Gaffers, Grips and Best Boys: From Producer-Director to Gaffer and Computer Special Effects Creator, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Who Does What in the Making of a Motion Picture Review

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Gaffers, Grips and Best Boys: From Producer-Director to Gaffer and Computer Special Effects Creator, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Who Does What in the Making of a Motion Picture ReviewAs far as I know there are two books on the subject, the other being William E. Hines' "Job Descriptions for Film, Video & CGI". From those two this book is certainly more prosa. Every major field of movie production is described through kind of essays written from industry insiders. Although the book is by no means an encyclopedia, the reader gets a good idea what those jobs really are about. If you want some insights instead of concise descriptions, buy this book.Gaffers, Grips and Best Boys: From Producer-Director to Gaffer and Computer Special Effects Creator, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Who Does What in the Making of a Motion Picture Overview

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Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) Review

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Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) ReviewAs Alain Silver explains in the book's Introduction, "Film Noir Reader 4" is different in purpose from the previous Film Noir Readers. It focuses on key films and key themes, rather than attempting to be inclusive or comprehensive. In that spirit, Silver has included a few lists of the most important film noirs according to himself and others in the Introduction. "Film Noir Reader 4" contains 23 mostly modern essays, many apparently not previously published, presented in two parts. The paper the book is printed on is pure white, instead of the off-white of previous volumes, so the black-and-white stills look better.
Part I, "Case Studies", includes 12 essays on key films. The films discussed are: "Double Indemnity", "Detour", "The Big Sleep", "Out of the Past", "The Unsuspected", "Gun Crazy", "D.O.A", "The Big Night", "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Big Heat", "The Big Combo", and "Touch of Evil". Glenn Erickson's enthusiastic and insightful essay "Fate Seeks the Loser: Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour" is particularly interesting. The same can be said for Kevin Hagopian's study of "The Big Sleep" and Stephen B. Armstrong's history of "Touch of Evil". Both films were radically altered by recuts, with the result of making them nonsensical. These carefully researched essays explain what was changed and why.
Part II focuses on "Noir Themes", although I don't think that most of these can reasonably be called "key" themes. Eleven essays discuss a variety of themes that can be found or projected upon classic noir films, including psychodrama, images of women, noir antecedents, horror-noir, war noirs, left-wing politics in noir and crime films, hybrid noir-westerns, and noir title sequences. In other words, Part II is a catch-all. "Cat People", "Rancho Notorious" (in comparison to "The Big Heat"), and "Double Indemnity" are discussed in the most depth.
I'm giving "Film Noir Reader 4" a lower rating than I gave the previous Film Noir Readers, because it is overwhelmed by the sort of absurd ideological readings that I haven't heard this much of since I studied film in college. The reader can't get far without running into dogmatic -and, I might add, eternally ill-defined- terminology like "patriarchal capitalism" and "misogyny". For grown persons to legitimize their socio-economic hang-ups by deliberately misrepresenting 60-year-old movies is pitiful. I am reminded of the reason director Fritz Lang left Germany: The Nazi Party liked his films so much that they offered Lang the opportunity to run the German film industry. His films were anti-fascist. Anyway, there are some good, informative, essays in "Film Noir Reader 4", and it's useful to present different interpretations. But these aren't so different, and I get the impression of scraping the bottom of the barrel.Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) OverviewThe earlier Film Noir Readers, which now boast a combined sale of well over 30,000 copies, have all quite deliberately conveyed a sweeping overview of the classic period, demonstrating how broad and inclusive noir movies are. Film Noir Reader 4 moves in a different direction. Its purpose is to identify the key films and motifs of noir and to analyze in depth the prototypical pictures that, while vivid examples of certain cinematic themes, bend and break their molds to find new ways to enthrall and frighten us. Like its predecessors, Film Noir Reader 4 is generously illustrated and features essays by such respected film critics and scholars as Robin Wood, J.P. Telotte, R. Barton Palmer, and Robert Porfirio. All have as their purpose to explain why and how these classic films work; the way screenplay, direction, acting, cinematography, editing and all the other filmmaking crafts blended together to produce work that exemplifies both a particular movement in film history and the innovations that keep the noir style fresh and compelling.

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Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia Review

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Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia Reviewmolto interessante. I testi universitari italiani sono decisamente meno dettagliati ed appassionanti come un libro
di narrativaFilm Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia OverviewWheeler Winston Dixon engages readers in an overview of noir and fatalist film from the mid-twentieth century to the present, ending with a discussion of television, the Internet, and dominant commercial cinema. Beginning with the 1940s classics, Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia moves to the "Red Scare" and other ominous expressions of the 1950s. The dark cinema of the 1960s reflected the tensions of a society facing a new and, to some, menacing era of social expression.

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Film Noir Reader Review

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Film Noir Reader ReviewI'm including reviews of both "Film Noir Reader" and "Film Noir Reader 2" in the same review until Amazon gets the two books unlinked.
FILM NOIR READER (1)
"Film Noir Reader" is a collection of 22 essays about film noir, written between the mid-1950s and mid-1990s by a diverse group of film theorists, including a few essays by the editors themselves, Alain Silver and James Ursini. Some of the essays are illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Mr. Silver takes the opportunity of the book's Introduction to deliver a scathing rebuttal of French critic Marc Vernet's views before commenting on the book's content.
"Film Noir Reader" has three parts: Part I is "Seminal Essays", which include 8 essays written 1955-1979. An excerpt from Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton's seminal 1955 book "A Panorama of American Film Noir" is included, as well as Paul Schrader's essential 1972 essay "Notes on Film Noir". Other essays discuss film noir's visual style, existential motifs, and there is a very interesting essay by Paul Kerr on the circumstances that caused B movies, including B-noirs, to flourish in the 1940s. Part II, "Case Studies", includes 8 essays about specific films and directors, all but one addressing films of the classic noir period. Essays are dedicated to directors John Farrow and Anthony Mann, while others discuss the films "Phantom Lady", "Angel Face", "The Killers", "Night and the City", "Kiss Me Deadly", "Hickey and Boggs", and "The Long Goodbye". Part III, "Noir Then and Now", includes 6 articles that seemed not to fit into Part I or Part II, including a few about neo-noir films. Karen Hollinger discusses the effects of first-person male voiceovers on the images of female characters in classic film noir. Others essays explore films that feature fugitive couples, noir television series, neo-B noirs, and Jeremy G. Butler writes about "Miami Vice".
The date of first publication is clearly stated for all essays in Part I, but I found myself wondering when some of the other essays had been written. Publication information, including dates, are provided for each essay at the end of the book's Acknowledgments. There are some interesting and essential essays in "Film Noir Reader", and some less so, but the book provides a nice collection of opinions and observations on the style that are great food for thought for noir fans and scholars.
FILM NOIR READER 2
"Film Noir Reader 2" is a collection of 24 essays, written 1945-1999, that attempt to define the film noir sensibility and explore particular films and facets of the style in depth. This book shares the same format with the first "Film Noir Reader": Essays are arranged in 3 parts. Part I contains "More Seminal Essays" that augment the defining material in "Film Noir Reader". There are 8 essays, written 1945-1988, including a surprising article written by Lloyd Shearer for "The New York Times" in 1945. A year before French film critics identified and began to discuss the film noir style, Shearer plainly recognized a distinct trend in Hollywood toward "lusty, hard-boiled, gut-and-gore crime stories, all fashioned on a theme with a combination of plausibly motivated murder and studded with high-powered Freudian implication." Pretty neat definition only 4 years into the noir movement. And Shearer goes on to ask "why at this time are so many pictures of the same type being made?" Funny that his article should be reproduced in a book that is still trying to answer that question 60 years later. Shearer's article is followed by French critic Nino Frank's 1946 essay in which the term "noir" was first applied to film. For all the talk of film noir having been created in the minds of critics after the fact, it's apparent that these writers comprehended the existence of film noir style as it was being created.
Part II is dedicated to "Case Studies". It includes 8 essays that discuss "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946 & 1981 versions), "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Big Heat", "The File on Thelma Jordan", "Pushover", the neo-noirs "Mississippi Mermaid" and "Badlands", as well as the films of directors Alfred Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller. There is also an essay by Francis M. Nevins on films adapted from the works of Cornell Woolrich and an essay by Robert G. Porfino on jazz music in film noir. Part III, "The Evolution of Noir", is an eclectic assortment of 8 essays. Topics include: noir science fiction, British film noir, abstract expressionism in film noir, female protagonists in neo-noir, and tabloid/crime photographer WeeGee's (Arthur Fellig) relationship to film noir, including discussion of the 1992 film "Public Eye" that was inspired by his career. Film professor Philip Gaines provides an outline of his film noir course, with recommended films and suggested reading. I'd like to mention, in response to Linda Brookover's essay on WeeGee, that although WeeGee's talent for self-promotion was equal to his gift for photojournalism, his photographs were not unique. The work of many excellent and tireless crime photographers adorned the pages of daily newspapers in the 1920s-1950s. Some of them can be seen in the "New York Noir" gallery of the "New York Daily News" archive at www.dailynewspix.com . Tabloid photography is usually overlooked as an influence on film noir, so I'm glad that Ms. Brookover has addressed that oversight, even if I don't entirely agree with her assessment.Film Noir Reader OverviewThis bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style, now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

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Writing Treatments That Sell: How to Create and Market Your Story Ideas to the Motion Picture and TV Industry, Second Edition Review

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Writing Treatments That Sell: How to Create and Market Your Story Ideas to the Motion Picture and TV Industry, Second Edition ReviewI just finished this book about four days ago, and I've already completed my first treatment, in my case a television series "bible." This book gave me a lot of insights, and I'm quite satisfied. It's short, easy to read, direct and practical. There's even a section at the end about copyrighting and legal issues, which is very helpful and will come in handy for the next part of the process that awaits me.
By the way, a previous reviewer mentioned that this book deserves four stars instead of five because a sample treatment for big-screen movies wasn't included. In actuality, a sample television movie treatment was included. All you have to do is change the seven-act structure used for television movies into the three-act structure used for big-screen movies and that TV movie sample treatment can also be used as a sample treatment for a big-screen movie.Writing Treatments That Sell: How to Create and Market Your Story Ideas to the Motion Picture and TV Industry, Second Edition Overview

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Rebel without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player Review

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Rebel without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player ReviewNot because he's a great writer or director, but because with every single project he makes me feel like I can DO this. I can make good movies that people will enjoy watching. And you can, too.
This is one of the most inspiring books on filmmaking I've ever read--it depicts, in detail, all the ups and downs that went into making and selling EL MARIACHI, the $7000 sensation that opened doors for Rodriguez.
A lot of filmmakers argue that EL MARIACHI isn't a great film, that the story's kind of silly, that the version that most of us saw had $500,000 worth of post-production work added, and on and on.
But they're talking about it. It's 2003 and people are still talking about the amazing feat Rodriguez pulled off with this film. For $7000 of his own money, plus a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears, he got himself noticed and made a career out of his hobby. "Do what you love, then find someone who will pay you to do it."
This is a how-to manual for the basement movie-maker, written by a man who is excited about using movies to tell his stories: in this book, in the commentary tracks for his movies, in his Ten-Minute Film School installments, I have never once felt like Robert Rodriguez was bored with either his work or his achievements. The guy has fun, and his personality gets its fingerprints all over his work--if you can't enjoy yourself while watching a Rodriguez movie, you're expecting too much and thinking too hard.
This guy is not changing the face of American cinema: he wants all of US to change the face of American cinema, and this book is an open invitation to do just that.
Devour Rodriguez. Consume this book and engorge yourself on his DVDs. Chow down on special features on how he did it that also show YOU how to do it. If, after a week-long diet of Robert Rodriguez, you DON'T want to make your own movie IMMEDIATELY, seek a different destiny: making movies is not for you.Rebel without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player OverviewIn Rebel Without a Crew, screenwriter and director Robert Rodriguez discloses all the unique strategies and original techniques he used to make his remarkable debut film, El Mariachi, on a shoestring budget. This is both one man's remarkable story and an essential guide for anyone who has a celluloid story to tell and the dreams and determination to see it through.

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Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Universal Filmscript Series, Vol. 5) (Universal Filmscripts Series: Classic Horror Films) Review

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Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Universal Filmscript Series, Vol. 5) (Universal Filmscripts Series: Classic Horror Films) ReviewAnother in the great series of Universal Filmscripts. The pictures alone are worth the price of the book. The background also tells about Lugosi's dialogue being cut out and what some of it was. It also explains the ending and the escape of Massey, Knowles, and Ouspenskaya (which is not shown in the film). It is a shame that production of these filmscripts didn't cover ALL of the Universal Horror Movies because of the detailed background of each.Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (Universal Filmscript Series, Vol. 5) (Universal Filmscripts Series: Classic Horror Films) Overview

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The Wolf Man (Universal Filmscript Series) (Universal Filmscripts Series: Classic Horror Films) Review

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The Wolf Man (Universal Filmscript Series) (Universal Filmscripts Series: Classic Horror Films) ReviewOne of the best horror films ever made and truly deserving the acolade classic.The book brings to light all the infomation any film buff would need to satisfy their thist for behind the scenes details.From the eary concepts to final shooting schedule, how the orginal makeup designs were brought about to interveiws with cast members and the man who actually wrote the script.Great behind the scences photographs from the great Jack P. Pierce's lost scrap books (when is Douglas Norwine going to publish that book about Pierce)to the orginal film score, an absolute delight to read and treasure.The Wolf Man (Universal Filmscript Series) (Universal Filmscripts Series: Classic Horror Films) Overview"Even a man who is pure of heart, as says his prayers atnight, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the moon is fulland bright" Werewolf legend or Hollywood creation?Find the answersin this, the most thorough examination of the making of the Universalclassic "The Wolfman."Forward by star Evelyn Ankers; Introduction byScreenwriter Curt Siodmak; Commentary by Lon Chaney, Jr.

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