Book Description
Nobody forgets their first time--and film directors are no exception.
In these vivid and revealing interviews, a collection of filmmakers as diverse as the Coen brothers and Ken Loach, Ang Lee and Kevin Smith, Anthony Minghella and Gary Oldman, Neil Jordan and Mira Nair talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut--be it Angel or Blood Simple, Clerks or Diner, Muriel's Wedding or Truly, Madly, Deeply--and tells the inside story: from writing the script to raising the money, from casting the actors to assembling the crew, from shooting to editing, from selling the movie to screening it. Along the way, every aspect of the movie industry is explored: from dealing with agents and moguls for the first time to pitching your movie as a debutante director, from languishing in development hell to confronting test audiences from hell.
The questions have been posed by Stephen Lowenstein, a young director with two acclaimed short films to his credit. Remembering the struggle to launch their careers, the directors have opened up about their first films and themselves to an unprecedented degree. Each chapter is not only a memoir of a particular movie, but also an emotional journey in which the director relives the pain and elation, the comedy and tragedy, of making a first feature. For anyone who wants to direct movies, these tales of triumph and disaster, of sleepless nights and nail-biting days, will be enthralling and terrifying in equal measure. For all other film fans, the interviews provide fascinating and entertaining insights into filmmakers who have become household names.
Customer Reviews:
Good Informative Introduction.......2007-08-09
This is a really great and clever introduction on how to make a movie. The interviewer asks succinct questions that are informed and sincere and the directors do what they do so well: tell their gripping stories. This book is well worth your money, though the title did promise to me a slightly more focused book - one that is more about "Their First Movie". But allover: Great Read! As a film student and film buff, I'd say check out the book "The Director's Cut - Picturing Hollywood in the 21st Century" (by Littger) - a book I also reviewed and even favored over this one thanks to being more up-to-date and presenting the diversity of young Hollywood directors today.
HIGHLY ENTERTAINING for us film BUFFS ..........2005-06-09
My friend, Paul Kyriazi, is also a film director, having done OMEGA COP before he turned to writing books.
If you liked this book as much as I did, you may also enjoy a visit to Paul's website: bondlife.com because he tells the behind-the-scenes story of one of his early films. Verrrrrry interesting.
Any good directors out there, my new book would make a wonderful animated movie, or so they tell me. Check it out, too!
Truly, though, I really enjoyed hearing the stories of how these directors made their first films. They may not be STEVEN SPIELBERGs, but they could be HIM in the making! Who knows in this wonderful world of MOVIES.
I highly recommend this book.
75% fat.......2003-03-14
Most of this book is wasted on pointless anecdotes with filmmakers who forgot the purpose of the interview: to describe how their first film got made.
The best interviews are the first and last: the Coen brothers and James Mangold. Allison Anders comes across as very sweet and smart. Steve Buscemi's story is interesting IF you've seen Trees Lounge.
The rest of the interviews fall flat. I had no idea what Bertrand Tavernier was talking about. Or Gary Oldman. Or Mike Figgis, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach...
Save your money and read those "FamousDirector on FamousDirector" books instead.
This is edu-tainmen! (Or should that be 'enter-cation'?).......2002-12-30
I'm only a hundred pages into 'My First Movie' (so my review is not exactly a complete one), but by what I've read so far, this is an educational and entertaining book of insights into the filmmaking world. I think that each separate interview had at least one pearl of wisdom that aspiring film-makers (both in the highest and lowest senses) can take from this book. And for those who aren't necessairily interested in a career in the movies, this book still has plenty of intrigue and gossip in it's pages to enjoy.
I got this as a Christmas present, and I hope that a sequel is in the works.
CIAO!
Very interesting.......2002-04-07
It is all too rare an occurrance to actually find out anything about the PERSON who makes a movie. Most "behind-the-scenes" documentaries and interviews end up being thinly-disguised promotional trailers for movies. Luckily, filmmaker Stephen Lowenstein interviewed 20 filmmakers of various origin, style, and age to bring us this collection of interviews about the experience of making a first film.
Each interview is different, just as each filmmaker's first moviemaking experience was different. Every interview is illuminating and serves to broaden the reader's view of filmmaking, as well as increase appreciation for the sheer hard work and endurance required to get a movie to the point of completion.
I found myself riveted by each director's account of their first movies, of the experience of getting the film to the point of being made, to the casting, to the pre-production, to the first day of filming, to editing and then trying to find a place to screen the darn thing. It was very interesting to get to know each filmmaker, the places they were in the beginning stages of their careers, and the places their films took them to.
I appreciated reading interviews with filmmakers I greatly admire (the Coen brothers), to those I am familiar with and jealous of (Kevin Smith), and especially the interviews with female filmmakers such as Allison Anders and Mira Nair (since I myself am female). Some other interviews I particularly enjoyed: P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding"), James Mangold ("Heavy"), and Ang Lee ("Pushing Hands").
If you like this book, I highly recommend "Rebel Without a Crew" by Robert Rodriguez, as it is a complete diary of the entire process of the making of his first feature film.
Customer Reviews:
EXCELLENT!!!.......2001-05-31
The guy's a genius!! A must-read for anyone who is an industry professional, wants to become one, or just loves motion pictures. Not only is the book full of very useful data, it's also very easy to understand and apply, and a fascinating reading. I had a hard time putting it down.
Looking for the author's address.......1999-12-09
my appologie to the hosts, but first of all my request is - is there any way I could get in touch with Eric Sherman? if yes, would you please be kind to help me out oversees, his ex-student to get in touch with him via e-mail?
Thanks a lot in advance
independent Director / producer Tamara Sulamanidze
I'm an independent producer / director from Georgia - the former USSR , oversees from US
Eric Sherman was teaching me at CalArts, an amazing personality, professional style of teaching with his own book is one of those best things I remember from the film school.
And above all, Eric was students' best friend, whatever i have learned in directing and producing in pursuing my film goals is thanks to Eric
Eric, if you ever read this note, please do get in touch with in Georgia, your favored student - one of the best ones - you once said.
Tamara Sulamanidze
apoloniaa@hotmail.com
Well structured insight to the different kinds of directing.......1998-10-07
The book contains information on every relevant part of filmmaking (working with actors, editing, music, story-telling...). Each chapter starts with a small introduction into the general ideas and is followed by a nearly infinite number of well-known directors' statements (usually half to one page long), sorted by common points of view. The missing star is due to the old examples which are coming from around the 70s.
Average customer rating:
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Women Directors and Their Films
Mary G. Hurd
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Entertainers
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ASIN: 0275985784 |
Book Description
Although women may have found greater film success in the areas of screenwriting, editing, design, and producing, there have been many women whose contributions as directors have been quite significant. In this guide to their careers and films, author Mary Hurd profiles the most noteworthy--from Barbara Kopple and her classic work in the documentary form, to Nora Ephron's insightful retellings of Hollywood's classic stories, to Sophia Coppola's current success in Hollywood. Women Directors and Their Films fills an important gap in the literature on the subject, offering a combination of biographical material and film analysis that effectively summarizes and encapsulates the life's work of these very different, very talented women. The selection includes women of the studio age (Ida Lupino, Dorothy Arzner), contemporary mainstream directors (Amy Heckerling, Nora Ephron), independents (Mary Harron, Nancy Savoca), documentarians (Barbara Kopple), experimental filmmakers (Maya Deren), and an assortment of acclaimed international filmmakers (Jane Campion, Agnes Varda). Profiles of the directors contain both biographical and critical segments. The first, biographical section provides a basic outline of the subject's life and career; the second offers a discussion of the director's films, featuring comments on the narrative, themes, visual techniques and style, and possible critical approaches to the work. Each chapter also includes a complete filmography and brief bibliography.
Average customer rating:
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Directors and Their Films: A Comprehensive Reference, 1895-1990
Brooks Bushnell
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
Direction & Production
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ASIN: 0899507662 |
Book Description
This is the most comprehensive reference work available anywhere, ever, to (1) films and their directors, and (2) directors and their films. Part one is by director. Each entry lists films, years of release, alternate titles, and, when appropriate, the director's pseudonym. Part two is a listing of over 108,000 films (from A, directed by Jan Lenica, to Zyte, from Rene Leprince), giving a director for each.
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Movie Talk from the Front Lines: Filmmakers Discuss Their Works With the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Jerry Roberts
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
Movie Directors
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ASIN: 0786400056 |
Book Description
From "Critic's Choice" evenings sponsored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Los Angeles Film Critic's Association, directors, screenwriters and cast are interviewed here following screenings of some of their most important films. Those interviewed include Oliver Stone, Joe Dante, Richard Rush, Russ Meyer, Edy Williams, Robert Culp, William Friedkin, Roy Scheider and Slobodan Sijan.
Book Description
While the viewer's eyes are trained on the actors, the production design sets the mood for the film. The design also subtly comments on the action and the characters, moves the plot forward and adds to its symbolic content. The production design of 23 films of the 1980s and 1990s is analyzed here. The films are divided into five areas: realistic films set in the present day, stylized films (including horror) set in the present day, period films, period films that move through several decades, and science fiction and fantasy films. Among the movies analyzed are The Silence of the Lambs, She's Gotta Have It, The Fisher King, Ragtime, Barton Fink, Goodfellas, and Alien. The quality of the designs is assessed by a careful reading of the mise-en-scne. Often the designers' own words are used to describe the effects and the process involved in achieving them.
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Women Filmmakers & Their Films Edition 1. (Women Filmakers and Their Films)
Manufacturer: St. James Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book
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ASIN: 1558623574 |
Book Description
In the award-winning tradition of International Directory of Film and Filmmakers, St. James Press presents Women Filmmakers and Their Films. This new single-volume resource offers the most comprehensive coverage of women directors and their films and fills a significant gap in women's studies by featuring essays on directors, producers, writers and production artists.
Women Filmmakers presents a total of 250 entries selected to represent a wide variety of styles and nationalities and covering films and filmmakers from the late 19th century to the present. Approximately 30 percent of the entries represent updated essays on the most important artists and films last published in the 3rd edition of the International Directory (1996). The remaining 175 entries are all new, and emphasize women and films just gaining widespread critical attention.
Here are a just a few examples:
People:
- Gilda de Abreu (1904-1979)--Brazilian director
- Mary Ellen Bute (1908-1983)--American animator
- Abigail Child (1948-)--American director
- Jill Craigie (1914-)--British director/writer
- Lillian Gish (1896-1993)--American director/actor
- Astrid Henning-Jensen (1914)--Danish director
- Brianne Murphy--British cinematographer
- Yoko Ono (1933-)--Japanese director
- Mary Pickford (1893-1979)--Canadian actor/director/producer
- Irene Sharaff (1910-1993)--American costume designer
- Liv Ullmann (1939-) Norwegian director/actor
Films:
- "Big" (1988)--Penny Marshall, director
- "Dance, Girl, Dance" (1940) Dorothy Arzner, director
- "E'piccarella" (1922), Elvira Notari, director/co-producer/writer
- "My Brilliant Career" (1979)--Gillian Armstrong, director
- "The Piano" (1993), Jane Campion, director
- "Salaam Bombay!" (1988), Mira Nair, director
Each entry begins with general information on the filmmaker or film. This is followed, where applicable, by more detailed biography, filmography, comprehensive credits, production information, awards and bibliography. The core of the entry consists of a signed, 800- to 1,000-word critical essay written by a film critic or scholar. Over 100 portraits and movie stills illustrate the work and access is enhanced by title, nationality, occupation and award indexes.
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The Thematic Process in Music
Rudolph Richard Reti
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press Reprint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0837198755 |
Book Description
Cryptographers, both amateur and aficionado, take on some serious challenges with these puzzles based on a variety of popular subjects in several genres. For example, fans of Italian cuisine can dream of a delicious "Frekqhuun" (Spaghetti) while trying to make sense of an amusingly appropriate quote from Sophia Loren: "Hjgrodllc wgb td dgldb ymhl hawwdhhpaqqv cp vma cbogqd cl qcid g zgwaay wqdgbdf." ("Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.") Includes over 80 puzzles.
Customer Reviews:
Love this Book.......2007-01-19
I bought this book for my Dad who has early onset Alzheimer's and ALS.
He loves to work the crypts. It takes a few days to get one done but they are helping to keep his brain active. Thanks so much.
could be better.......2007-01-09
The cryptograms were both witty and held my interest. The letters were far too close together for me. Had the spacing been further apart I would have given it 5 stars. I was not able to do but a few due to that. Thank you, Robbie Poor
A Fun Idea, But..........2006-10-19
I love cryptograms. I've lost hours *spell-bound* in the darn things, even though I'm not the best cryptographer. This book of puzzles is immediately appealing because it's shaped like an armchair - and that shape somehow makes it comfortable to hold and fun to see. The layout of the puzzles is interesting because the puzzle on the left page relates to the puzzle on the right page of each two-page spread. Even though the two puzzles use different codes, you can use information on one page to help figure out the code of the facing page.
On the negative side - and this was frustrating enough that I decided to write a warning about it - the type is tiny and the lines are too close together. If you write letters above the coded ones, it is then difficult to read your own writing. The type is also a serif italic font that makes it difficult to distinguish between the letters "b" and "h". Similarly, some upper cases are tricky.
Worst of all, there are several typographical errors. This is a sure killer in a word game.
I hope that the editor decides to re-edit it, making the type larger and plainer, and correcting the errors.
So much Fun!!.......2006-08-26
I LOVED this book of puzzles! I ordered it along with another book as a package deal and didn't think it would be as entertaining. Boy, was I wrong. I really enjoyed the quotes that were so very current and the "families" that made you think. I hope to see an Armchair Puzzlers II in the near future!
Great book for cryptogram lovers.......2005-08-18
Fun and interesting cryptograms. Not the same old quotes. Am looking forward to more by this author.
Average customer rating:
- doctor who masterpiece
- Cartmel Of Daves
- Huh!!!
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Citadel of Dreams (Doctor Who)
Dave Stone , and
Andrew Cartmel
Manufacturer: Springer
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Nightdreamers (Doctor Who)
ASIN: 1903889049 |
Customer Reviews:
doctor who masterpiece.......2004-03-24
I won't give a summary of this book, i will only suggest that you read it. After reading 'citadel of dreams' i have become a dave stone fan. I'm now reading 'the slow empire' which is also quite excellent. But 'citadel of dreams' is very special, its odd to find a really good writer in the world of serial fiction but dave stone is the exception. i personally loved the mad hatter tea party scene, with the doctor camped out under an umbrella behind the tardis...perfectly in character with the sylvester mccoy doctor!!
Cartmel Of Daves.......2004-01-13
It seemed appropriate that Dave Stone's CITADEL OF DREAMS would have a foreword by Andrew Cartmel, as a number of elements in the novella reminded me of the latter's own Doctor Who books. The Seventh Doctor is used quite sparingly, and is only really onscreen for a handful of pages. The book deals with psychic powers, something that Cartmel was fond of employing (in his fiction, I mean). Ace has a house, not totally unlike the dwelling at Allen Road that serves as her base of operations. And, of course, there's the old Cartmel standby: people soiling themselves. Oh dear; maybe some things would be better left unstolen.
But superficial comparisons to Andrew Cartmel's work aside, I really found myself enjoying this. Of the Dave Stone books I've read so far, I would rate this as probably his strongest work. It contains a lot of the sort of thing that we've seen before from Stone, but it feels fresh and not at all tired. I get the impression that the shorter size of the novella format caused Stone to rely on his strengths. And as I'm someone who appreciates those strengths but fears his self-indulgences, I was grateful for that.
The story concerns a city -- a city that we see from two separate time zones. At first, we aren't sure exactly how far apart temporally these two eras are. In one time, labeled "before", we see a run-down, decaying inner city, with random crime and brutal, unfeeling authorities. In the "after" zone, there exists a utopia of sorts. But the people there seem to possess whacking great holes in their knowledge. The reader is lead through the mystery via a character named Joey Quine, who lives in the "before" time and has strange psychic abilities.
I really enjoyed the parts of the story told from Quine's point of view. The sections concerning him coming to terms with and then taking advantage of his own unique mental abilities are told with sensitivity and style. This sort of thing could easily have been hooky and clichéd, but Dave Stone did a really good job, and frankly, I'm surprised; I didn't think he was capable of pulling it off.
It's extremely well paced; I managed to read the entire thing in one sitting while looking to kill some time before (what turned out to be) the final Baltimore Ravens game of the 2003 season (sob!). The plot is not easy to follow, but rewarding when it all comes together at the end. I thought I was clever by spotting the book's Big Surprise by the midway point, but looking at reviews on the 'net, apparently everyone else figured it out too. I should mention that guessing what the twist was didn't diminish anything, as seeing how the story got there was still fun.
Of course, some of Dave Stone's more annoying authorial tendencies are also on display here. He has a habit of throwing italics around with abandon to emphasize particular words, rather than structuring the sentence in such a way that the word is highlighted by the grammar instead of the font. (You know the type of thing I'm talking about. Pg 34: "...it was hard to even *think* about it in terms of description..." Pg 31: "...there were certain obvious things he *could* do..." Pg 77: "...certain things that she *liked* about this world...") Although I find this annoying, repetitive and lazy, I'm not usually bothered by it when used in moderation. But here Stone seems to rely too heavily on this voice, using it sometimes three times a page. And, I swear, if Stone ever again describes an alien as being "too different to describe" or "something which the human brain cannot possibly understand", I'll jump out the window. Okay, so Stone obviously can't describe an "otherness" concept without falling back on the same stock phrases. But can't we create some new stock phrases? Please?
Overall, I enjoyed CITADEL OF DREAMS. It tells a good story quickly. Although the beginning is slow to get started, by the end the plot is bouncing along. It's a great way to spend a few hours; I just hope it brings you better luck than it brought me.
Huh!!!.......2003-01-24
The second Telos book is a poor follow-up to the opening adventure of this range Time and Relative.
I have never been a fan of Dave Stone since I thought his stories are too weird for my taste.
Like Time and Relative, the Doctor hardly appears at all in this book.
While Time and Relative focussed heavily on Susan, Citadel of Dreams does not give the same treatment to Ace.
Citadel of Dreams instead focusses on a character called Joey Quine.
After reading the book I was completely baffled on what the story is about. If you had better luck understanding the story then congratulations.
Books:
- My Last Sigh
- My Mother's Keeper: A Daughter's Memoir Of Growing Up In The Shadow Of Schizophrenia
- My Wicked Wicked Ways: The Autobiography of Errol Flynn
- Narrative in Fiction and Film: An Introduction
- New Cinematographers
- Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking: Practical Techniques for the Guerilla Filmmaker
- Picture Show: Classic Movie Posters from the TCM Archives
- Pop Dreams: Music, Movies, and the Media in the American 1960's (Harbrace Books on America Since 1945)
- RahXephon Bible
- Real Screenwriting: Strategies and Stories from the Trenches
Books Index
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What They Don't Teach You At Film School: 161 Strategies to Making Your Own Movie No Matter What
