On Film Editing


Edward Dmytryk - 1984
    Written in an informal "how-to-do-it" style, renowned director Edward Dmytyrk shares his expertise and experience in film editing in an anecdotal and philosophical way. In On Film Editing, Dmytryk contends that many technicians and professionals on the film crew-- from the cameraman and his assistants to the producer and director-- must understand film editing to produce a truly polished work. In this book he explains in layman's terms the principles of film editing, using examples and anecdotes from almost five decades in the film industry.

The Lord of the Rings: The Art of the Fellowship of the Ring


Gary Russell - 2002
    This official publication contains 500 exclusive images, from the earliest pencil sketches and conceptual drawings to magnificent full-color paintings that shaped the look of the film. All the principal locations, costumes, armor and creatures are covered in stunning detail, including concepts, storyboards and images that did not make it into the final film.As well as a wealth of sketches, paintings and digital images, The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring contains photographs showing how the creative process was realized and a number of stills from the film. Contributors include Alan Lee and John Howe, the two artists who inspired Peter Jackson's vision of Middle-earth and who worked with him to bring his trilogy to the big screen. They and a dozen other designers who created all of these diverse elements explain how they contributed to the development of the film, giving a fascinating insight into how Middle-earth was brought to life.With text compiled from exclusive interviews with director Peter Jackson, special effects supervisor Richard Taylor, designers Grant Major, Ngila Dickson, Paul Lasaine and others, this unique book celebrates the pivotal contribution made by a handful of people which help turn the first Lord of the Rings movie into an award-winning global success.

From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film


Siegfried Kracauer - 1947
    Siegfried Kracauer--a prominent German film critic and member of Walter Benjamin's and Theodor Adorno's intellectual circle--broke new ground in exploring the connections between film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer's pioneering book, which examines German history from 1921 to 1933 in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel, has never gone out of print. Now, over half a century after its first appearance, this beautifully designed and entirely new edition reintroduces Kracauer for the twenty-first century. Film scholar Leonardo Quaresima places Kracauer in context in a critical introduction, and updates the book further with a new bibliography, index, and list of inaccuracies that crept into the first edition. This volume is a must-have for the film historian, film theorist, or cinema enthusiast.In From Caligari to Hitler, Siegfried Kracauer made a startling (and still controversial) claim: films as a popular art provide insight into the unconscious motivations and fantasies of a nation. In films of the 1920s, he traced recurring visual and narrative tropes that expressed, he argued, a fear of chaos and a desire for order, even at the price of authoritarian rule. The book has become an undisputed classic of film historiography, laying the foundations for the serious study of film.Kracauer was an important film critic in Weimar Germany. A Jew, he escaped the rise of Nazism, fleeing to Paris in 1933. Later, in anguish after Benjamin's suicide, he made his way to New York, where he remained until his death in 1966. He wrote From Caligari to Hitler while working as a "special assistant" to the curator of the Museum of Modern Art's film division. He was also on the editorial board of Bollingen Series. Despite many critiques of its attempt to link movies to historical outcomes, From Caligari to Hitler remains Kracauer's best-known and most influential book, and a seminal work in the study of film. Princeton published a revised edition of his Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality in 1997.

Cast Away: The Shooting Script


William Broyles Jr. - 2001
    So begins William Broyles, Jr.'s fascinating introduction, written exclusively for this book, about the process and challenges inherent in writing a screenplay that was not, by design, going to have a lot of dialogue in it, and about his collaboration with two extraordinarily gifted artists, actor Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis.Broyles's introduction shows how a movie and its story evolve, shift, and shape while the creators grapple with all manner of internal and external choices: from developing what was Tom Hanks's idea into a story, and building a narrative structure and thematic threads into a screenplay, to researching the details of the specific—and ironic—situation of a FedEx executive stranded on a desert island.Also included in this unique Newmarket Shooting Script® edition is the complete shooting script, a preface to the script by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Contact), movie stills, and complete cast and crew credits.

Master Shots Volume 2: Shooting Great Dialogue Scenes


Christopher Kenworthy - 2011
    Includes more than 200 diagrams illustrating camera positions.

The Art of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow


Andrew Kevin Walker - 1999
    It is fitting, then, that the companion book to his movie Sleepy Hollow is a big and beautiful hardback, full of images that range from quietly eerie to eye-popping. The book contains Burton's sketches, paintings from production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer Colleen Atwood, and dozens of stills from the film itself. All of this is juxtaposed with Andrew Kevin Walker's screenplay of Washington Irving's story. The result is a unique opportunity to see how a film comes together. Bare words on a page result in Burton's quirky roughs, which are fleshed out into more detailed paintings by Burton and the production team. Finally it all comes together in photographs of the end product. In addition to an engrossing screenplay (Careful! It's far from a direct cribbing of the original story, so see the movie before reading too far if you don't want the plot spoiled), the reader gets to see the evolution of Ichabod's binocular glasses and creepy yet strangely charming autopsy instruments. The book as a whole illustrates one of the most interesting aspects of Burton's vision--frightening images are clearly meant to be seen as beautiful at the same time. The Art of Sleepy Hollow is entertaining on several levels: as a good story, as a step-by-step tour of the way a film's design comes together, and as a fascinating picture book for grownups. --Ali Davis

Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses: Roger Corman, King of the B-Movie


Chris Nashawaty - 2013
    As told by Corman himself and graduates of “The Corman Film School,” including Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese, this comprehensive oral history takes readers behind the scenes of more than six decades of American cinema, as now-legendary directors and actors candidly unspool recollections of working with Corman, continually one-upping one another with tales of the years before their big breaks.Crab Monsters is supplemented with dozens of full-color reproductions of classic Corman movie posters; behind-the-scenes photographs and ephemera (many taken from Corman’s personal archive); and critical essays on Corman’s most daring films—including The Intruder, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Big Doll House— that make the case for Corman as an artist like no other. Praise for Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses: “This new coffee table book, brimming with outrageous stills from many of Corman’s hundreds of films, looks at the wild career of the starmaker who was largely responsible for so much of the Hollywood we know today.” —New York Post “Vividly illustrated.” —People “An enthusiastic ode to colorful, seat-of-your-pants filmmaking, this one’s hard to beat.” —Booklist (starred review) “It includes in-depth aesthetic appreciations of ten of Corman’s movies, which, taken together, make a compelling case for Corman as an artist.” —Hollywood.com “Author Nashawaty deftly describes how Corman’s legacy is far more nuanced than most realize.” —American Way magazine “Outrageously entertaining . . .”  —Parade magazine “Endlessly fascinating.” —PopMatters.com “You’d think it’d be impossible for any writer to put together a Roger Corman biography that's anywhere near as fun as his movies, but Entertainment Weekly writer/critic Chris Nashawaty has done just that.”  —Complex magazine