Book picks similar to
Four Films: Annie Hall/Interiors/Manhattan/Stardust Memories by Woody Allen
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screenplay
screenplays
cinema
Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!
Robert Ben Garant - 2011
Well…maybe not the best of them, but certainly the most successful. (If you’re aiming to win an Oscar, this is not the book for you!) But if you can type a little, and can read and speak English—then you too can start turning your words into stacks of money! This is the only screenwriting book you will ever need (because all other ones pretty much suck). In these pages, Garant and Lennon provide the kind of priceless tips you won’t find anywhere else, including: -The art of pitching -Getting your foot in the door -Taking notes from movie stars -How to get fired and rehired -How to get credit and royalties! And most important: what to buy with the huge piles of money you’re going to make! Writing Movies for Fun and Profit will take you through the highs and lows of life as a professional screenwriter. From the highs of hugging Gisele Bündchen and getting kung fu punched by Jackie Chan to the soul-crushing lows of Herbie: Fully Loaded. Read this book and you’ll have everything you need to make your first billion the old-fashioned way—by “selling out” in show business! A portion of the authors’ proceeds from this book are being contributed to the USO of Metropolitan Washington, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to serving active duty military members and their families in the greater Washington, DC, region.
Man of La Mancha
Dale Wasserman - 1966
That current is best identified by its catch-labels--Theater of the Absurd, Black Comedy, the Theater of Cruelty--which is to say the theater of alienation, of moral anarchy and despair. To the practitioners of those philosophies Man of La Mancha must seem hopelessly naive in its espousal of illusion as man's strongest spiritual need, the most meaningful function of his imagination. But I've no unhappiness about that. "Facts are the enemy of truth," says Cervantes-Don Quixote. And that is precisely what I felt and meant."--Dale Wasserman, from the Preface.
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1970
When the great hunter Harold Ryan--missing and presumed dead--returns from Africa after eight years, his wife is aghast and his son is enchanted. Vonnegut's attack on phony heroes and male swagger uses some of the funniest dialogue ever created for the stage.
Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen: 35 Great Stories That Have Inspired Great Films
Stephanie Harrison - 2005
Adaptations gathers together 35 pieces that have been the basis for films, many from giants of American literature (Hemingway, Fitzgerald) and many that have not been in print for decades (the stories that inspired Bringing Up Baby, Meet John Doe, and All About Eve).Categorized by genre, and featuring movies by master directors such as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Frank Capra, and John Ford, as well as relative newcomers such as Chris Eyre and Christopher Nolan, Adaptations offers insight into the process of turning a short story into a screenplay, one that, when successful, doesn’t take drastic liberties with the text upon which it is based, but doesn’t mirror its source material too closely either. The stories and movies featured in Adaptations include: - Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report,” which became the 2002 blockbuster directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise- “The Harvey Pekar Name Story” by reclusive graphic artist Harvey Pekar, whose life was the inspiration for American Splendor, winner of the 2003 Sundance Grand Jury Prize- Hagar Wilde’s “Bringing Up Baby,” the basis of the classic film Bringing Up Baby, anthologized here for the first time ever- “The Swimmer” by John Cheever, an example of a highly regarded story that many feared might prove unadaptable•The predecessor to the beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story, “Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid” by Jean ShepherdWhether you’re a fiction reader or a film buff, Adaptations is your behind-the-scenes look at the sometimes difficult, sometimes brilliantly successful process from the printed page to the big screen.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - Illustrated Screenplay
George Lucas - 1998
From the Rebels' defeat at the Battle of Hoth to the battle between Luke and Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back continues the story of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, and the others as they struggle to overthrow the evil Galactic Empire.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
Robert McKee - 1997
Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
Hitchcock
François Truffaut - 1966
Here is a rare opportunity to eavesdrop on two cinematic masters from very different backgrounds as they cover each of Hitch's films in succession. Though this book was initially published in 1967 when Hitchcock was still active, Truffaut later prepared a revised edition that covered the final stages of his career. It's difficult to think of a more informative or entertaining introduction to Hitchcock's art, interests, and peculiar sense of humor. The book is a storehouse of insight and witticism, including the master's impressions of a classic like Rear Window ("I was feeling very creative at the time, the batteries were well charged"), his technical insight into Psycho's shower scene ("the knife never touched the body; it was all done in the [editing]"), and his ruminations on flops such as Under Capricorn ("If I were to make another picture in Australia today, I'd have a policeman hop into the pocket of a kangaroo and yell 'Follow that car!'"). This is one of the most delightful film books in print. --Raphael Shargel
Fleabag: The Scriptures
Phoebe Waller-Bridge - 2019
Fleabag: The Scriptures includes new writing from Phoebe Waller-Bridge alongside the filming scripts and the never-before-seen stage directions from the award-winning series.
The Seven Samurai and Other Screenplays
Akira Kurosawa - 1992
"Ikiru "(1952) tells the painful and intimate story of a Japanese civil servant coming to terms with old age and death. In "Seven Samurai "(1954) the inhabitants of a small Janpanese village employ a roaming band of samurai to defend them. In "Throne of Blood" (1957), based on "Macbeth," a samurai is encouraged by his wife to kill his lord.This edition also includes a critical introduction to each screenplay.
The English Patient: A Screenplay
Anthony Minghella - 1996
This beautifully designed and illustrated book tells the story largely through the eyes of an unknown English patient whose mind is awash with a life's worth of secrets and passions after his plane is shot down near the beginning of World War Two.
How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make
Denny Martin Flinn - 1999
Flinn's book will teach the reader how to avoid the pitfalls of bad screenwriting and arrive at one's own destination intact.
Hollywood Babylon
Kenneth Anger - 1959
Originally published in Paris, this is a collection of Hollywood's darkest and best kept secrets from the pen of Kenneth Anger, a former child movie actor who grew up to become one of America's leading underground film-makers.