Book Description
Surviving Production is a detailed account for managing a film production company: covers the prep, the shoot, and the wrap. An essential guide for producers, directors, production managers, and anyone else interested in the nuts and bolts of modern filmmaking.
Customer Reviews:
Not what it says it is..........2000-05-02
Surviving Production is not exactly what it claims to be. Although it says it's a guide for managing a film production company, it's really a guide detailing the day-to-day resonsibilities of a Production Coordinator. Big difference. Based on the synopsis I thought I was buying a how-to guide for Production Managers. Production Coordinators aren't even mentioned.
Despite this, I gave the book four stars because it *is* a very thorough introduction to the role of Production Coordinator. But I'd like to see the synopsis mention that, rather than selling it as something else. Production Managers and others might find it useful if they want to understand just what it is a Coordinator does, but they're not going to find much information about how to do their own jobs.
Average customer rating:
- On The Homesickness Of Modern Man
- Exile's disease
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The Future of Nostalgia
Svetlana Boym
Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Similar Items:
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Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Cultural Memory in the Present)
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Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present
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On Collective Memory (Heritage of Sociology Series)
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The Past is a Foreign Country
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How Societies Remember (Themes in the Social Sciences)
ASIN: 0465007082 |
Book Description
What happens to Old World memories in a New World order? Svetlana Boym opens up a new avenue of inquiry: the study of nostalgia.
Combining personal memoir, philosophical essay, and historical analysis, Svetlana Boym explores the spaces of collective nostalgia that connect national biography and personal self-fashioning in the twenty-first century. She guides us through the ruins and construction sites of post-communist cities--St. Petersburg, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague--and the imagined homelands of exiles--Benjamin, Nabokov, Mandelstahm, and Brodsky. From Jurassic Park to the Totalitarian Sculpture Garden, Boym unravels the threads of this global epidemic of longing and its antidotes.
Customer Reviews:
On The Homesickness Of Modern Man.......2002-11-30
"How to begin again? How to be happy, to invent ourselves, shedding the inertia of the past? How to experience life & life alone, "that dark, driving, insatiable power that lusts after itself?" These were the questions that bothered the moderns. Happiness, and not merely a longing for it, meant forgetfulness & a new perception of time."
"The modern opposition between tradition & revolution is treacherous......"
So opens the second chapter of Svetlana Boym's "The Future Of Nostalgia" after she has traced the roots of the concept from being identified as a DISEASE of Swiss exiles into a recognition of the problem of all mankind at the start of the 21st century.
I hope I'm not wrong in saying that I think that this book may be an important new cornerstone in art, poli-sci & philosophy. I like this book THAT MUCH....
Ms. Boym's book fell into my hands quite serendipitously as I was researching material for my own novel; I was doing a search on "hypochondria" for a character I was trying to delineate with a certain kind of homesickness, and up popped the heading "Hypochondria Of The Heart" for an interview with Ms. Boym in a newspaper from Harvard University where she is a professor of Slavic Literature. The premise for her book deeply intrigued me since she elucidated some similar points that I had been trying to frame in my own work. I hurriedly ordered her book from our local library, anticipating something groundbreaking.
I wasn't disappointed. This book traces a link between poetry, philosophy & politics in the modern age which is rooted in nostalgia, the longing for home & the feeling of loss due to a disctinctly modern concept of time.
However, this is no futile deconstructionist tract, nor is it a conservative tome yammering on about the pervasive influences of the enemy in a "See? We told you so!" smug-but-ineffective posturing.
What Ms. Boym does is show both healthy & unhealthy effects of nostalgia on history & memory. The first part of the book lays out what the modern conception of time has done to modernity, popular culture, conspiracies & collective memory, et. al. This clarifies the reality of the problem of modern life not as meaningless, but a somatization of symptoms attributed to to fractured parts of humanity, cultural & individual.
She doesn't stop there, however. Boym is savvy enough to show examples of her position in parts two & three of the book.
Part two shows the impact of longing for return on Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin & Europe in general. This cements evidence for the concept of modern time on TRADITION, by showing
what particular post-Communist cities do to reinstill history after years of trying to synthesize it.
Part three cleverly goes to the other side for a balance by showing the longings of exiles like Nabakov,Brodsky & Kabakov.
In this mode, the idea of nostalgia affecting historical tradition is expanded to included the revolutionary INDIVIDUAL going against the grain & what they expected their hopes to gain them apart from their homelands.
All of this could be very boring however, except that Ms. Boym exhibits a clear & rich style, making this book a terrific read. I found myself wanting to read it again, not because of confusion, but because of the wealth of insights that flow forth from her.
This is the first book I've read to give any useful & pragmatic perspective on our seemingly fracturing globe these days, not because it points out what is going on, but because it takes the idea of "home is where the heart is" and shows what might have happened to the heart.
I feel that this book is universally useful to all political stripes and many different fields of the humanities. I'll wager that this may turn out to be one of the first most important books of the 21st century. Why? Because I feel a wiser & more articulate human being from reading it.
Exile's disease.......2001-06-23
This amazing book has been efficiently described by its Editorial Reviews. It is ingenious, absorbing, and by turns difficult and thrilling. Do not be misled by the kitschy or simplistic associations you might have to the term "nostalgia." Exile, either voluntary or forced - no small thing either way - is its precondition.
Many, but far from all, of the examples and references are Russian and Eastern European. Each of the seventeen chapters is an essay of depth and precision. They are greatly satisfying: rich and dense with associations and references from art and literature, and the entire span of recorded human history.
Boym names Part One "Hypochondria of the Heart," and variously introduces her kaleidoscopic interests in nostalgia - as an "epidemic." Nostalgia, she asserts (and proves convincingly) is "the disease of an afflicted imagination." It afflicts those who would become assimilated to their new worlds - as well as those who (variously and often highly individualistically) resist. The second section, "Cities and Re-invented Traditions" contains five chapters that focus on Russian and European conceptions and realities. The final part, "Exiles and Imagined Homelands" is my favorite. Its chapters cover among other things the excess of souvenirs to be found in immigrants' apartments (knickknacks of identity and remembrance that would not ever be displayed back home); cyberspace, which "makes the bric-a-brac of nostalgia available in digital form"; the persistence of immigrant eccentricity; the preservation (and transformation) of attitudes, and various phenomena of adjustment. Some of the personages discussed (for there is never mere name-dropping in this book) are Adam and Eve ("the first exiles") Ovid, Telemachus, Oedipus, Odysseus, Walter Benjamin, Freud, Hanna Arendt, painter Ilya Kabakov, Joseph Brodsky, and Vladimir Nabokov - to name a few.
I loved this book. There isn't a slow page in it. Boym is passionately interested in art, history, psychology, signs and symbols, literature, urbanism, politics, and people. She's a deep thinker who is guided by her considerable ability to keep several balls in the air at once, to teach with clarity, and to really understand what makes people tick. There's a good index and over thirty pages of notes that enable a lot of further reading in this big and interesting subject.
A great book that deserves more than five Amazon stars.
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Futures Lost: Nostalgia and Identity Among Italian Immigrants in Argentina
Arnd Schneider
Manufacturer: Peter Lang Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0820453145 |
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Maternal Pasts, Feminist Futures: Nostalgia, Ethics, and the Question of Difference
Lynne Huffer
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
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ASIN: 0804730253 |
Book Description
This book examines the relations among nostalgia, gender, and foundational philosophies through a critique of the lost mother as a ground for thinking about sexual difference. More specifically, the author critiques the nostalgic tendencies of feminist theory, arguing that an emancipatory system of thought must move beyond a maternally oriented structure.
Through close readings of works by Maurice Blanchot, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, and Nicole Brossard, the book elucidates the many dimensions of nostalgic paradigms—literary, psychoanalytic, epistemological, ontological, and sociopolitical. This critique ultimately confronts postmodernism, and especially the burgeoning field of performative theory, as an intellectual paradigm that claims to subvert systems of meaning. Analyzing the writings of J. L. Austin, Judith Butler, and Irigaray, the author argues that despite its antinostalgic structure, performative theory provides an inadequate model for understanding the connections among language, identity, and the social bonds that constitute the ethical and political sphere.
Asserting, through the example of performative theory, that a critique is not enough, the book examines the possibility of a constructive model that is both non-nostalgic and informed by ethical constraints. One such model is offered through a reading of the Quebecois writer Nicole Brossard, which explores her work in relation to the question of lesbian writing. Demystifying nostalgia, Brossard not only uncovers and subverts the structures through which a concept of origins is produced, but also provides a different, visionary way of thinking about the relationship between subjectivity and language.
Finally, the book argues for further feminist work on the relationship between narrative and ethics, a field whose future lies in the elaboration of a bridge between the moral commitments of ethical theory and the fractured realities that find their expression in literary forms.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Catholic Insight, published by Catholic Insight on October 1, 1999. The length of the article is 962 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: And another thing ... Of Nostradamus and nostalgia.(Brief Article)
Author: Paula Adamick
Publication:
Catholic Insight (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 1999
Publisher: Catholic Insight
Volume: 7
Issue: 8
Page: 7
Article Type: Brief Article
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Back to the Future.(film 'Blast from the Past'): An article from: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life
Mark Gauvreau Judge
Manufacturer: Institute on Religion and Public Life
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B00098W2Q8
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Institute on Religion and Public Life on August 1, 1999. The length of the article is 1807 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
From the supplier: The recent movie 'Blast from the Past' reflects a growing popular appreciation of conservative values, also seen in the revival of swing dancing. People in their 20s and 30s, members of generations X and Y, are showing a longing for the 'classic American' culture of the 1920s-1960s. A revolt is taking place against the anger and nihilism of previous youth cultures.
Citation Details
Title: Back to the Future.(film 'Blast from the Past')
Author: Mark Gauvreau Judge
Publication:
First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 1999
Publisher: Institute on Religion and Public Life
Page: 14
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Wines & Vines, published by Hiaring Company on May 1, 1991. The length of the article is 3200 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Looking backward into the future. (nostalgia of a vintner)
Author: Al Cribari
Publication:
Wines & Vines (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 1991
Publisher: Hiaring Company
Volume: v72
Issue: n5
Page: p30(4)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Pac-man Collectibles (Schiffer Book for Collectors)
Deborah Palicia
Manufacturer: Schiffer Publishing
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ASIN: 0764315544 |
Book Description
He's been dubbed "Chainsaw Al" and "Rambo in Pinstripes." He has also been hailed by Barrons as "America's premier turnaround artist." Now, Al Dunlap, who transformed the once-ailing Scott Paper into a Wall Street success story, shares his battle-tested strategies for revitalizing sluggish companies in Mean Business. Here is the inside story of Dunlap's quest to make Scott once again a world-class competitor. Along the way, Dunlap provides invaluable, must-read lessons for everyone struggling to meet the tough, competitive challenges of today's business world.
Amazon.com
Al Dunlap, whose corporate behavior has earned him nicknames like The Shredder, took over as CEO of Scott Paper when the venerable paper goods manufacturer was on the brink of death. His ultimately successful efforts at corporate resuscitation are recounted in his typically colorful and exhilarating manner in
Mean Business: How I Save Bad Companies and Make Good Companies Great, written with Bob Andelman.
Customer Reviews:
Buyer beware!.......2007-01-18
Here's the postscript to the wonderful *cough* career of the esteemed *cough* Mr. Dunlap....
....By firing thousands of employees at once and closing plants and factories, [Dunlap] drastically altered the economic status of such corporations as Scott Paper and Crown-Zellerbach; however, when he attempted to use his methods to increase the share price of the Sunbeam-Oster Corporation, this backfired dramatically, as Sunbeam's stock rose from $12 a share to $53, and then within four months plummeted to $11 1/4.
Industry insiders revealed that Sunbeam's revenues had been padded because Dunlap had strong-armed retailers into buying far more merchandise than they could handle. With the stores hopelessly overstocked, unsold inventory piled up in Sunbeam's warehouses. Investors grew edgy, then panicky, and Dunlap himself was fired. He agreed to pay $15 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit.....
Hype at its essentials. An assortment of over-simplified views on business management........2005-10-09
I read selective chapters of this book in advising a student's translation project. I'm not an expert in the business field but I found this book (at least the chapters I read) filled with over-simplified views on business activities.
Dunlap was laureated as the "Company turnaround specialist" by admirers. He described his experience of saving companies from bankrupting and making their stock prices climb. Here's my few thoughts about the ideas preached in this book:
1) Dunlap's ideas are nothing original. For example, he repeatedly emphasize in the book that the vital method of running a business is to "cut unnecessary cost" and "maximize efficiency" of the management team. One can find "insights" like these in any college business management textbook. Members of the former management team would look dumb if the their total efforts and wisdom added together didn't outweigh Dunlap's. Is it possible?
2) People are considered nothing more than "human resources" (resources basically, just happened to be human) utilized by the firm in profit-generation. That's Tenet One in Capitalist Management Ideology and I don't wanna challenge its moral basis. "Driving people to achieve their best through pushing and rewarding" is no discovery of New Continent to any CEO (or college kid). I was surprised when I read Dunlap, filled with self-complacency, described how he acted according to the above "insights" in carrying out "corporate resuscitation". But then, what couldn't be done if people are not treated as distinct humans but corporate consumables? In the eyes of people like Dunlap (people in sympathy with his views are everywhere), stock price or accumulation of capital rather than people in the first place are viewed as the primary goals. I beg to differ with this mentality.
3) The idea of Dunlap, whether flattered by the superficial media or explicitly self-boosting, as the savior of failing companies is strongly in doubt. The climbing up of a company's stock price after Dunlap took charge might not be simply the result of his "insightful leadership". Stock price is a multiple-factors controlled variable. It could reflect the actual value or the "perceived" value of a company. The latter could be hugely influential. Dunlap has become a brand-name, a commodity in itself. The association of a company with the brand-name would affect the expectations of speculators, and might boost its stock price. This phenomenon is not restricted in business. Any hype concerning celebrity, advertising or fake-medicine behaves similarly.
The public needs a hero and they make one for themselves, which makes failure easier to explain and more palatable. Mechanism of Hype production.
Save your time for things more meaningful. Life is too brief for wasting on books and ideas like that. Not recommended. I would rate it zero star if I can.
Good advice from a shamed author.......2003-12-01
The jury is no longer out on the author or the advice.
The author's exploits are well documented:
- He turned around numerous companies by cutting headcount & product lines. Sold the companies for huge profit to himself and the shareholders.
- Much of his success came from the ideas of external consultants.
- He destroyed Sunbeam in a massive explosion of layoffs, fraud and corporate mismanagement.
So should one listen to his advice? If you're willing to separate the message from the author, there is quite a bit of good advice to be had:
1 - If a business is dying, you have to put the needs of the shareholders first. If there's no company, there are no jobs either.
2 - Cutting costs is a hard business. Unless you cut enough fat with confidence the first time around, you'll spend forever in a downward cycle of repeat layoffs and dwindling morale.
3 - Product complexity equals cost, and if you want to simplify your marketing and manufacturing, reduce the variations in your products.
4 - More factories mean more costs. Aggresive consolidation of manufacturing is required in a shrinking business.
Hard to argue with these, and they are indeed worth knowing.
Is the book worth reading? Yes, but.... Take it with a grain of salt. As well as the examples. Realize that perhaps it was just a bit too much of self-congratulations from a dishonest man. And know that turning around a troubled company is indeed a mean business.
What a Joke.......2003-01-30
I was told to read this book for a business class on what not to do and I think that Al Dunlap is in no place to be dishing out any advice. If you study the companies that Dunlap took over you realize that all of his improvements were nothing more then accounting wizardry. Besides he destroys the company's employees just to give him self and his wife first class plane tickets to Philadelphia. Just think before you buy a book about management style that you pick a manager that you want to be like.
Amazed this is still in print..........2002-08-09
Dunlap (or his ghostwriter) may state some good, no-nonsense business ideas here. But given Dunlap's disastrous stint at the helm of Sunbeam, and more recently being the focus of shareholder lawsuits and SEC investigations, it's impossible for any informed, intelligent person to take this book seriously. According to "Chainsaw," John Byrne's expose of Dunlap and the Sunbeam fiasco, Dunlap violated virtually every tenet of "Mean Business." It's one thing to be a tough leader, but Dunlap crossed the line into sheer sadism and cruelty... all driven by personal greed.
There are plenty of better corporate role models out there, and plenty of better business books. In fact, I can't imagine why "Mean Business" is still in print other than as an historical curiosity...
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