I read File Directing: Shot by Shot (the blue book) by Steven D. Katz. I ended up reading the first part of the book through (which focused on storyboarding and visualization) and skimmed the rest of the book.

The topics covered by the parts I read focused heavily on storyboarding. The author put a strong emphasis on careful planning before building sets or shooting any scenes. He covered a variety of techniques for planning storyboarding from technical drawings for set designers to sketches for visualizing a scene and methods for conveying things such as camera motions on a storyboard. A short overview of the entire production cycle for films was also given.

In the parts that I skimmed, the author covered topics such as how to place cameras for various scenes (e.g. dialogue and the 180 degree rule), the triangle, depth of frame, how to stage action by moving the camera, and camera angles. He also takes a detailed look at a variety of camera actions.

I enjoyed this book, especially the part on storyboarding. I think, based on what we discussed in class, I probably should have read the later sections of the book instead, but I think both are interesting and worth a look at.