Direction & Production Books - Page 6

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood

Peter Biskind

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 95 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Not only is Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls the best book in recent memory on turn-of-the-'70s film, it is beyond question the best book we'll ever get on the subject. Why? Because once the big names who spilled the beans to Biskind find out that other people spilled an equally piquant quantity of beans, nobody will dare speak to another writer with such candor, humor, and venom again.

Biskind did hundreds of interviews with people who make the president look accessible: Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Geffen, Beatty, Kael, Towne, Altman. He also spoke with countless spurned spouses and burned partners, alleged victims of assault by knife, pistol, and bodily fluids. Rather more responsible than some of his sources, Biskind always carefully notes the denials as well as the astounding stories he has compiled. He tells you about Scorsese running naked down Mulholland Drive after his girlfriend, crying, "Don't leave me!"; grave robbing on the set of Apocalypse Now; Faye Dunaway apparently flinging urine in Roman Polanski's face while filming Chinatown; Michael O'Donoghue's LSD-fueled swan dive onto a patio; Coppola's mad plan for a 10-hour film of Goethe's Elective Affinities in 3-D; the ocean suicide attempt Hal "Captain Wacky" Ashby gave up when he couldn't find a swimsuit that pleased him; countless dalliances with porn stars; Russian roulette games and psychotherapy sessions in hot tubs. But he also soberly gives both sides ample chance to testify.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is also more than a fistful of dazzling anecdotes. Methodically, as thrillingly as a movie attorney, Biskind builds the case that Hollywood was revived by wild ones who then betrayed their own dreams, slit their own throats, and destroyed an art form by producing that mindless, inhuman modern behemoth, the blockbuster.

When Spielberg was making the first true blockbuster, Jaws, he sneaked Lucas in one day when nobody was around, got him to put his head in the shark's mechanical mouth, and closed the shark's mouth on him. The gizmo broke and got stuck, but the two young men somehow extricated Lucas's head and hightailed it like Tom and Huck. As Peter Biskind's scathing, funny, wise book demonstrates, they only thought they had escaped. --Tim Appelo

The Animator's Workbook: Step-By-Step Techniques of Drawn Animation

Tony White

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not bad, but there are much better options 3 out of 5 stars.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book a while ago, but recently got my hands on Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit" and it is astonishingly stronger in every way. I just bought that one tonight actually. Skip this one and go straight to Williams' book, it is strong for beginners, and even stronger for people like myself who need something more detailed and insightful than "The Animator's Workbook." I didn't know there was more that I could learn about the basics and subtleties for a great foundation until I read "Survival Kit." Please learn from my mistake and do yourself a favor by buying that one. You'll be way ahead of the curve.

Great book for the beginning animator! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

I just ordered this book. Many flash animators have recommended "The Animator's Workbook", "Cartoon Animation", "Cartooning: Animation 1 with Preston Blair (HT26)" or "The Animator's Survival Kit" in order to create flash cartoons.
I also have "Cartooning: Animation 1 with Preston Blair (HT26)". I have browsed through Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit" and that seemed too much for me to handle. I'm not an animator by trade but a wannabe. I look forward to improving my animation skills with this book! I also got this book for an excellent price!

6/14/05 - I just received my book. I will be using flash to create web based cartoons! This book is very appealing to me and doesn't intimidate me. I need a book like this because I'm not an animator by trade. You must pick this book, "Cartooning: Animation 1 with Preston Blair (HT26)" or "Cartoon Animation" if you are a beginner. All three books are excellent choices if you want to create flash cartoons! I prefer "Cartooning: Animation 1 with Preston Blair (HT26)" more than the other books.

Editorial Review:

An award-winning animator offers a complete course on the principles and techniques of drawn animation, covering every aspect of the process. In clear text and step-by-step drawings, he shows how to capture movement, expression, and emotion. Full-color illustrations.

Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Videos, Fourth Edition

Alan Rosenthal

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

As Alan Rosenthal states in the preface to this new edition of his acclaimed resource for filmmakers, Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Videos is “a book about storytelling—how to tell great and moving stories about fascinating people, whether they be villains or heroes.”

In response to technological advances and the growth of the documentary hybrid in the past five years, Rosenthal reconsiders how one approaches documentary filmmaking in the twenty-first century. Simply and clearly, he explains how to tackle day-to-day problems, from initial concept through distribution. He demonstrates his ideas throughout the book with examples from key filmmakers’ work.

New aspects of this fourth edition include a vital new chapter titled "Making Your First Film," and a considerable enlargement of the section for producers, "Staying Alive," which includes an extensive discussion of financing, marketing, festivals, and distribution. This new edition offers a revised chapter on nonlinear editing, more examples of precise and exacting proposals, and the addition of a complex budget example with explanation of the budgeting process. Discussion of documentary hybrids, with suggestions for mastering changes and challenges, has also been expanded, while the “Family Films” chapter includes updated information that addresses rapid expansion in this genre.

iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

David Pogue

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

While the last version of iMovie gave moviemakers the ability to capture and edit widescreen High Definition Video (HDV) from the new generation of camcorders, iMovie 6 is all about the ease of moviemaking itself. iMovie 6 includes five professionally designed themes with backgrounds, motion graphics, titles, and effects that act as building blocks for your projects. You can preview transitions and stunning new video effects--such as time-lapse video--in real time using the full screen. Or edit audio and add sound effects with a new built-in sound studio. For presenting your movie, Magic iDVD offers easy-to-use themes, including new widescreen options.

Whether you're a professional or an amateur moviemaker, this is amazing stuff. But if you want to learn the full capabilities of these applications, Apple documentation won't make the cut. Instead, iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual is the ideal third-party authority that covers all of these changes through an objective lens. This witty and entertaining guide from celebrated author David Pogue details every step of iMovie 6 and iDVD production. The book shows you 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 soundtrack
• And a whole lot more

From choosing and using a digital camcorder to burning the finished work onto DVDs, posting it online, or downloading it to an iPod, iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual zooms right in on the details in a clear, 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.

On Directing Film

David Mamet

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Makes it's point succintly 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I'll keep it short. For one, this book is really short. I read it on the way to and from work in the same day. Secondly, Mamet says more in these hundred or so pages than most textbooks on the same subject. All that matters is that every scene serves a purpose and drives the story forward. True, there are exceptions to this rule but hearing Mamet tell it like it is with very little fat around his words is a refreshing alternative to long winded suggestions. Definitely worth a read if you are interested in directing anything at all.

Editorial Review:

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

The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917, Revised and Expanded Edition

Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this important book, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy present an enormous amount of information about 2,000 series and features, detailing their plots and relationships to other anime properties. In these areas, the book is definitive, and readers can only wish a comparable volume existed for American animation. The authors are less sure about non-Japanese influences (Cowboy Bebop owes more to noir detective films than to Route 66), and they focus more on storylines and the business of anime than on visuals. They don't discuss the influence of American Saturday morning TV on early anime designs (Speed Racer, the component series of Robotech) or the art nouveau styling in Revolutionary Girl Utena. The editorial evaluations are much harsher than McCarthy's The Anime Movie Guide: some of the most popular anime series in America--Tenchi, Evangelion, Ranma 1/2--receive sharp criticism. The result is a book that anime fans will either love or love to argue with. --Charles Solomon

Independent Feature Film Production: A Complete Guide from Concept Through Distribution

Gregory Goodell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Complete and then some 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book goes into fairly extensive detail on almost all aspects of film production. Production is a grey area to most and this book illuminates it quite well. It is a bit dry and long winded but is more than made up for by its excellent index and organization. It doesn't have to be a page turner if you can find the page you need. Buy it and use it as you need it (and you will need it)

Invaluable resource, a must-buy for all aspiring and experienced independent producers 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I'm a writer-producer currently prepping my first independent film where I'm in the driver's seat. This book has been an invaluable resource for me along the way in terms of educating me on the industry and laying out all of the steps I need to take in order to pull off this project. I've read a number of other books on producing lately, and so far nothing else comes even close to this one. Completely comprehensive, from development to distribution.

Be sure to check copyright and other reviews 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have the 1998 version, and this is a very informative book. But be sure to verify the copyright of the book you are ordering. There are 3 editions: 1982, 1998, and 2003. Per an unconfirmed review at google, the 2003 is not completely updated but merely the 1982 version with a new cover. In this ever-changing industry of independent film, I hope that Mr. Goodell will soon release an even more current version that is as up-to-date as possible. Still highly recommend the 1998 version.

Editorial Review:

This new edition of the filmmaker's bible has been completely updated to reflect changes in every aspect of the moviemaking process.

Cinema 4D 10 Handbook (Graphics Series)

Anson Call

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Despite its ease of use Maxon's Cinema 4D is an incredibly powerful and diverse package. The Cinema 4D 10 Handbook teaches how to harness this power and flexibility through a project-based approach that allows users to create impressive projects as they learn C4D's array of tools and functions. This is a completely updated edition of this popular guide to the ins-and-outs of C4D that provides new C4D users with a complete introduction to the powerful and affordable C4D program, while teaching the fundamental principles of 3D. The book is best for beginners. It explores the most powerful and frequently used aspects of the program and explains how best to use them. Through intensive tutorials, users will learn ideas and techniques not covered in the manuals, and they'll learn about the theory behind why things work the way they do. The book is also for users of earlier versions of C4D who need to get up to speed with the new features. For those just learning Cinema 4D and new to 3D graphics, this book provides the one resource they'll need to get up and running!

Filmmakers and Financing, Fifth Edition: Business Plans for Independents

Louise Levison

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The first, most crucial step in making a film is finding the funds to do it. Let Louise Levison, who wrote the innovative business plan for "The Blair Witch Project," show you how. Whether you're planning a feature, short, documentary, or large format film, this unique guide teaches you how to create a business plan that can be presented to a potential investor. In jargon-free terms, the author leads you through every step. Each chapter concentrates on a different section of the business plan, including the industry, marketing, financing, distribution. There are supplementary exercises and spreadsheets on the CD workbook so you get comfortable crunching the numbers--no math degree required!

The fifth edition contains completely revised and updated industry data, updated information on the market for short films, as well as a new chapter on nontraditional films such as documentaries.

* Includes a CD workbook with forms, spreadsheets, and hands-on exercises
* A sample business plan is included as a helpful reference
* Learn how to develop business plans for features, shorts, documentaries and more

The Art of Bond: From Storyboard to Screen: The Creative Process Behind the James Bond Phenomenon

Laurent Bouzereau

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Where's the art? 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This is my first review and unfortunately it's a stinker. I'm a concept artist and a James Bond fan, so I eagerly anticipated the arrival of this book. When I finally got it, I skimmed through the many pages just to get an initial impression. It wasn't good. I asked myself repeatedly, "where's the artwork?" -- where's the many conceptual sketches, prop designs, miniatures, paintings, novel illustrations, etc. Don't get me wrong, the book does contain such content, but only to a surprising minimal degree. The book should be more accurately titled, Bond: A Derivative Photo Album. Most all of the content is comprised of snap-shots from newer movies.

If you are an artist I would not recommend this. In fact, avoid it.

Editorial Review:

The debonair and daring James Bond has captivated audiences around the world for more than 40 years, his 007 films setting the standard for movie blockbusters. The Art of Bond gives readers an insider’s look at the Bond evolution, from storyboard to screen, through all-new interviews with the series’ creative talents, as well as previously unseen art and behind-the-scenes photography from all 21 films. Actors—including the newest Bond, Daniel Craig—producers, directors, writers, and designers share their stories about the making of the films, and how their groundbreaking work has influenced other prominent filmmakers.

Published to coincide with the fall 2006 release of the newest Bond film, Casino Royale, and profusely illustrated with exclusive images from the Eon Archive, this book is a visual tribute to an incomparable cinematic icon.