Download or read book Why We Make Movies written by George Alexander and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sparkling collection of interviews with African American directors and producers. Bringing together more than thirty candid conversations with filmmakers and producers such as Spike Lee, Gordon Parks, Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, and Robert Townsend, Why We Make Movies delivers a cultural celebration with the tips of a film-school master class. With journalist George Alexander, these revolutionary men and women discuss not only how they got their big breaks, but more importantly, they explore the creative process and what making movies means to them. Why We Make Movies also addresses the business of Hollywood and its turning tide, in a nation where African Americans comprise a sizable portion of the film-going public and go to the movies more frequently than whites. In addition, Alexander’s cast of directors and producers considers the lead roles they now play in everything from documentaries and films for television to broad-based blockbusters (in fact, the highest-grossing film in Miramax history was Scary Movie, directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans). For film buffs and aspiring filmmakers alike, Why We Make Movies puts a long-overdue spotlight on one of the most exciting and cutting-edge segments of today’s silver screen. INTERVIEWS INCLUDE: MELVIN VAN PEEBLES • MICHAEL SCHULTZ • CHARLES BURNETT • SPIKE LEE • ROBERT TOWNSEND • FRED WILLIAMSON • ERNEST DICKERSON • KEENEN IVORY WAYANS • ANTOINE FUQUA • BILL DUKE • FORREST WHITAKER • JULIE DASH • KASI LEMMONS • GINA PRINC-BLYTHEWOOD • JOHN SINGLETON • GEORGE TILLMAN Jr. • REGINALD HUDLIN • WARRINGTON HUDLIN • MALCOLM LEE • EUZHAN PALCY • DOUG McHENRY • DEBRA MARTIN CHASE • St. CLAIR BOURNE • STANLEY NELSON • WILLIAM GREAVES • KATHE SANDLER • CAMILLE BILLOPS • HAILE GERIMA • GORDON PARKS

Download or read book Speaking in Images written by Michael Berry and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interviews with Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and other Chinese directors about their work & the ways it has impacted both on the film industry in China as well as on the world scene.

Download or read book Film Makers Speak written by Jay Leyda and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathers selections from interviews with directors, actors, actresses, composers, designers, writers, and cameramen in which they discuss their film work

Download or read book Speaking of Films written by Satyajit Ray and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2005 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents India's greatest film-maker on the art and craft of films. Speaking of Films brings together some of Ray's most memorable writings on film and film-making. With the masterly precision and clarity that characterize his films, Ray discusses a wide array of subjects: the structure and language of cinema with special reference to his adaptations of Tagore and Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay, the appropriate use of background music and dialogue in films, the relationship between a film-maker and a film critic, and important developments in cinema like the advent of sound and colour. He also writes about his own experiences, the challenges of working with rank amateurs, and the innovations called for when making a film in the face of technological, financial and logistical constraints. In the process, Ray provides fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses of the people who worked with him - the intricacies of getting Chhabi Biswas, who had no ear for music, to play a patron of classical music in Jalsaghar, the incredible memory of the seventy-five-year-old Chunibala Devi, Indir Thakrun of Pather Panchali, and her remarkable attention to details.

Download or read book Film Talk written by Wheeler Winston Dixon and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-11 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What 1970s Hollywood filmmaker influenced Quentin Tarantino? How have contemporary Japanese horror films inspired Takashi Shimizu, director of the huge box office hit The Grudge? What is it like to be an African American director in the twenty-first century? The answers to these questions, along with many more little-known facts and insights, can be found in Film Talk, an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking from the 1940s to the present. In eleven intimate and revealing interviews, contemporary film directors speak frankly about their work-their successes and their disappointments, their personal aspirations, struggles, relationships, and the politics that affect the industry. A medley of directors including those working in pop culture and documentary, as well as feminist filmmakers, social satirists, and Hollywood mavericks recount stories that have never before been published. Among them are Monte Hellman, the auteur of the minimalist masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop; Albert Maysles, who with his late brother David, created some of the most important documentaries of the 1960s, including Salesman and The Beatles: What's Happening?; Robert Downey Sr., whose social satires Putney Swope and Greaser's Palace paved the way for a generation of filmmakers; Bennett Miller, whose film Capote won an Academy Award in 2005; and Jamie Babbit, a lesbian crossover director whose low-budget film But I'm a Cheerleader! became a mainstream hit. The candid conversations, complimented by more than fifty photographs, including many that are rare, make this book essential reading for aspiring moviemakers, film scholars, and everyone interested in the how movies are made and who the fascinating individuals are who make them.

Download or read book Speaking of Films written by Satyajit Ray and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-07-25 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India's greatest film-maker on the art and craft of films Exactly fifty years ago, in 1955, the release of Pather Panchali heralded the arrival of a master in the world of cinema. Over the next forty years, Satyajit Ray came to be regarded as one of the world's finest film-makers ever. Today, more than a decade after his death, he continues to be India's most respected name in international film circles. Apart from his achievements as a director, Ray was also a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and essays on cinema. Speaking of Films brings together some of Ray's most memorable writings on film and film-making. With the masterly precision and clarity that characterize his films, Ray discusses a wide array of subjects: the structure and language of cinema with special reference to his adaptations of Tagore and Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay, the appropriate use of background music and dialogue in films, the relationship between a film-maker and a film critic, and important develoents in cinema like the advent of sound and colour. He also writes about his own experiences, the challenges of working with rank amateurs, and the innovations called for when making a film in the face of technological, financial and logistical constraints. In the process, Ray provides fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses of the people who worked with him"the intricacies of getting Chhabi Biswas, who had no ear for music, to play a patron of classical music in Jalsaghar; the incredible memory of the seventy-five-year-old Chunibala Devi, Indir Thakrun of Pather Panchali, and her remarkable attention to details. This first-ever translation of Bishay Chalachitra, a seminal collection of essays on cinema, Speaking of Films retains the lucidity and simplicity that is a hallmark of Ray's writing, and gives an invaluable insight into the mind of a genius.

Download or read book Film World written by Michel Ciment and published by Berg Publishers. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film World brings together key interviews with cinema's leading directors. The directors chosen represent many of the most influential film-makers of the last 50 years. All have been selected because of their cinematic vision, because they have a particular way of seeing the world and of filming it. All have created a body of work which is both hugely popular and critically acclaimed. This truly global range of directors hails from Australia, Britain, China and Hong Kong, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, North America, Poland, and Russia. Together, these illuminating interviews reveal how these visionary directors create images which speak to audiences the world over. The interviews are with: Bernardo Bertolucci, John Boorman, Robert Bresson, Jane Campion, John Cassavetes, David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Greenaway, Werner Herzog, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wong Kar-wei, Aki Kaurismaki, Abbas Kiarostami, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Takeshi Kitano, Im Kwon-taek, Mike Leigh, Manoel de Oliveira, Satyajit Ray, Martin Scorsese, Andrei Tarkovsky, Lars von Trier, Zhang Yimou

Download or read book Sidney Lumet written by Sidney Lumet and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2006 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of over twenty interviews with the director of Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, and 12 Angry Men

Download or read book Making Movies written by Sidney Lumet and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does a director choose a particular script? What must they do in order to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout—involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis—in the heart of New York’s diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchos happy? From the first rehearsal to the final screening, Making Movies is a master’s take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdote. For in this book, Sidney Lumet, one of our most consistently acclaimed directors, gives us both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on forty years of experience on movies that range from Long Day’s Journey into Night to Network and The Verdict—and with such stars as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino—Lumet explains how painstaking labor and inspired split-second decisions can result in two hours of screen magic.

Download or read book Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers written by George Stevens (Jr.) and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion volume to George Stevens, Jr.'s, much admired book of American Film Institute seminars with the great pioneering moviemakers ("Invaluable"--Martin Scorsese). Those represented here--directors, producers, writers, actors, cameramen, composers, editors--are men and women working in pictures, beginning in 1950, when the studio system was collapsing and people could no longer depend on, or were bound by, the structure of studio life to make movies. Here also are those who began to work long after the studio days were over--Robert Altman, David Lynch, Steven Spielberg, among them--who talk about how they came to make movies on their own. Some--like Peter Bogdanovich, Nora Ephron, Sydney Pollack, François Truffaut--talk about how they were influenced by the iconic pictures of the great pioneer filmmakers. Others talk about how they set out to forge their own paths--John Sayles, Roger Corman, George Lucas, et al. In this series of conversations held at the American Film Institute, all aspects of their work are discussed. Here is Arthur Penn, who began in the early 1950s in New York with live TV, directing people like Kim Stanley and such live shows as Playhouse 90, and on Broadway, directing Two for the Seesaw and The Miracle Worker, before going on to Hollywood and directing Mickey One and Bonnie and Clyde, among other pictures, talking about working within the system. ("When we finished Bonnie and Clyde," says Penn, "the film was characterized rather elegantly by one of the leading Warner executives as a 'piece of shit' . . . It wasn't until the picture had an identity and a life of its own that the studio acknowledged it was a legitimate child of the Warner Bros. operation.") Here in conversation is Sidney Poitier, who grew up on an island without paved roads, stores, or telephones, and who was later taught English without a Caribbean accent by a Jewish waiter, talking about working as a janitor at the American Negro Theater in exchange for acting lessons and about Hollywood: It "never really had much of a conscience . . . This town never was infected by that kind of goodness." Here, too, is Meryl Streep, America's premier actress, who began her career in Julia in 1977, and thirty odd years later, at sixty, was staring in The Iron Lady, defying all the rules about "term limits" and a filmmaking climate tyrannized by the male adolescent demographic . . . Streep on making her first picture, and how Jane Fonda took her under her wing ("That little line on the floor," Fonda warned Streep, "don't look at it, that's where your toes are supposed to be. And that's how you'll be in the movie. If they're not there, you won't be in the movie"). Streep on the characters she chooses to play: "I like to defend characters that would otherwise be misconstrued or misunderstood." The Next Generation is a fascinating revelation of the art of making pictures.

Download or read book What You Don t Learn in Film School written by Shane Stanley and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-31 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your Complete Guide To (Independent) Filmmaking. An in-depth, no holds barred look at making movies from 'concept to delivery' in today's ever-evolving climate while breaking down the dos and don'ts of (independent) filmmaking. Learn invaluable industry secrets from top to bottom and discover the truth about independent film distribution as the lid is torn off the many myths surrounding sales agents and today's release platforms that are certain to open reader's eyes - and ruffle a few feathers!

Download or read book Talking Movies written by Jason Wood and published by Wallflower Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Talking Movies' is a collection of interviews with some of the most audacious and respected contemporary filmmakers of the present generation.

Download or read book Breaking the Spell written by Robé, Chris and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Breaking the Spell offers the first full-length study that charts the historical trajectory of anarchist-inflected video activism from the late 1960s to the present. Two predominant trends emerge from this social movement-based video activism: 1) anarchist-inflected processes increasingly structure its production, distribution, and exhibition practices; and 2) video does not simply represent collective actions and events, but also serves as a form of activist practice in and of itself from the moment of recording to its later distribution and exhibition. Video plays an increasingly important role among activists in the growing global resistance against neoliberal capitalism. As various radical theorists have pointed out, subjectivity itself becomes a key terrain of struggle as capitalism increasingly structures and mines it through social media sites, cell phone technology, and new “flexible” work and living patterns. As a result, alternative media production becomes a central location where new collective forms of subjectivity can be created to challenge aspects of neoliberalism. Chris Robé’s book fills in historical gaps by bringing to light unexplored video activist groups like the Cascadia Forest Defenders, eco-video activists from Eugene, Oregon; Mobile Voices, Latino day laborers harnessing cell phone technology to combat racism and police harassment in Los Angeles; and Outta Your Backpack Media, indigenous youth from the Southwest who use video to celebrate their culture and fight against marginalization. This groundbreaking study also deepens our understanding of more well-researched movements like AIDS video activism, Paper Tiger Television, and Indymedia by situating them within a longer history and wider context of radical video activism.

Download or read book Movie Speak written by Tony Bill and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When is "groucho" not a comedian? A "seagull" not a bird? A "banana" not a fruit, and a "taco cart" not a food stand? What's the "Castle rock rule" and when should you call for a "buff & puff"? And why expect trouble when the A.D. (assistant director) knowingly mumbles "Gone With the Wind in the morning, Dukes of Hazzard after lunch"? The secret language of movie-making is technical, odd, colorful, mysterious. Movie Speak celebrates this centuries-old oral tradition, and opens a window into the complex process of making a film and what it's really like to be on set. Through language, the book sheds light not only on the hugely complex process of making a film, but on the invisible hierarchies of a set, the unspoken etiquette between cast and crew, and the evolution of a process that's endlessly fascinating. An Oscar-winning producer (The Sting), actor (who worked with Spielberg, Coppola, and Sydney Pollock), and director (Five Corners, Flyboys, My Bodyguard, and more), Tony Bill has been on sets for more than 30 years and brings a writer's love of language to this collection of hundreds of film terms. A futz. A cowboy. A Brodkin and a double Brodkin (a.k.a. screamer). Streaks ’n tips, Green Acres, rhubarb, a peanut, a Gary Coleman, snot tape, twin buttes, manmaker (and why you can yell for one if needed for a grip, but must whisper if it's for Tom Cruise)—these are the tricks of the trade.

Download or read book Movie Moguls Speak written by Steven Priggé and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the film world today, there is extraordinary attention paid to actors, actresses and directors, yet the producers who gave many of them their first breaks and helped mold their careers have managed to remain outside the limelight. This work covers producers who gave early breaks to actors and actresses like Al Pacino and Demi Moore, directors like Steven Spielberg and Todd Haynes, and writers like Aaron Sorkin. These legends may never have become known if not for their producers' behind-the-scenes insight and ability to recognize talent. Interviewees include David Brown (Jaws, A Few Good Men), Martin Richards (Chicago, The Shining), Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson (Goldeneye, Die Another Day), Dino DeLaurentiis (La Strada, Hannibal), Michael Phillips (Taxi Driver, The Sting), Martin Bregman (Serpico, Scarface), Lauren Shuler Donner (You've Got Mail, X-Men), Robert Chartoff (Rocky, Raging Bull), Mace Neufeld (The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games), Paula Wagner (Vanilla Sky, Mission: Impossible), and many, many more!

Download or read book Speaking Truths with Film written by Bill Nichols and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What issues, of both form and content, shape the documentary film? What role does visual evidence play in relation to a documentary's arguments about the world in which we live? Can a documentary be believed, and why or why not? How do documentaries abide by or subvert ethical expectations? Are mockumentaries a form of subversion? In what ways can the documentary be an aesthetic experience and at the same time have political or social impact? And how can such impacts be empirically measured? Pioneering film scholar Bill Nichols investigates the ways in which documentaries strive for accuracy and truthfulness, but simultaneously fabricate a form that shapes reality. Such films may rely on re-enactment to re-create the past, storytelling to provide satisfying narratives, and rhetorical figures such as metaphor and expressive forms such as irony to make a point. In many ways documentaries are a fiction unlike any other. With clarity and passion, Nichols offers close readings of several provocative documentaries including Land without Bread, Restrepo, The Thin Blue Line, The Act of Killing, and Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine as part of an authoritative examination of the layered approaches and delicate ethical balance demanded of documentary filmmakers"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book My First Movie Take Two written by Stephen Lowenstein and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sequel to the critically acclaimed My First Movie, Stephen Lowenstein once again talks to some of our most celebrated filmmakers about their debut films. Lowenstein interviews ten directors about their career-launching film and how they got the movie off the ground: how they raised the finance, found actors, searched for locations, worked with the crew and saw the project through to completion. Filmmakers interviewed include Richard Linklater on Slacker; Alejandro González Iñárritu on Amores Perros; Terry Gilliam on Jabberwocky; and Sam Mendes on American Beauty. A wonderfully rich compendium that is lively, informative, funny, and often surprising.