Film Art

The first comprehensive history of Hollywood's high-flying career women during the studio era, Nobody's Girl Friday covers the impact of the executives, producers, editors, writers, agents, designers, directors, and actresses who shaped Hollywood film production and style, led their unions, climbed to the top during the war, and fought the blacklist. Based on a decade of archival research, author J. E. Smyth uncovers a formidable generation working within the American film industry and brings their voices back into the history of Hollywood.

When Dave Hickey was 12, he rode the surfer's dream: the perfect wave. And, like so many things in life we long for, it didn't quite turn out - he shot the pier and dashed himself against the rocks of Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach, which just about killed him. Fortunately, for Hickey and for us, he survived, and continues to battle, decades into a career as one of America's foremost critical iconoclasts, a trusted, even cherished no-nonsense voice commenting on the all-too-often nonsensical worlds of art and culture.

Jane Austen was born in Steventon, England, in 1775, where she lived for the first 25 years of her life. Her father, George Austen, was the rector of the local parish, and provided most of her education in their home. She began to write while in her teens and completed the original manuscript of Pride and Prejudice First Impressions, between 1796 and 1797. Pride and Prejudice was published in January 1813, two years after Sense and Sensibility, her first novel.

Today, the name Clint Eastwood conjures up many different and unforgettable images. While many will always associate him as the quintessential Western hero in classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, new generations know him as a critically acclaimed director and even an outspoken conservative firebrand.

This is a short book, with just one goal - to teach you the simple principles you can use right now to design a powerful scene before you write it. If you've already written your novel, you can use these same principles to make each scene better.

Nora Ephron was one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film. Nora Ephron: A Biography is the first biography of the Manhattan-born girl who forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration from critics and fans alike. Author Kristin Marguerite Doidge explores the tremendous successes and disappointing failures Ephron sustained in her career and examines the private life she tried to keep in balance with her insatiable ambition.

It's easy for new fans to get overwhelmed by the sprawling mythology and complexity of the six films that make up Peter Jackson's epic trilogies. Unlike encyclopedias and guides that offer diehard J. R. R. Tolkien fans trivia, details, and deep dives into every on-screen moment, this first-of-its kind explainer is an easy, fun, and accessible introduction to the characters, plots, and interconnected stories that make up one of the greatest pop culture franchises of all time. Smart Pop has all of your burning questions covered!

In this fully updated second edition, award-winning film director and Slamdance Film Festival cofounder Dan Mirvish gives you soup-to-nuts, cradle-to-grave advice on every aspect of the filmmaking lifestyle and craft. He drops advice on playing the Hollywood and indie-film games, and shows you how to finance, cast, shoot and show your indie feature, documentary, episodic series, short film, student film, web video or big-budget blockbuster. Includes extensive tips on film festivals, distribution and continuing and sustaining your career.

Whether you are a professional grip looking to boost your skills or an aspiring one just beginning to learn the trade, the time-tested tips and techniques for smooth and safe operation on set make this new edition an indispensable reference guide.

Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood presents a look back at four decades of the successful, spooky soap opera that made sympathetic vampire Barnabas Collins a pop-culture phenomenon and prompted the big-budget big-screen Warner Bros. revival starring longtime fan Johnny Depp, directed by Tim Burton, that premiered May 11, 2012. With the ongoing fascination for all things vampiric, this audiobook about the making of the new film and the history of the original series will be an enticing volume for new and old fans alike.

Writers’ rooms can be a heaven or hell, depending on a few things. The best rooms foster inclusive and productive creative flow. The worst create a toxic stew of bad feelings and doubt. Both kinds, and all the ones in between, require basic knowledge of how the room works. These fundamentals are best learned before you go in. The mystery box of the writers’ room need not stay sealed shut forever. Consider this audiobook your crowbar.

Barry Avrich - a self-made, Montreal-born film producer-director, flamboyant advertising executive, and legendary biographer and connector of moguls and stars. For over three decades, he has relentlessly produced films on some of the most notorious show-business titans and also found the time to market and promote feature films, concerts, and the biggest shows on Broadway.

Josephine Alibrandi is 17 and in her final year of school. Dealing with her mum and the ways of her Nonna are daunting enough as she prepares for her exams. But Josie is about to discover real life gets in the way of her carefully-made plans.

In this companion volume to The Discoverers, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin brings to life more than three thousand years of human artistic achievement, examining painting, sculpture, architecture, theology, philosophy, history, poetry, drama, literature, dance, music, and film.

Herman J. (1897-1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture's only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture.

There are a lot of compendiums on The Twilight Zone out there, most offering a backstage peek at the ins and outs of producing this seminal genre series. The Binge Watcher’s Guide to The Twilight Zone will offer you something these other books do not: a microscopic look into the themes and ideas that Rod Serling weaved into his landmark show to give you a deeper understanding of why The Twilight Zone still resonates with audiences over 60 years later.

No Crying in Baseball is a rollicking, revelatory deep dive into a one‑of‑a‑kind film. Before A League of Their Own, few American girls could imagine themselves playing professional ball. But Penny Marshall's genre outlier became an instant classic and significant aha moment for countless young women who saw that throwing like a girl was far from an insult. Part fly‑on‑the‑wall narrative, part immersive pop nostalgia, No Crying in Baseball is for those who love stories about subverting gender roles as well as fans of the film who remain passionate thirty years after its release.

One of the most original and unsettling filmmakers of all time—the creator of the horror classics Dracula and Freaks, among others—Tod Browning is also one of the most enigmatic directors who ever worked in Hollywood. A complicated, troubled, and fiercely private man, he confounded would-be biographers hoping to penetrate his secret, obsessive world—both during his lifetime and afterward. Now, film historians David J. Skal and Elias Savada join forces for the first full-length biography of the man who earned a reputation as "the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema."

In 1994, the producers at MicroProse UK aspired to design a tactical game that matched or exceeded the success of their American counterparts. Nearby, a bespectacled teenage boy toiled away on his home computer, dreaming of the day his programming aptitude would catch up to the epic campaigns unfolding across his imagination. From his early experiments in board games to digital battlefields that lit up best seller charts, Monsters in the Dark charts the career of legendary designer Julian Gollop through the creation of 1994's X-COM.

Paris, J'Adore! is Emily Cooper's diary about her life in France so far. From leaving her boyfriend in Chicago to starting at marketing firm Savoir in Paris, it reveals all the thrill, fear and confusion Emily experiences as she embarks on her new life. She becomes acquainted not only with French workplace etiquette - the long lunches, the arguments, the determined reluctance to use social media - but also with Gabriel, the hottest chef in town. Some things, though, are beyond comprehension.