General

The Dark Knight: Featuring Production Art and Full Shooting Script

Critically acclaimed director Christopher Nolan follows up his blockbuster film Batman Begins with the highly anticipated The Dark Knight. Batman Begins was a successful re-boot of the popular Batman franchise, and The Dark Knight sequel takes the fresh perspective further, developing the highly anticipated, raw cat-and-mouse game between our superhero Batman and his twisted arch-nemesis The Joker. Celebrated stars include Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman, returning as Batman, Alfred, Lucius Fox, and Lieutenant Gordon, respectively; and new additions Heath Ledger as The Joker, as well as Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Aaron Eckhart. The Art of the Dark Knight is the ultimate companion book to the movie, showcasing production ephemera including storyboard art, character sketches, Nolan’s original shooting script, still photos, and even personal behind-the-scenes material created by the Nolans and Crowley during the movie. The Art of the Dark Knight is certain to appeal to diehard and new fans alike.

Sex and the City

From the team who brought you Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell comes this must-have companion to the movie millions have been waiting for. This sleek hardcover volume gives reader exclusive entrée into the world of Sex and the City: The Movie.

In addition to a storybook-style telling of the film, the book includes mouth-watering bonus features not available anywhere else: behind-the-scenes stories from Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, star and producer Sarah Jessica Parker, writer and director Michael Patrick King, as well as producers and other key cast and crew members; a guide to the movie's multi-million—dollar fashion closet, including insight from costume designer Patricia Field; and an insider's tour of the movie's many locations, some of which have never before appeared on film.

All of this behind-the-scenes information is accompanied by more than three hundred stunning, luscious, full-color images. This beautiful keepsake is sure to bring some big-screen glitz and glamour to every reader's bookshelf.

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

The most authoritative book in the field, now with more entries than ever before, updated and revised for 2009.

The Art of WALL.E

Pixar Animation Studios, the innovators behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille, has again reinvented the genre with WALL E. When a robot searching for a connection finds EVE, a sleek female probe-droid from outer space, he embarks on an adventure-filled journey across the galaxy. Inspired by classic films, and a brave venture in its own right, WALL E is set to awe audiences this summer. The Art of WALL E includes more than 250 imaginative pieces of concept art, including storyboards, full-color pastels, digital and pencil sketches, character studies, color scripts, and more. The astute text—featuring quotes from the director, artists, animators, and production team—unearths the filmmakers' historical inspirations and reveals a studio confidently pushing the limits of animation.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting

Writing for the screen is quirky business. A writer must labor meticulously over his or her prose, yet very little of that prose is ever heard by filmgoers. The few words that do reach the audience, in the form of the characters' dialogue, are, according to Robert McKee, best left to last in the writing process. ("As Alfred Hitchcock once remarked, 'When the screenplay has been written and the dialogue has been added, we're ready to shoot.' ") In Story, McKee puts into book form what he has been teaching screenwriters for years in his seminar on story structure, which is considered by many to be a prerequisite to the film biz. (The long list of film and television projects that McKee's students have written, directed, or produced includes Air Force One, The Deer Hunter, E.R., A Fish Called Wanda, Forrest Gump, NYPD Blue, and Sleepless in Seattle.) Legions of writers flock to Hollywood in search of easy money, calculating the best way to get rich quick. This book is not for them. McKee is passionate about the art of screenwriting. "No one needs yet another recipe book on how to reheat Hollywood leftovers," he writes. "We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent." Story is a true path to just such a rediscovery. In it, McKee offers so much sound advice, drawing from sources as wide ranging as Aristotle and Casablanca, Stanislavski and Chinatown, that it is impossible not to come away feeling immeasurably better equipped to write a screenplay and infinitely more inspired to write a brilliant one.--Jane Steinberg

Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.

In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.

Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz Veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!

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

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 Screenwriter's Bible is six books in one. Book 1 -- A screenwriting primer that provides a concise presentation of screenwriting basics. Book 2 -- A workbook that walks the writer through the writing process, from nascent ideas through revisions. Book 3 -- A formatting guide that presents correct formats for both screenplays and TV scripts. Book 4 -- A spec writing guide that demonstrates today's spec style through sample scenes and analysis. Book 5 -- A sales and marketing guide that presents proven strategies to help you create a laser-sharp marketing plan. Book 6 -- A resource guide that provides addresses and contacts for industry organizations, schools, publications, support groups, services, contests, etc. Among its wealth of practical information are sample query letters, useful worksheets and checklists, hundreds of examples, sample scenes, and straightforward explanations of screenwriting fundamentals. The "Bible" was a featured selection of The Writer's Digest Book Club.

The Art of Kung Fu Panda

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company

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.

The Film Club: A Memoir

"I loved David Gilmour's sleek, potent little memoir, The Film Club. It's so, so wise in the ways of fathers and sons, of movies and movie-goers, of love and loss."
--- Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls

"If all sons had dads like David Gilmour, then Oedipus would be a forgotten legend and Father's Day would be a worldwide film festival."

--Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of It All

"David Gilmour is a very unlikely moral guidance counselor: he's broke, more or less unemployed and has two children by two different women. Yet when it looks as though his teenage son is about to go off the rails, he reaches out to him through the only subject he knows anything about: the movies. The result is an object lesson in how fathers should talk to their sons." --Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People



At the start of this brilliantly unconventional family memoir, David Gilmour is an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his fifteen-year-old son Jesse to do his homework. When he realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, he offers his son an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent - but he must watch three movies a week of his father's choosing.

Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from True Romance to Rosemary's Baby to Showgirls, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, among others. The movies got them talking about Jesse's life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies.

Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship - and their own lives changed in surprising ways.