Film Entertainment

If you've ever dreamed of being in charge of your own network, cable, or web series, then this is the book for you. The TV Showrunner's Roadmap provides you with the tools for creating, writing, and managing your own hit show. Combining his 20+ years as a working screenwriter and UCLA professor, Neil Landau expertly guides you through 21 essential insights to the creation of a successful show, and takes you behind the scenes with exclusive and enlightening interviews with showrunners from some of TV's most lauded series.

Will we ever get tired of watching Cher navigate Beverly Hills High School and discover true love in the movie Clueless? As if! Written by Amy Heckerling and starring Alicia Silverstone, Clueless is an enduring comedy classic that remains one of the most streamed movies on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes even 20 years after its release. In the first book of its kind, Jen Chaney has compiled an oral history of the making of this iconic film using recollections and insights collected from key cast and crew members.

For seven decades Katharine Hepburn played a leading role in the popular culture of the 20th century, reigning as an admired actress, a beloved movie star, and a treasured icon of the modern American woman. She also remained one of the most private of all the public figures of her time.

Author Lynn delves into Chaplin's childhood and family, his often controversial relationships with four wives and a slew of mistresses, and his associations with British music-hall impresario Fred Karno and silent-screen star and pal Douglas Fairbanks. He addresses Chaplin's political influences and convictions, and brings a keen, critical intelligence to the meaning of the films, illuminating Chaplin's elusive genius.

The popular actor and star of Airplane and The Naked Gun offers a zany account of his life and career, providing outrageous anecdotes about his four decades in show business, famous people, and more..

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.

Whether you run a video production studio or you’re an independent freelancer, a YouTuber, or an in-house content creator, this short, easy-to-listen-to and easy-to-apply book will give you the tools you need to assemble your videos quickly and powerfully. Apply these skills whether you’re editing videos for web, social media, corporate businesses, or nonprofits.

Christina Crawford's book was an immediate bestseller, addressing the infrequently discussed topic of child abuse. When Paramount Pictures released the film, starring Faye Dunaway as Crawford, it was critically panned, and remains one of the most legendary critical bombs in film history. The lavish, big-screen adaptation drew unexpected laughter in the scenes depicting life in the Crawford household. Rarely have such good intentions been met with such ridicule.

Starting out in the mid-70s, a time when few women were directing movies, Susan Seidelman was determined to become a filmmaker. She longed to tell stories about the unrepresented characters she wanted to see on screen: unconventional women in unusual circumstances, needing to express themselves and maintain their autonomy. Her genre-blending films reflect a passion for classic Hollywood storytelling, mixed with a playful New Wave spirit, informed by her years living in downtown NYC.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and then basic cable networks like FX and AMC, dramatically stretched television’s narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and artistic ambition. Just as the Big Novel had in the 1960s and the subversive films of New Hollywood had in 1970s, television shows became the place to go to see stories of the triumph and betrayals of the American Dream.

He was born a Canadian on a Friday the 13th in 1929 - the year of the Crash. His boyhood was one of privilege: an ancestor was a Governor General; his great-grandfather Sir John Abbott was Canada’s third prime minister and owned railroads. There were steam yachts, mansions, and a life of Victorian gentility and somewhat cluttered splendor. Plummer tells how "this young bilingual wastrel, incurably romantic, spoiled rotten, tore himself away from the ski slopes to break into the big bad world of theatre, not from the streets up but from an Edwardian living room down".

As a casting director for 23 years, Holly Powell witnessed the casting world from three different points of view: as an independent casting director, as head of casting for a studio, and as a network casting executive. From this unique perspective she formed Holly Powell Studios, with her mission being to demystify the audition process for actors.

As an only child raised in a town of less than 8,000 people and without a Starbucks in sight, Meghan Rienks has always been pretty good at entertaining herself. Then one day — cue the dramatic voiceover — her life changed forever. In 2010, Meghan was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Mono is basically just a really bad case of the flu, right? Wrong. To a party-crazed 16-year-old, mono is social suicide. More than anything, it’s just plain boring.

Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.

Star Wars dominates the film world. The combined box office revenue of the Star Wars movies equates to over $10 billion, making it the second highest-grossing film franchise of all time. But this franchise is no blaster from the past. Its fantastically successful films have now been followed by multiple television series set in that same galaxy far, far away. The franchise’s flagship television series, and likely the firmest fan favorite for some time to come, is The Mandalorian.

David O. Selznick (1902–1965) was one of the most prominent film producers of the Hollywood studio era. However, film production was not his only domain. Starting in the late 1930s, he built an impressive stable of stars within his own independent company. In Starmaker: David O. Selznick and the Production of Stars in the Hollywood Studio System, author Milan Hain reveals the mechanisms by which Selznick and his collaborators discovered and promoted new stars and describes how these personalities were marketed, whether for financial gain or symbolic recognition and prestige.

Brando is perpetually fascinating, both for the power of the characters he portrayed and for his tumultuous personal life. Best-selling biographer Stefan Kanfer seamlessly intertwines the man and the work to give us the fullest and most illuminating appraisal yet. Kanfer takes us from Brando's troubled childhood to his arrival in New York in the 1940s, where he studied with the legendary Stella Adler and became, at age 23, the star of Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire.

Author Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon - what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core, and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world. Illuminating different aspects of Hitchcock's life and work, the book's 12 chapters reveal something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived, but also the various versions of himself that he projected and those projected on his behalf.

The Ultimate History of the '80s Teen Movie goes behind the scenes of a genre where cult hits mingled with studio blockbusters, where giants like Spielberg and Coppola rubbed shoulders with baby-faced first-timers, and where future superstars Sean, Demi, and Tom all got their big break. Music, comedy, and politics all play a part in the surprisingly complex history of the '80s teen movie. And while the films might have been aimed primarily at adolescents, the best tackle universal issues and remain relevant to all ages.

The '90s was the decade when British culture reclaimed its position at the artistic centre of the world. Not since the 'Swinging Sixties' had art, comedy, fashion, film, football, literature and music interwoven into a blooming of national self-confidence. It was the decade of Lad Culture and Girl Power, of Blur vs Oasis. When fashion runways shone with British talent, Young British Artists became household names, football was 'coming home' and British film went worldwide.