I was very disappointed in this book. "Setting Up Your Shots" tries to fill a needed gap for a book that explains the basic visual vocabulary of video composition. This book ends up being nothing more than an extended glossery with thubnail descriptions and B&W line drawings to illistrate the shot. But it goes into very little detail about when these shots are used. It does mention a film or two that uses each shot. There is not even a brief discussion of ideas like open vs closed form or any other guiding principle of choosing which shot to use. There is often little or no instruction on how to acheive a shot. For instance, it tells you what rack focus is, but not how to exicute one. There is a brief discussion of axis of action, also known in video as the vector line, but it is so brief as to be useless. Mostly, the book seems written to a ninth or tenth grade level. This book might be of some use to a beginner who just bought their first camcorder and wants a quick apply-it-right-now manual, or to a juinor high student. But there are better books available that discuss shots, like "Picture Composition" by Ward, or chapters 2 and 3 of "Understanding Movies" by Louis Giannetti, although these are more expensive and take more work to read and understand. Also, the author recommends reading other books on subjects like compositon, but there are no specific books recommended. Spend a little more money and time and find a more complete and useful resource. This might work as a glossery to a larger book, but it doesn't stand alone very well.