You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story
by Richard Schickel
from Running Press
No production company has had more legendary films, stars, or influence on the course of Hollywood than Warner Bros. Among the superstars who worked for the studio are Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Joan Crawford, Marlon Brando, James Dean, and John Wayne. Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick made history for the studio, and it has been home to blockbuster franchises like Superman, Batman, Lethal Weapon, and Harry Potter.
Produced in conjunction with Warner Bros., this volume is the ultimate guide to the greatest movie studio in history. You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story is also the companion to a five part documentary in the PBS American Masters series by author Richard Schickel that will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the spring of 2008 and debut on PBS in the fall, to coincide with publication of the book.
The Complete Making of Indiana Jones: The Definitive Story Behind All Four Films
by J.W. Rinzler
from Del Rey
From Raiders of the Lost Ark to The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The man with the hat is back–in the definitive behind-the-scenes look at the Indiana Jones epic action saga.
When George Lucas and Steven Spielberg put their heads together to create a no-holds-barred action-adventure movie, bigger-than-life hero Indiana Jones was born. The rest is breathtaking, record-breaking box-office history. Now comes an all-new Indiana Jones feature film: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Here’s your chance to go on location for an up-close, all-access tour of the year’s most eagerly anticipated blockbuster, as well as the classics. The Complete Making of Indiana Jones is a crash course in movie magic-making–showcasing the masters of the craft and served up by veteran entertainment chroniclers J. W. Rinzler and Laurent Bouzereau. Inside you’ll find:
• exclusive on-set interviews with the entire cast and crew of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, including Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, and John Hurt–plus director Steven Spielberg, executive producer George Lucas, screenwriter David Koepp, and the incredible production team that built some of the most fantastic sets ever.
• hundreds of full-color images–from storyboards, concept paintings, and set design schematics to still photos from all four films with candid action shots of the productions in progress
• an in-depth chronicle of the making of the first three Indiana Jones movies–Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade–including transcripts of the original concept meetings, cast and crew anecdotes, production photos, and information on scenes that were cut from the final films
• never-before-seen artwork and archival gems from the Lucasfilm Archives
• and much more!
Don’t miss the thrilling new movie or this definitive making-of opus. It’s as essential to fans as that trusty bullwhip is to Indy!
American Cinema/American Culture
by John Belton
from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Ideal for Introduction to American Cinema courses, American Film History courses, and Introductory Film Appreciation courses focused on American Film, this text offers a cultural examination of the American movie-making industry, with particular attention paid to the economic and aesthetic institution of Hollywood.
Adventures in the Screen Trade
by William Goldman
from Grand Central Publishing
Filmmakers and Financing, Fifth Edition: Business Plans for Independents
by Louise Levison
from Focal Press
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 Star Machine
by Jeanine Basinger
from Knopf
From one of our leading film authorities, a rich, penetrating, amusing plum pudding of a book about the golden age of movies, full of Hollywood lore, anecdotes, and analysis.
Jeanine Basinger gives us an immensely entertaining look into the “star machine,” examining how, at the height of the studio system, from the 1930s to the 1950s, the studios worked to manufacture star actors and actresses. With revelatory insights and delightful asides, she shows us how the machine worked when it worked, how it failed when it didn’t, and how irrelevant it could sometimes be. She gives us the “human factor,” case studies focusing on big stars groomed into the system: the “awesomely beautiful” (and disillusioned) Tyrone Power; the seductive, disobedient Lana Turner; and a dazzling cast of others—Loretta Young, Errol Flynn, Irene Dunne, Deanna Durbin. She anatomizes their careers, showing how their fame happened, and what happened to them as a result. (Both Lana Turner and Errol Flynn, for instance, were involved in notorious court cases.) In her trenchantly observed conclusion, she explains what has become of the star machine and why the studios’ practice of “making” stars is no longer relevant.
Deeply engrossing, full of energy, wit, and wisdom, The Star Machine is destined to become an invaluable part of the film canon.
Contracts for the Film & Television Industry
by Mark Litwak
from Silman-James Press
Producing, Financing, and Distributing Film: A Comprehensive Legal and Business Guide
by Donald C. Farber
from Limelight Editions
The original edition of this book, long out of print, was published almost 20 years ago. The decades since then have brought enormous changes to the business side of moviemaking, requiring that the new edition be totally rewritten. This is, then, a brand new book and one that has been most eagerly awaited. In it, three experts in entertainment law carefully explain the complex procedures involved in bringing a film to the screen, from acquiring rights and financing, to negotiating workable agreements with artists and craftspeople, to distributing and exhibiting the finished motion picture. Clear, concise, and - above all - authoritative, this book cuts a pathway through a jungle and is an essential reference for the teacher of film, the independent producer, the would-be filmmaker, and anyone interested in the business of making movies.
The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up
by David Rensin
from Ballantine Books
It’s like a plot from a Hollywood potboiler: start out in the mailroom, end up a mogul. But for many, it happens to be true. Some of the biggest names in entertainment—including David Geffen, Barry Diller, and Michael Ovitz— started their dazzling careers in the lowly mailroom. Based on more than two hundred interviews, David Rensin unfolds the never-before-told history of an American institution—in the voices of the people who lived it. Through nearly seven decades of glamour and humiliation, lousy pay and incredible perks, killer egos and a kill-or-be-killed ethos, you’ll go where the trainees go, learn what they must do to get ahead, and hear the best insider stories from the Hollywood everyone knows about but no one really knows. A vibrant tapestry of dreams, desire, and exploitation, The Mailroom is not only an engrossing read but a crash course, taught by the experts, on how to succeed in Hollywood.
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood
by Neal Gabler
from Anchor
That subtitle may inspire in some readers waves of ethnic pride, and in others waves of ethnic revulsion, but the point of this book is that its claim of origin is quite literally true. And what makes it an interesting read for political types is the way it demonstrates that no matter how much the founding Hollywood moguls and their successors tried to peddle an idealized, escapist form of entertainment, bubbling up under and around their every project was ideology, racism, ethnic prejudice, class friction, domestic and international politics and all the other raw, seething stuff that distinguishes this country from all others. In Gabler's hands, the Industry draws a picture of American political history in spite of itself.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history, this "wonderful history of the golden age of the movie moguls" (Chicago Tribune ) is a provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry.
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