if only aspirational: no one would call Coppola a videomaker or call a You-Tuber who shoots her little sister playing with the cat a filmmaker.

Getting past the title, prerequisites for a book about filmmaking or videomaking are (1) an explanation of the foundational elements of visual storytelling as they relate to film and/or (2) an explanation of the technical underpinnings of modern filmmaking. Stockman dismisses the second in the preliminary “Couple of Notes” section by declaring that his “book doesn’t care what kind of camera you use, or how it connects to your computer, or how many ‘p’s’ there are in your HD.” This book, Stockman continues, is “about your ingredients and how you put them together” (n. pag.).

For the “ingredients,” though, a book needs to provide detail beyond the obvious. But Stockman is not too interested in detail, and this is a major flaw of the book. How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck tells the reader everything in the chapter titles: “Nobody Watches Bad Video”; “If You Wing It, It Will Suck” (he really likes this word); “Add Music”; and “Great Effects Make Your Video Pop.” Because of this, it is unclear just whom this book is written for.

At first, the book appears as if it wants to be a quick how-to for aspiring filmmakers or videomakers. But although an introductory book has its place, it has to compete with two classics: The Filmmaker’s Handbook by Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus and Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualization from Concept to Screen by Steven Katz. Ascher and Pincus cover every aspect of the filmmaking process—technical, practical, and theoretical; Katz details the visual vocabulary and language used by directors as they navigate pre-visualization and preproduction collaboration with other artists and craftspeople. Nevertheless, Katz, Ascher, and Pincus approach the subject as if talking to a student filmmaker, whereas Stockman is talking to an aspiring “YouTuber.” And this difference is why How to Shoot Video That Doesn’t Suck fails as an academic text but may thrive on Amazon (where the title alone will get immediate notice). The average YouTuber searching for a book on Amazon is more concerned with views (and getting “partner” status). The student filmmaker, however, wants to be Scorsese or Coppola; wants to make films, not videos; and wants a foundation of not just “how to,” but “why.”

Still, Stockman’s brief chapters—averaging just three pages—do cover essential elements, such as “Know Your Story,” “Zoom with Your Feet,” and “Use Foreground.” Likewise, Stockman breaks down the filmmaking process into easily digestible pieces: “Think in Shots,” “Edit with Your Brain,” “Check the Background,” and “When in Doubt, Cut It Out.” But these short chapters also force Stockman to squeeze a lot of information into a small space: “Stripped to its essentials, a story has four elements: a hero, a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning of any story introduces us to the hero and what situation he’s in. The middle tells what happens to the hero next. The end is how it all turns out” (37). Here is the craft of screen-writing condensed into fifty words.

Moreover, Stockman offers questionable and seemingly opposing creative advice. On page 115, he writes that moving the camera “has no value unless...