Direction & Production Books

Younger Next Year: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy—Until You're 80 and Beyond

Chris Crowley, M.D., Henry S. Lodge

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Workman Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 67 new & used starting at $5.36

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> Aging -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> Men's Health -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 113 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"I have lost 50 pounds over the last nine months by eating less, moving more, and changing the way I think. I am 62 and look better and feel better and have more energy than in the last 15 years."—Ron T.

" I read the wisdom put forth by Chris and Harry . . . [and] my next physical blew my doctor away. I am 74 and in better shape than when I was 50."—Jack S.

"Not a week goes by that I do not utter a silent prayer of thanks that Younger Next Year came into my life. You guys are saving the world one body at a time."—T. G.

Announcing the paperback edition of Younger Next Year, the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller, co-written by one of the country’s most prominent internists, Dr. Henry "Harry" Lodge, and his star patient, the 73-year-old Chris Crowley. These are the books that show us how to turn back our biological clocks—how to put off 70% of the normal problems of aging (weakness, sore joints, bad balance) and eliminate 50% of serious illness and injury. The key to the program is found in Harry's Rules: Exercise six days a week. Don't eat crap. Connect and commit to others. There are seven rules all together, based on the latest findings in cell physiology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and experimental psychology. Dr. Lodge explains how and why they work—and Chris Crowley, who is living proof of their effectiveness (skiing better today, for example, than he did twenty years ago), gives the just-as-essential motivation.

Both men and women can become functionally younger every year for the next five to ten years, then continue to live with newfound vitality and pleasure deep into our 80s and beyond.

The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script

David Trottier

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Silman-James Press Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $14.23

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Reference

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 105 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

How does a spec script differ from a shooting script? What kind of fasteners should one use to bind a script? How did the term MOS come to mean without sound? You'll find the answers to these pressing questions and much more in David Trottier's eminently usable Screenwriter's Bible. The avuncular Trottier--a writer-producer, script consultant, and seminar leader--has written a friendly guide through the Hollywood morass. He touts it as six books in one: it's "a screenwriting primer, a screenwriting workbook, a formatting guide, a spec writing guide, a sales and marketing guide, [and] a resource guide."

Much of Trottier's advice is common sense: "Don't write anything that cannot appear on the screen"; to keep casting options open, don't make your physical descriptions too specific; "don't say Ron Howard is looking at the project if he is not." But there are things to know about Hollywood that are, well, quirkier. Don't write the title of your script on the front cover or side binding; present action sequences using the "stacking action" style; in query letters and scripts alike, avoid "big blocks of black ink." Trottier's guidance--from character development and revision to queries and pitches--is invaluable. Getting in the door can seem impossible, but it's not, necessarily. "If you write a script that features a character who has a clear and specific goal," says Trottier, "where there is strong opposition to that goal leading to a crisis and an emotionally satisfying ending, your script will automatically find itself in the upper five percent."

(By the way, MOS is said to have "originated with German director Eric von Stroheim, who would tell his crew, 'Ve'll shoot dis mid out sound'"). --Jane Steinberg

The Animator's Survival Kit

Richard Williams

Amazon Price: $19.80 List Price: $30.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Faber & Faber Amazon Marketplace: 70 new & used starting at $17.30

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Comics & Graphic Novels -> Cartooning
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The definitive book on animation, from the Academy Award-winning animator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit?Animation is one of the hottest areas of filmmaking today--and the master animator who bridges the old generation and the new is Richard Williams. During his more than forty years in the business, Williams has been one of the true innovators, winning three Academy Awards and serving as the link between Disney's golden age of animation by hand and the new computer animation exemplified by Toy Story. Perhaps even more important, though, has been his dedication in passing along his knowledge to a new generation of animators so that they in turn could push the medium in new directions. In this book, based on his sold-out master classes in the United States and across Europe, Williams provides the underlying principles of animation that every animator--from beginner to expert, classic animator to computer animation whiz --needs. Urging his readers to "invent but be believable," he illustrates his points with hundreds of drawings, distilling the secrets of the masters into a working system in order to create a book that will become the standard work on all forms of animation for professionals, students, and fans.

iMovie '08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

David Pogue

Amazon Price: $23.99 List Price: $39.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pogue Press Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $21.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Operating Systems -> MacOS
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Operating Systems -> General
Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Apple -> Web Publishing

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Whether you consider yourself a pro or a hobbyist, you have to admit that Apple's iMovie 08 and iDVD 08 are amazing right out of the box. Unfortunately, the box doesn't include much of a user's guide, so learning about these applications is another matter. iMovie 08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual gets you up to speed on all of the themes, motion graphics, titles, effects -- everything that lets you turn raw digital footage into highly creative video projects. You get crystal-clear and jargon-free explanations of all the iMovie 08 and iDVD 08 features, including the new video library, how to view transitions, titles, and sound in real time as you add them, and ways to publish your creations directly to YouTube. Renowned author David Pogue -- tech columnist for the New York Times -- uses an objective lens to scrutinize every step of process, including how to: Work on multiple iMovie projects at once and drag & drop clips among them Output your creation to a blog, its own web page, or as a video podcast with iWeb Use "Magic iMovie" to import your video and make a movie for you Integrate with other iLife programs to use songs, photos, and an original sound track And a whole lot more From choosing and using a digital camcorder to burning the finished work onto DVDs, posting it online, or creating versions for iPod and iPhone, iMovie 08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual zooms right in on the details in a concise and understandable manner. The book also provides a firm grounding in basic film technique so that the quality of your video won't rely entirely on magic.

The Garden Primer: Second Edition

Barbara Damrosch

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Workman Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $8.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Marketing & Sales -> Marketing -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The most comprehensive, entertaining, down-to-earth one-volume gardening reference ever, and highly praised:

"Barbara Damrosch delivers the goods."—Chicago Tribune
"Best of the crop."—House Beautiful
"Barbara Damrosch's writing has the snap of a good snowpea and the spice of an old rose."—The Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer
"Covers just about everything you could think of and then some." — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"An extraordinarily comprehensive guide." — The San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle
"Takes your soaring visions of garden splendor and plants them firmly in the ground."—The Toronto Star

Now the beloved classic is revised front-to-back. The new edition has gone 100% organic, which in Barbara Damrosch's hands also means completely accessible. It reflects the latest research on plants, soils, tools, and techniques. There is updated and expanded information on planning a garden, recommended plants, and best tools. Ecological issues are addressed much more extensively, covering lawn alternatives, the benefits of native species, wildlife-friendly gardens, and how to avoid harmful invasive species. More attention is paid to plants appropriate to the South, Southwest, and West Coast, while cold-climate gardeners are given detailed advice on how to extend the growing season. Simply put, the book is a richer and fuller compendium than ever before, with more text, more illustrations and garden plans, expanded plant lists, and gardener's resources. But Barbara Damrosch's core of practical, creative ideas and friendly style remain—she is still an "old-fashioned dirt gardener" at heart.

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company

David A. Price

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $13.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Biography & History -> Company Profiles
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Skills -> Communications
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Product Description

The roller-coaster rags-to-riches story behind the phenomenal success of Pixar Animation Studios: the first in-depth look at the company that forever changed the film industry and the "fraternity of geeks" who shaped it.

The Pixar Touch is a story of technical innovation that revolutionized animation, transforming hand-drawn cel animation to computer-generated 3-D graphics. It's a triumphant business story of a company that began with a dream, remained true to the ideals of its founders—antibureaucratic and artist driven—and ended up a multibillion-dollar success.

We meet Pixar's technical genius and founding CEO, Ed Catmull, who dreamed of becoming an animator, inspired by Disney's Peter Pan and Pinocchio, realized he would never be good enough, and instead enrolled in the then new field of computer science at the University of Utah. It was Catmull who founded the computer graphics lab at the New York Institute of Technology and who wound up at Lucasfilm during the first Star Wars trilogy, running the computer graphics department, and found a patron in Steve Jobs, just ousted from Apple Computer, who bought Pixar for five million dollars. Catmull went on to win four Academy Awards for his technical feats and helped to create some of the key computer-generated imagery software that animators rely on today.

Price also writes about John Lasseter, who catapulted himself from unemployed animator to one of the most powerful figures in American filmmaking; animation was the only thing he ever wanted to do (he was inspired by Disney's The Sword in the Stone), and Price's book shows how Lasseter transformed computer animation from a novelty into an art form. The author writes as well about Steve Jobs, as volatile a figure as a Shakespearean monarch . . .

Based on interviews with dozens of insiders, The Pixar Touch examines the early wildcat years when computer animation was thought of as the lunatic fringe of the medium.

We see the studio at work today; how its writers, directors, and animators make their astonishing, and astonishingly popular, films.

The book also delves into Pixar's corporate feuds: between Lasseter and his former champion, Jeffrey Katzenberg (A Bug's Life vs. Antz), and between Jobs and Michael Eisner. And finally it explores Pixar's complex relationship with the Walt Disney Company as it transformed itself from a Disney satellite into the $7.4 billion jewel in the Disney crown.

Little-Known Facts from The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David Price

• Pixar, not Apple, made Steve Jobs a billionaire. Jobs bought Pixar in 1986 from Lucasfilm for $5 million. In 1995, the week after the release of Toy Story, Pixar went public and Jobs's stock was worth $1.1 billion.

• Ed Catmull, Pixar's co-founder, dreamed as a youth of becoming an animator, but decided in high school that he couldn't draw well enough. Instead, he became an early visionary of computer animation as a graduate student in the 1970's. "Computer animation was sort of on the lunatic fringe at that time," remembered Fred Parke, a fellow Ph.D. student in Catmull's class at the University of Utah.

• When John Lasseter joined Pixar—which was then the computer graphics department of George Lucas's Lucasfilm—he had just been fired from his dream job as an animator at Disney. He became the first person to apply classic Disney character animation principles to computer animation.

• Before it became an animation studio, Pixar went through years of struggle and multi-million-dollar losses. It started as a computer company and John Lasseter's short films, such as Luxo Jr. and Tin Toy, were promotional films to help sell the company's computers.

• Pixar was almost bought by…Microsoft? Yep: Jobs remained worried about the company's finances even after Pixar made a deal with the Walt Disney Co. in 1991 to produce Toy Story, Pixar's first feature film. The Pixar Touch details the effort to sell Pixar to Bill Gates's company while Toy Story was in production.

• When writing Toy Story, to find inspiration for the relationship between Buzz and Woody, Lasseter and his story department screened classic "buddy" movies, including 48 Hrs., The Defiant Ones, Midnight Run, and Thelma & Louise.

• John Lasseter has instilled an intense commitment to research in the studio's creative staff. To prepare for the scene in Finding Nemo in which the fish characters Marlin and Dory become trapped in a whale, two members of the art department climbed inside a dead gray whale that had been stranded north of Marin, California.

• To learn how to make a realistic French kitchen, the producer and first director of Ratatouille worked as apprentices at an elite French restaurant in the Napa Valley.

• Pixar deliberately avoided making the humans in The Incredibles look too realistic. They knew that as animated human characters became too close to lifelike, audiences would actually perceive them as repulsive. The phenomenon, known as the "uncanny valley," had been predicted by a Japanese robotics researcher as early as 1970. Thus, the details of human skin, such as pores and hair follicles, were left out of The Incredibles' characters in favor of a more cartoonlike appearance.

• The signature of most Pixar feature films is characters who appeal to children (toys, fish, monsters…), but who have adult-like personalities and are dealing with adult-like problems.

• Prior to the acquisition of Pixar by Disney in 2006, Lasseter loathed the idea of Disney making sequels to Pixar films without Pixar's involvement—as Disney's contract with Pixar allowed it to do. "These were the people that put out Cinderella II," Lasseter remarked.

• Pixar is more than an animation studio. Pixar's innovations in computer graphics technology pervade movies today. Special-effects houses like Industrial Light & Magic (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) use Pixar's software to create out-of-this-world places and characters.

(Photo © Simon Bruty)

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting

Syd Field

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Delta Amazon Marketplace: 66 new & used starting at $6.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Screenwriting

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 87 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The Pioneering Book on Screenwriting 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

This review focuses on the latest edition of Syd Field's SCREENPLAY: The Foundations of Screenwriting, published in December 2005.

Syd Field published the book in 1979, the first book ever on the subject. In his memoir, GOING TO THE MOVIES -- A Personal Journey Through Four Decades of Modern Film, published in 2001, he says: "There were three printings within the first six months of publication, and it wasn't long before many of the major college and universities across the land were using it as a text (p 239)."

Introducing his SCREENPLAY book, Syd Field writes, "This not a `how-to' book....I call it a 'what-to' book, meaning if you have an idea for a screenplay, and you don't know what to do or how to do it, I can show you (p 8)." Very well, let's see how he shows what-to do to write a screenplay.

Write down your answers to the following three questions. First: What is your story about? Who is the main character? What is the dramatic situation? ("You've got approximately ten pages of screenplay or approximately ten minutes of screen-time to establish this.") Second: What is your screenplay's ending? Third: What is your screenplay's inciting incident? -- which he defines as the incident "that sets the story in motion; it is the first visual representation of the key incident, what the story is about, and draws the main character into the story line (p 129)."

The major structuring form, Syd Field emphasizes repeatedly, is the classic three-act paradigm: Act I, set-up; Act II, confrontation; Act III, resolution. Assuming 120 pages as the typical length of a screenplay, the three acts take 30, 60, and 30 pages. Next, he introduces the concept of plot points: How do you get from one act to the next? "The answer is to create a Plot Point at the end of both Act I and Act II. A Plot Point is defined as any incident, episode, or event that hooks into the action and spins it around in another direction (p26)." Of course, there are many minor plot points throughout.

Does this paradigm hold for most, if not all, screenplays? Yes, says Syd Field, and establishes it by analyzing the structures of linear screenplays such as CASABLANCA and THELMA & LOUISE as well as nonlinear screenplays such as THE HOURS and THE ENGLISH PATIENT. The book analyzes, in detail, several other screenplays, both classic and contemporary.

In the companion book, THE SCREENWRITER'S WORKBOOK, Syd Field adds three plot points to the basic three-act, two plot-points paradigm. The new plot-points are the midpoint at about page 60 and pinches at about pages 45 and 75 in the standard 120-page screenplay. These concepts of midpoint and pinches certainly enhance the form guidelines presented in the earlier book. A major strength of Syd Field's books is his focusing on form, not on content, which is up to the creative writer. Form, of course, interactively affects content; nonetheless, Field wisely refrains from micromanaging techniques of content generation.

I must say the three Syd Field's books I've read so far could certainly use a consultation with a professional copyeditor, a copyeditor who'd excise his annoyingly repetitive pedagogy. According to social psychologists, repetitive communication is the behavioral tendency in teachers caused by the practice of their profession ("deformation professionelle" carry-over to their communication pattern). Syd Field's penchant for repetition arose from leading numerous lectures and workshops? The three books, totalling over one-thousand pages, could be easily edited into an excellent 450-page book.


-- C J Singh

Editorial Review:

For almost twenty-five years, aspiring screenwriters have turned to guru Syd Field for clear and insightful step-by-step guidelines on the art and craft of writing screenplays. Now, with a totally new, up-to-date perspective on today's film industry, Syd Field again proves why he is revered as a master - and why SCREENPLAY remains the bible of the film industry. From inception through completion, from opening scene to finished script, here is a sourcebook designed to help today's aspiring screenwriters turn their ideas into scripts that will sell and succeed on the screen tomorrow.

In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition

Walter Murch

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Silman-James Press Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $8.17

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Cinematography
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Read before Editing!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was required reading for my editing film class in LA. I had little editing experience and needed a book to improve my editing. THIS BOOK IMPROVED MY EDITING by 200%!!! I learned where, when, how, and why to make a cut, dissolve, etc. I learned something new in every chapter and highlighted lots!!!

P.S. This book is clear, concise, and easy to read.

Editorial Review:

In the Blink of an Eye is celebrated film editor Walter Murch's vivid, multifaceted, thought -- provoking essay on film editing. Starting with what might be the most basic editing question -- Why do cuts work? -- Murch treats the reader to a wonderful ride through the aesthetics and practical concerns of cutting film. Along the way, he offers his unique insights on such subjects as continuity and discontinuity in editing, dreaming, and reality; criteria for a good cut; the blink of the eye as an emotional cue; digital editing; and much more. In this second edition, Murch reconsiders and completely revises his popular first edition's lengthy meditation on digital editing (which accounts for a third of the book's pages) in light of the technological changes that have taken place in the six years since its publication.

The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques

Joseph V. Mascelli

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Silman-James Press Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $16.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Cinematography
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

How can one make art without knowing the rules? 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The Five C's of Cinematography is basically a rule book on the form of motion picture making as it relates to camera angles, movements and editing. This book is the "bible" or rule book of the techniques of film making, such as painting has composition rules itself. A true artist not only knows the rules, but understands the rules of why it is used. The Five C's does all that, it shows and explains the what therefores and hows. It even shows the wrongs in a clear fashion, which is amazing since this is a book of still images about a medium of moving images.

The best artists knew the rules of their art, and either followed them or break them to get the effect they wanted. If one does not know the rules, one can not realize the effect they are creating by breaking the rules. That is why most modern artists of today seem muddled and unfocused and Picasso still evokes and moves one. Picasso knew the rules. This book will help one know the rules of film.

The images and wording may be dated, even quaint, but once one looks past such superficial cosmetics, the information is a gold mine of a very large vein in information

Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide)

Leonard Maltin

Amazon Price: $13.60 List Price: $20.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Plume Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $9.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Direction & Production
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> Guides & Reviews

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Love Leonard Maltin, but why do they release the book so early? 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

For my money, this is the best of the movie guides. These concise, knowledgeable reviews written by Leonard Maltin and his team are indispensable when flipping through movie channels on TV or trying to decide on the next DVD rental. They also do a great job each year in correcting errors and adding the names of newly-prominent actors to the cast lists.

My only significant complaint is the the book is published way, way too early in the year. Why issue the "2009 Guide" in early August 2008? Obviously, the summer is the key time for releasing new movies, but because of its publication date this year's guide only includes movies released through early July. It's missing reviews of The Incredible Hulk, WALL-E, Sex and the City, Kitt Kittredge, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Kung Fu Panda, and -- the biggest hit of 2008 -- The Dark Knight, among many other summer and fall releases. Anyone who buys the book right after publication (like I did) probably realizes some of these reviews will not be there, but I would guess this book sells a lot of copies during the holiday season. Many of those people are going to be pretty disappointed to find out just how many films are not reviewed in this "2009 Guide." Seems like a very strange strategy by the publisher.

Editorial Review:

The New York Times bestselling movie guide from a household name in film criticism

Consulted more frequently than ever in this era of Netflix as the resource, Leonard Maltin’s New York Times bestselling film guide remains the most complete, most reliable, and most authoritative resource for movie reviews. Including nearly 17,000 films, the 2009 edition features more than 300 new entries, a completely updated index of leading actors and directors, and Leonard’s personal favorite films.