More comprehensive than ever before--and now 1,000 pages--this revised edition describes the insider dynamics at hundreds of U.S. and Canadian publishers, with hundreds of names and specialties for book acquisition editors. Nearly 200 of the most powerful literary agents reveal invaluable tips, as if they were having a private conversation with a special friend. With detailed information on what to do (and what not to do) to break the code, break down the walls, and get that first book, second book, or thirtieth book published, bought and read, Jeff Herman's Guide is the go-to source for writers everywhere.

    A LOT OF THESE SCREENWRITING BOOKS LIKE TO FILL YOUR HEAD WITH FALSE PROMISES AND EASY TRICKS. BUT IT’S SO DAMN FAR FROM THE OBVIOUS TRUTH: BECOMING A TALENTED WRITER TAKES A LONG TIME AND A LOT OF HARD WORK. THEY ALSO CONVENIENTLY FORGET TO MENTION THAT THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU. THERE ARE OVER A MILLION SCRIPTS ALREADY FLOATING AROUND HOLLYWOOD. HULK HAS READ, OH... A COUPLE THOUSAND OF THEM. AND NEARLY EVERY SINGLE PERSON HULK MEETS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY ALREADY HAS A SCRIPT OF SOME SORT. NOT ONLY DOES THE SHEER VOLUME OF SCRIPTS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH ONESELF IN THIS CLIMATE, BUT SO DOES THE FACT THAT THERE ARE ALREADY A VAST NUMBER OF TALENTED, PROFESSIONAL WRITERS IN NEED OF WORK. SO GIVEN ALL THESE CRIPPLING ODDS, WE SHOULD ALL JUST GIVE UP, RIGHT? WELL, NO. YOU’RE NOT HERE READING THIS BECAUSE THAT REALITY BOTHERS YOU. AND THAT’S THE THING ABOUT THE MOVIES: THEY’RE WONDERFUL. THEY’RE THE IMAGINATION OF STORYTELLING MADE TANGIBLE. THEY’RE OUR DREAMS MADE REAL. WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO BE A PART OF ALL THAT? FILM CRIT HULK WAS CREATED IN A CHAOTIC LAB EXPERIMENT INVOLVING GAMMA RADIATION, THE GHOST OF PAULINE KAEL, AND TELEPODS FOR SOME REASON. NOW HULK HAS A DEEP AND ABIDING LOVE OF CINEMA WHEREIN HULK RECOGNIZES THE INHERENT VALUES OF POPULAR, NARRATIVE, OR EXPERIMENTAL STYLES! THROUGH A UNIQUE JOURNEY, HULK HAS ENDED UP WORKING IN HOLLYWOOD FOR OVER A DECADE AND NOW WRITES ABOUT CINEMA AND STORYTELLING IN THOROUGHLY HULK-SIZED FASHION. AND NOW YOU HOLD IN YOUR HANDS / HAVE ON YOUR SCREEN / WHATEVER IN YOUR WHATEVER, THE FIRST EBOOK BY FILM CRIT HULK. THE ONLY THING IT MEANS TO BE IS HELPFUL. Free sentence case version included!

    Here you'll meet, among many others, the 20s film idols snorting cocaine from an illuminated glass dance floor on the bank of the Thames, the model who escaped Soho's gangsters to become the queen of the nudie flicks and the genteel Scottish comedienne who, at the age of fifty-five, reinvented herself as a star of exploitation cinema, and fondly remembers 'the one where I drilled in people's heads and ate their brains'. Welcome to the lost worlds of British cinema.

    Now, James Monaco offers a revised and rewritten third edition incorporating every major aspect of this dynamic medium right up to the present.Looking at film from many vantage points, How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia explores the medium as both art and craft, sensibility and science, tradition and technology. After examining film's close relation to such other narrative media as the novel, painting, photography, television, and even music, Monaco discusses those elements necessary to understand how films convey meaning and, more importantly, how we can best discern all that a film is attempting to communicate.In a key departure from the book's previous editions, the new and still-evolving digital context of film is now emphasized throughout How to Read a Film. A new chapter on multimedia brings media criticism into the twenty-first century with a thorough discussion of topics like virtual reality, cyberspace, and the proximity of both to film. Monaco has likewise doubled the size and scope of his Film and Media: A Chronology appendix. The book also features a new introduction, an expanded bibliography, and hundreds of illustrative black-and-white film stills and diagrams. It is a must for all film students, media buffs, and movie fans.

    

    His more than twenty-five years as a player and coach have informed his popular Hockey Night in Canada commentary segment, "Coach's Corner." And now he's got more stories to share.In Don Cherry's Hockey Stories, Part 2, Grapes tells us about the 2010 Stanley Cup, relays the lessons he's learned both on and off the ice, and takes us inside hockey's mythical players' "code." You'll encounter familiar names from the game and find out who this idol looks up to. You'll travel back in time to Cherry's days playing in the minor leagues. You'll share his experiences of being named Coach of the Year in the NHL and in the AHL. And you'll hear from his kids about what it was like growing up with a dad like Don..Don Cherry tells it like it is, for better or for worse. You won't be disappointed.P.S. Don wants you to know it's a book the whole family can enjoy.

    Most of this instructive and funny book is written in dialogue form and based on film classes Mamet taught at Columbia University. He encourages his students to tell their stories not with words, but through the juxtaposition of uninflected images. The best films, Mamet argues, are composed of simple shots. The great filmmaker understands that the burden of cinematic storytelling lies less in the individual shot than in the collective meaning that shots convey when they are edited together. Mamet borrows many of his ideas about directing, writing, and acting from Russian masters such as Konstantin Stanislavsky, Sergei M. Eisenstein, and Vsevelod Pudovkin, but he presents his material in so delightful and lively a fashion that he revitalizes it for the contemporary reader.

    From those conversations stemmed this enlightened, affectionate book -- a mine of wonderful, surprising observations and information about editing, writing and literature, music and sound, the I-Ching, dreams, art and history.The Conversations is filled with stories about how some of the most important movies of the last thirty years were made and about the people who brought them to the screen. It traces the artistic growth of Murch, as well as his friends and contemporaries -- including directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Fred Zinneman and Anthony Minghella -- from the creation of the independent, anti-Hollywood Zoetrope by a handful of brilliant, bearded young men to the recent triumph of Apocalypse Now Redux.Among the films Murch has worked on are American Graffiti, The Conversation, the remake of A Touch of Evil, Julia, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather (all three), The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The English Patient."Walter Murch is a true oddity in Hollywood. A genuine intellectual and renaissance man who appears wise and private at the centre of various temporary storms to do with film making and his whole generation of filmmakers. He knows, probably, where a lot of the bodies are buried."

    

    His career in film started in John Boorman's atmospheric Excalibur and to date has included such highlights as Miller's Crossing (The Coen Brothers), Gothic (Ken Russell), In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan) which he also produced, The Usual Suspects (Brian Singer) and most recently Smila's Feeling for Snow and the Man in the Iron Mask. The range of roles is varied but always played with a brooding intensity.

    But with so much variety between an Alfred Hitchcock thriller and a Nora Ephron romantic comedy, how can everyday viewers determine what makes a good movie?In Talking Pictures, veteran film critic Ann Hornaday walks us through the production of a typical movie—from writing the script and casting to the final sound edit—and explains how to evaluate each piece of the process. How do we know if a film is well-written, above and beyond snappy dialogue? What constitutes a great screen performance? What goes into praiseworthy cinematography, editing, and sound design? And what does a director really do? Full of engaging anecdotes and interviews with actors and filmmakers, Talking Pictures will help us see movies in a whole new light—not just as fans, but as film critics in our own right.

    A comprehensive guide to Amor Towles' acclaimed new novel 'A Gentleman in Moscow', this discussion aid includes a wealth of information and resources: useful literary and historical context; an author biography; a plot synopsis; analyses of themes & imagery; character analysis; twenty thought-provoking discussion questions; recommended further reading and even a quick quiz. For those in book clubs, this useful companion guide takes the hard work out of preparing for meetings and guarantees productive discussion. For solo readers, it encourages a deeper examination of a multi-layered text.

    Grab your copy of Secret Hollywood and start gossiping!

    An inspiration to all would-be screenwriters, this book is about living the screenwriter's life -- the habits, writing environments, creative processes, daily passions, and obsessions.In The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters, author Karl Iglesias has interviewed 14 top contemporary Hollywood screenwriters who offer their experience, insight, and advice to aspiring screenwriters everywhere.

    The book was written as an answer to the glut of tired A-Z screenwriting books that have flooded the market over the years. Instead of another extensive How-To guide, Scriptshadow Secrets looks at 50 popular movies from the past six decades and offers 10 (give or take) screenwriting tips from each. The idea is to not only teach screenwriters valuable lessons, but show how those lessons have been incorporated into successful films. This way, writers learn by example, instead of having to take the author's word for it. From Aliens to Pirates Of The Caribbean to The Hangover to The Empire Strikes Back, Secrets teaches you screenwriting lessons from the greatest films of all time. Author Carson Reeves began as a screenwriter himself, yet struggled to figure out the elusive formula for writing a successful screenplay. Then, about seven years ago, he started getting his hands on spec sale scripts and reading them. Within weeks, he'd learned more about screenwriting than he had in the past seven years combined. He then turned his attention from writing to helping others write. This was the genesis behind the Scriptshadow website - a way to teach screenwriting through reading professional screenplays.The site blew up but quickly became controversial, due to Reeves breaking down material that Hollywood considered private. As such, the site's become a "love it or hate it" fixture in both Hollywood and the screenwriting community. Still, the site has tens of thousands of aspiring screenwriters who visit daily and make it the most popular screenwriting site on the web. The site's most popular feature, the "What I learned" section at the end of each review, was the main inspiration behind Scriptshadow Secrets, as Reeves saw how positively writers responded to quick context-relevant tips.