Creative Film

From Oscar-winners and cult favorites, big budget blockbusters and indie darlings, this captivating series takes you on a deep dive into the pivotal projects that defined the careers of six extraordinary filmmakers—Cameron Crowe, Natasha Lyonne, Ron Howard, Amy Heckerling, Richard Linklater, and Chloé Zhao. Through candid anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories, these artists reflect on the formative experiences, creative breakthroughs, and personal inspirations that gave rise to their most iconic work.

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve.

One of the greatest directors of all time, Sidney Lumet has made movies that have been nominated for more than 50 Academy Awards. Making Movies is an honest and unflinching look at the business and craft of movie making. Lumet's book reveals the ingredients for the potion that brings movie magic to life and assures one thing: you will never look at movies the same way again.

David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish provides a rare window into the internationally acclaimed filmmaker’s methods as an artist, his personal working style, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Few filmmakers, if any, make the kind of impact that Martin Scorsese has made on American cinema. The winner of every prestigious film award, including the Oscar, Scorsese is a living legend. Bestselling author and award-winning filmmaker Mary Pat Kelly’s groundbreaking biography reveals how this working-class boy from Manhattan’s Little Italy became one of our most acclaimed, celebrated, and influential filmmakers. Martin Scorsese: A Journey maps Scorsese’s personal and artistic evolution.

Charlie, Dennis, Mac, Sweet Dee, and Frank are deplorable characters. They will never mature, become more self-aware, or less self-involved. That is what the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are committed to—and that’s why the show’s millions of devoted fans have stuck with the cult comedy hit for over sixteen seasons and counting. As thoughtful, provocative, and engaging as the show itself, this book also explores how the show has pushed the envelope and used absurdist comedy to explore major societal issues, including the #MeToo movement, LGBTQ+ rights, racism, and more.

In Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman chronicles the remarkable, sprawling history of the Academy Awards and the personal dramas—some iconic, others never-before-revealed—that have played out on the stage and off camera. Unlike other books on the subject, each chapter takes a deep dive into a particular year, conflict, or even category that tells a larger story of cultural change, from Louis B. Mayer to Moonlight. Schulman examines how the red carpet runs through contested turf, and the victors aren't always as clear as the names drawn from envelopes.

Hollywood was built on beautiful and complicated matinee idols: James Dean and Marlon Brando are classic examples, but in the 1990s, the actor who embodied that archetype was River Phoenix. As the brightly colored 1980s wound down, a new crew of leading men began to appear on movie screens. Hailed for their acting prowess and admired for choosing meaty roles, actors such as Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt were soon rocketing toward stardom while an unknown Leonardo DiCaprio prepared to make his acting debut. River Phoenix, however, stood in front of the pack.

Blake Snyder's Save the Cat!, the world's top-selling story method for filmmakers and novelists, introduces The Last Book on Creating Binge-Worthy Content You'll Ever Need.

We have entered an age where we now have instant, unlimited, free access to the history of recorded music. We have the ability to listen across genres and eras. This is a world-wide phenomenon. This book is a guide to taking advantage of this astonishing new power. This book is also a way to appreciate one of our great cultural legacies; one that is very alive today. It is about American popular song and the body of work referred to as the Great American Songbook. These tunes are appreciated and treasured by listeners all over the world. This book is an effort to introduce you to the songs,...

Learning how to use narrative devices is the ultimate hack for writing interesting stories What narrative techniques help to surprise and interest the viewer? How can we unblock a plot that does not flow? How do you create suspense when the audience has already seen it all? How do resources such as Flebotinum, Rabbit Hole, or Red Herring work? Since humans emerged from caves, they have learned to tell stories to communicate and evoke emotions in others. While some do it monotonously, others manage to capture the attention of their audience and hold their interest until the end. How do they ...

This book has been in my head for four years. It's great for students, teachers or anyone interested in writing and producing sketch comedy. Section One: The History of Comedy to Today's Sketch Comedy: Do you know the world's oldest joke? Section Two: Elements of Sketch Comedy Writing: Characters, Setting, Style, etc. Sections Three: Let's write your first/next sketch - Brainstorming, Improv, Outlines and Drafts Section Four: Producing your sketch on stage or video EIGHT IS NEVER ENOUGH started performing in Times Square since 2002, Now famous for its off-Broadway Improv comedy shows and ...

Transform Your Self-Image, Transform Your Life! Unlock the Secret Weapon of Success Hidden in Plain Sight — Your Self-Image. In The Unstoppable Force of a Positive Self-Image, renowned psychologist, NLP master trainer, and success coach Dr. William Horton reveals the missing link between personal transformation and lasting achievement: the way you see yourself. With a compelling foreword by Dr. Joe Vitale, this breakthrough book combines the latest in neuroscience, psychology, and hypnotic reprogramming to help you effortlessly shatter limitations and step into your full potential. Inside...

Managing Chaos? Film producing is a life embracing Absolute Chaos! Film fans the world over know everything about what an Actor or Actress does; a Director does; and have absolutely no clue what a Producer does to produce the film except at best, thinking that the Producer finances the film with his or her own money. HA! HA! and HA! as Laurel and Hardy would say. Based on the Author’s 25 years in the business, you will learn in a humorous way the seriousness of what exactly we do in our chaotic lifestyle: the good, the frustrating, the beautiful, the bad, and the ugly. My faults, failures...

The second edition of Inside Section One: Creating and Producing TV's La Femme Nikita is an expanded and updated version designed to provide listeners—and in particular, TV and film students—with a thorough understanding of the TV production experience, using the critically-acclaimed and award-winning TV series La Femme Nikita as a case study.

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.

HBO changed how stories could be told on TV. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire, Game of Thrones. The network’s meteoric rise heralded the second golden age of television with serialized shows that examined and reflected American anxieties, fears, and secret passions through complicated characters who were flawed and often unlikable.

An exploration of the modern audience's collaborative role in the creation of painting, sculpture, photography, theatre, film and television.

In From Holmes to Sherlock, Mattias Boström re-creates the full story behind the legendary detective and his many incarnations - a real-life narrative of success, tragedy, and family secrets that has never previously been told in its entirety.

Short Film Structure Secrets - Short Films - There's no secret that structuring a short film can be a difficult process because of how condensed short films can be in relation to a feature film. Author Chike Camara has done it again. This book demystifies the process and gives you a breakdown of some of the most common short film types, how their structures work, why their structures work and how to take your own short film idea to the next level. In a way, it teaches you how to create a short film as well.