A film blog about all aspects of filmmaking: screenplay, directing, editing, acting…
FUTURE NOIR, the book by Paul. M. Sammon, summarises with amazing detail how the classic sci-fi movie was made. Sammons’s book is a mammoth work on the making of a very unique film. I’ve read many “Making Of” books, but…
Continue reading Best “Making Of” Books: The Making of BLADE RUNNER
If you like what follows, don’t praise me. I’m just the messenger here. This piece is to celebrate a great post by Studio Binder about practical effects in film that I felt I had to share. The videos are from…
Continue reading Practical Effects in Film — How Filmmakers Do It For Real
It’s Terrific!, Citizen Kane’s tagline insisted in every poster. For many years considered the best film ever (still now by many), paradoxically, if you were in the American film industry in 1940 most possibly you would think that Citizen Kane…
Continue reading Best “Making Of” Books: The Making of CITIZEN KANE
Darren Aronofsky is a prestigious American film writer and director with a very personal style of filmmaking. His career shows widely different movies, some highly distinguished ones, such as π, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan. Below,…
Continue reading The 5 Best Books on Making Movies, by Darren Aronofsky
From the book Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade, the basic rules of pitching. In case you are not familiar with William Goldman (1931-2018), he’s been one of the best screenwriters Hollywood has seen. He was…
Continue reading William Goldman’s Ten Commandments of Pitching
And How the Classic Western High Noon Became a Response to the Wave of Extreme Anti-Communism which Swarmed the American Film Industry. What we Mean by Red Scare? National Geographic summarises it very well here and below: The Red Scare…
Continue reading Witch Hunt in 50s Hollywood: The Second Red Scare
During the first key 10-15 minutes of any movie, the audience takes a fundamental decision: they make their minds about going with the film or just disengaging. 10-15 minutes is the amount of time that filmmakers, in general, have to…
Continue reading Video-Analysis: The First Ten Minutes of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
During the first key 10-15 minutes of any movie, the audience takes a fundamental decision: they make their minds about going with the film or just disengaging. 10-15 minutes is the amount of time that filmmakers, in general, have to…
Continue reading Video-Analysis: The First Ten Minutes of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
Movie posters are complex entities. Occasionally they are works of art, but this is not their main goal. The mission of a film poster is another: to sell a concept, an image, a title, a tag line, a movie to…
Film blocking and staging mean choreographing the actors and the camera in a given scene in a way which develops and pushes the film narrative forward. It’s never guided solely by aesthetics, and if it is, it’s wrong, That’s why…
