Welcome to Hollywood
By Mark Vahradian
As a Paramount-based film producer and former Disney executive, I've spent nearly three decades in the heart of Hollywood. My journey began not in film school, but in UCLA’s School of Law, where the notion of billable hours drove me to reconsider my plans for the future. On a cork board at the undergraduate career center - somewhere between archaeology and urban planning - I was stunned to discover that people get paid to make movies. Soonafter, a young assistant named Anne Milder hired me to intern for two “baby film producers” named Mark Gordon and Chris Meledandri. My life would never be the same.
I was filling out film school applications in the dressing room building at Paramount, when Anne dropped two worn-out paperbacks on my desk: Syd Field's Screenplay and Joseph Campbell's The Hero’s Journey, along with a flier for a "Story" seminar by the "God of Story" Robert McKee. "You read a lot. You can figure this out for yourself," she said, and just like that, my future-film-school-debt disappeared. I passed the bar (a gift to my parents) and became Anne’s assistant at Universal Pictures. Two years later, I became a Creative Executive at Disney (also thanks to Anne) and moved onto producing ten years later.
That's the power of self-education in Hollywood. It’s mandatory now, in the beginning, middle, and end of a filmmaking career where technology, talent, and audience tastes never stand still. In 2024, aspiring producers have an overwhelming volume of resources at their fingertips. Many cover daily industry innovations; but they’re no more important than the classics of Hollywood non-fiction. The politics of Tinseltown do not change.
I enlisted my fellow members of PRODUCERS UNITED, a new collective of career producers advocating for the sustainability of the producing field, to compile the ultimate list of the best self-education tools for anyone wanting to break into The Business. Enjoy. Class is always in session.
Mark Vahradian is best known for producing the Transformers franchise. His films have grossed billions of dollars and earned multiple Oscar nominations for their visual effects.
WEBSITES
The Ankler
The Big Picture
The Blacklist
Collider
Deadline Hollywood
Dear Producer
Filmmaker Magazine
The Hollywood Reporter
Hope for Film
IndieWire
Jon Reiss-8Above
Longform
Matthew Ball
New York Times Book Review
No Film School
Pandemonium Inc
Puck
Sub-Genre
Sundance Collab
The Tracking Board (Good for entry-level jobs)
Variety
The Wrap
PODCASTS
The Ankler
Listen in as The Ankler team and industry insiders break down Hollywood’s latest business headlines, power struggles and trends shaping the future of entertainment.
Angle on Producers
Spotlights producers from all corners of the entertainment industry. Along the way, host and Emmy nominated producer Carolina Groppa, will help demystify the age old question: "What exactly does a producer do?" by giving you an honest glimpse into what it's like to walk in our shoes.
The Business with Kim Masters
Lively banter about entertainment industry news and in-depth interviews with directors, producers, writers and actors, hosted by award-winning journalist Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter.
Distribution Advocates Presents
Demystifies the world of independent film distribution with honest insider stories. How can we better understand what’s happening to the ecosystem and start to create more equitable distribution systems moving forward? Hosted by Avril Speaks, filmmaker and co-founder of Distribution Advocates, this series of conversations examines concerning practices in the industry and explores innovative and sustainable solutions.
Don’t Kill The Messenger with Kevin Goetz
Hosted by movie and entertainment research expert Kevin Goetz, brings his book Audienceology to life by sharing intimate conversations with some of the most prominent filmmakers in Hollywood. Kevin covers a broad range of topics including the business of movies, film history, breaking into the business, theater-going in the rise of streaming, audience test screening experiences, and much more.
Filmwax Radio with Adam Schartoff
Interviews with luminaries from the indie & arthouse film industry.
The Future of Everything
Lively banter about entertainment industry news and in-depth interviews with directors, producers, writers and actors, hosted by award-winning journalist Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter.
The Futurists
Hosts Brett King and Robert Tercek interview the world's foremost super-forecasters, thought leaders, technologists, entrepreneurs and futurists building the world of tomorrow. Together we will explore how our world will radically change as AI, bioscience, energy, food and agriculture, computing, the metaverse, the space industry, crypto, resource management, supply chain, and climate will reshape our world over the next 100 years.
Indiewire Screen Talk
Each week on Screen Talk, IndieWire's Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio debate the indie film world and beyond -- from film festivals to new releases and the future of the business.
In Machines We Trust
Examines the far-reaching impact of artificial intelligence on our daily lives. Hosted by Jennifer Strong, the series explores the rise of AI through the voices of people reckoning with the power of the technology, and by taking listeners up close with the inventors and founders whose ambitions are fueling the development of new forms of AI, with far-reaching implications we’re only just beginning to understand.
Masters of Scale
Founders, CEOs, and dynamic innovators join candid conversations about their triumphs and challenges with a set of luminary hosts, including founding host Reid Hoffman — LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner.
The Producers Guide with Todd Garner
Todd knows movies. For 30 years, the Hollywood veteran has overseen 170 films (and counting) - including XXX, Anger Management, 13 Going on 30, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Black Hawk Down, Punch Drunk Love, Con Air, and Hellboy. Join Todd as he shares tips and stories on the movie business and chats it up with A-list industry pals.
The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna
A podcast where Oscar-nominated writer Meg LeFauve and Emmy-nominated writer Lorien McKenna discuss not only the craft and business of Screenwriting, but also the emotional life: the ups and downs of being a creative, to remind you that you are not alone and to keep writing.
Scriptnotes with John August & Craig Mazin
Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin discuss screenwriting and related topics in the film and television industry, everything from getting stuff written to the vagaries of copyright and work-for-hire law.
The Town with Matthew Belloni
Puck founding partner Matthew Belloni takes you inside Hollywood, using exclusive reporting and insight to explain the backstories on everything from Marvel movies to streaming wars. Multiple times each week, Matt will touch on what is getting made and why, who is winning and losing, and what people in show business are actually talking about.
The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell
A compelling listen to the vital conversations about the catalysts of creative inspiration. Following some of the most interesting, influential, and crossover creators in the world of entertainment, fashion, sports, and the arts, we hear from tastemakers who are the very fabric that forms popular culture.
Will Packer’s Hard-Earned Hollywood Wisdom
The prolific producer, whose new project Fight Night debuts on Peacock September 5, has built a career on entertaining audiences Hollywood often overlooks. He shares a few secrets of how he's done it, and how surviving the TikTok era and the post-strike industry requires some optimism — but also willingness to take risks.
You Must Remember This with Karina Longworth
The podcast dedicated to exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century.
BOOKS WRITTEN BY PRODUCERS
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood by Peter Biskind (1999)
When the low-budget biker movie Easy Rider shocked Hollywood with its success in 1969, a new Hollywood era was born. This was an age when talented young filmmakers such as Scorsese, Coppola, and Spielberg, along with a new breed of actors, including De Niro, Pacino, and Nicholson, became the powerful figures who would make such modern classics as The Godfather, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, and Jaws. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s -- an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both onscreen and off) and a climate where innovation and experimentation reigned supreme. Based on hundreds of interviews with the directors themselves, producers, stars, agents, writers, studio executives, spouses, and ex-spouses, this is the full, candid story of Hollywood's last golden age.
Hello, He Lied & Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches by Lynda Obst (1997)
"Never go to a meeting without a strategy." "Ride the horse in the direction it's going." These are just two of the gems unearthed from the trenches of Hollywood by Lynda Obst, one of the most successful producers in the movie business today. In Hello, He Lied, Obst offers real, practical advice to would-be professionals in any field: "Thou shalt not cry at work," "thou shalt not appear tough," "thou shalt return all thy phone calls," and more. She takes us inside high-pressure meetings with David Geffen, onto the set of Sleepless in Seattle, and into the heated negotiations for The Hot Zone and reveals what she's learned in more than twenty years in the business: how to swim with the sharks--and not get eaten.
Hope for Film: A Producer’s Journey Across the Revolutions of Indie Film and Streaming by Ted Hope (2015)
An inspiring, tell-all look at the indie film business from one of the industry’s most passionate producers, Hope for Film captures the rebellious punk spirit of the indie film boom in 1990s New York City, its collapse two decades later and its current moment of technology-fueled regeneration. Ted Hope, whose films have garnered 12 Oscar nominations, draws from his own personal experiences working on the early films of Ang Lee, Eddie Burns, Hal Hartley, Michel Gondry, Nicole Holofcener, Todd Solondz and other indie mavericks, relating those decisions that brought him success as well as the occasional failure.
The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans (1995)
Universally recognized as the greatest, most outrageous, and most unforgettable show business memoir ever written. The basis of an award-winning documentary film, it remains the gold standard of Hollywood storytelling.
A Killer Life: How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond by Christine Vachon (2007)
A Killer Life is a book about just that: the killer life of an alternative film producer who's forged her own path of success between the disparate pillars of art and commerce. Strong, steady, creative, loyal, funny, artistic, and doggedly determined to produce films that have meaning and substance and staying power in the pantheon of great cinema, Christine Vachon, a member of the Academy and born and bred on the realistic, unforgiving streets of New York City, is one of the most important people working behind the scenes in the film industry today. How did she get there? Why do directors love her? What does it take to produce great movies? What happened on the set of Kids ? These answers and more are in her book!
Memo from David O. Selznick (2000)
David O. Selznick was a unique figure in the golden Hollywood studio era. He produced some of the greatest and most memorable American films ever made--notably, Rebecca, A Star Is Born, Anna Karenina, A Farewell to Arms, and, above all, Gone With the Wind. Selznick's absolute power and artistic control are evidenced in his impassioned, eloquent, witty, and sometimes rageful memos to directors, writers, stars and studio executives, writings that have become almost as famous as his films. Newsweek wrote,"I can't imagine how a book on the American movie business could be more illuminating, more riveting or more fun to read than this collection of David Selznick's memos.
Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies that Matter by Christine Vacon (1989)
So, what do Hollywood producers actually do? "What don't they do?" In this savagely witty and straight-shooting guide, Vachon reveals the guts of the filmmaking process—from developing a script, nurturing a director's vision, getting financed, and drafting talent to holding hands, stroking egos, and stretching every resource to the limit. Along the way, she offers shrewd practical insights and troubleshooting tips on handling everything from hysterical actors and disgruntled teamsters to obtuse marketing executives.
Sleepless in Hollywood by Lynda Obst (2014)
Combining her own industry experience and interviews with the brightest minds in the business, Obst explains what has stalled the vast movie-making machine. The calamitous DVD collapse helped usher in what she calls the New Abnormal (because Hollywood was never normal to begin with), and studios are now heavily dependent on foreign markets for profit, a situation which directly impacts the kind of entertainment we get to see. Can comedy survive if they don’t get our jokes in Seoul or allow them in China? Why are studios making fewer movies than ever—and why are they bigger, more expensive, and nearly always sequels or recycled ideas?
So You Want to Be a Producer by Lawrence Turman (2005)
Few jobs in Hollywood are as shrouded in mystery as the role of the producer. What does it take to be a producer, how does one get started, and what on earth does one actually do? In So You Want to Be a Producer, Lawrence Turman, the producer of more than forty films, including The Graduate, The River Wild, Short Circuit, and American History X, and Endowed Chair of the famed Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California, answers these questions and many more.
You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again by Julia Phillips (1992)
Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillips’s actually does. This is an addictive, gloves-off exposé from the producer of the classic films The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale. Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again takes you on a trip through the dream-manufacturing capital of the world and into the vortex of drug addiction and rehab on the arm of one who saw it all, did it all, and took her leave.
When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man by Jerry Weintraub (2010)
The story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him--the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood--he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door.
BOOKS ON THE BUSINESS
Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman (1988)
No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of The Princess Bride, Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films… Into the plush offices of Hollywood producers… into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman… and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get a firsthand look at why and how films get made and what elements make a good screenplay. Says columnist Liz Smith, "You'll be fascinated.."
The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson (2020)
Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making.
The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies by Ben Fritz (2024)
Chronicles the dramatic shakeup of America’s film industry, bringing equal fluency to both the financial and entertainment aspects of Hollywood, offering an unprecedented look deep inside a Hollywood studio to explain why sophisticated movies for adults are an endangered species while franchises and super-heroes have come to dominate the cinematic landscape. And through interviews with dozens of key players at Disney, Marvel, Netflix, Amazon, Imax, and others, he reveals how the movie business is being reinvented.
Binge Times: Inside Hollywood's Furious Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix by Dade Hayes and Dawn Chmielewski (2022)
The first comprehensive account of the biggest wake-up call in the history of the entertainment business: the pivot to streaming. Go inside a disparate group of media and tech companies -- Disney, Apple, AT&T/WarnerMedia, Comcast/NBCUniversal and well-funded startup Quibi – as they scramble to mount multi-billion-dollar challenges to Netflix.
Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind (2004)
As he did in his acclaimed Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind “takes on the movie industry of the 1990s and again gets the story” (The New York Times). Biskind charts in fascinating detail the meteoric rise of the controversial Harvey Weinstein, often described as the last mogul, who created an Oscar factory that became the envy of the studios, while leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. He follows Sundance as it grew from a regional film festival to the premier showcase of independent film, succeeding almost despite the mercurial Redford, whose visionary plans were nearly thwarted by his own quixotic personality.
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler (1988)
The names Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker are giants in the history of contemporary Hollywood, outsiders who dared to invent their own vision of the American Dream. Even to this day, the American values defined largely by the movies of these émigrés endure in American cinema and culture. Who these men were, how they came to dominate Hollywood, and what they gained and lost in the process is the exhilarating story of An Empire of Their Own.
Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War (2014)The first comprehensive account of the biggest wake-up call in the history of the entertainment business: the pivot to streaming. Go inside a disparate group of media and tech companies -- Disney, Apple, AT&T/WarnerMedia, Comcast/NBCUniversal and well-funded startup Quibi - as they scramble to mount multi-billion-dollar challenges to Netflix.
Genius of the System by Thomas Schatz (2010)
Thomas Schatz recalls Hollywood’s Golden Age from the 1920s until the dawn of television in the late 1940s, when quality films were produced swiftly and cost efficiently thanks to the intricate design of the system. Schatz takes us through the rise and fall of individual careers and the making—and unmaking—of movies such as Frankenstein, Casablanca, and Hitchcock’s Notorious. Through detailed analysis of major Hollywood moviemakers including Universal, Warner Bros., and MGM, he reminds us of a time when studios had distinct personalities and the relationship between contracts and creativity was not mutually exclusive.
Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber took Sony for a ride in Hollywood by Nancy Griffin, Kim Masters (1996)
Tells the improbable and often hilarious story of how two film packagers well known for spending other people's money and ripping off credit for other people's work went on a deliberate campaign to reinvent themselves as studio executives. With the exception of Batman, Jon Peters and Peter Guber were barely involved with the most successful films they "produced." Steven Spielberg wouldn't allow them on the set of The Color Purple, and they were on the set of Rain Man only once, briefly. With the help of one of Michael Milken's top lieutenants, they succeeded. It was the most audacious sales job of their careers: This unlikely team got Sony to give them the richest deal in Hollywood history.
Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (2022)
The real story of Hollywood as told by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Harold Lloyd, and nearly four hundred others, assembled from the American Film Institute’s treasure trove of interviews, reveals a fresh history of the American movie industry from its beginnings to today.
Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?: The Truth About Female Power in Hollywood by Rachel Abramowitz (2002)
Ten years ago, Rachel Abramowitz began interviewing the most powerful women in the movie-making business in an effort to discover how they had infiltrated this male-dominated world. From superstar actors to independent directors, women in all arenas opened up to her, and the result is extraordinary—together, these stories comprise the most comprehensive history to date of women in Hollywood. Here, in their own candid and provocative words, are Jodie Foster, Penny Marshall, Dawn Steel, Sherry Lansing, Barbra Streisand, Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, Jane Campion, and many others—in short, one of the most talented casts ever assembled.
It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO by Felix Gillette and John Koblin (2022)
Through the visionary executives, showrunners, and producers who shaped HBO, seasoned journalists Gillette and Koblin bring to life a dynamic cast of characters who drove the company’s creative innovation in astonishing ways—outmaneuvering copycat competitors, taming Hollywood studios, transforming 1980s comedians and athletes like Chris Rock and Mike Tyson into superstars, and in the late 1990s and 2000s elevating the commercial-free, serialized drama to a revered art form. It’s Not TV tells the surprising, fascinating story of HBO’s ascent, its groundbreaking influence on American business, technology, and popular culture, and its increasingly precarious position in the very market it created.
The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up by David Rensin (2004)
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.
Picture by Lillian Ross and Anjelica Huston (2002)
In the spring of 1950, when New Yorker staff writer Lillian Ross heard that John Huston was planning to make a film of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, she decided she would follow the movie's progress "in order to learn whatever I might learn about the American motion-picture industry." What resulted was Picture, which Newsweek has called "the best book on Hollywood ever published."
Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris (2009)
In the mid-1960s, westerns, war movies, and blockbuster musicals like Mary Poppins swept the box office. The Hollywood studio system was astonishingly lucrative for the few who dominated the business. That is, until the tastes of American moviegoers radically- and unexpectedly-changed. By the Oscar ceremonies of 1968, a cultural revolution had hit Hollywood with the force of a tsunami, and films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and box-office bomb Doctor Doolittle signaled a change in Hollywood-and America. And as an entire industry changed and struggled, careers were suddenly made and ruined, studios grew and crumbled, and the landscape of filmmaking was altered beyond all recognition.
Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency by Jim Miller (2017)
Started in 1975, when five bright and brash upstarts left creaky William Morris to form their own innovative talent agency, CAA would come to revolutionize Hollywood, representing everyone from Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Steven Spielberg to Jennifer Lawrence, J.J. Abrams, Will Smith, and Brad Pitt. Over the next decades its tentacles would spread aggressively into sports, advertising, and digital media. Drawing on unprecedented and exclusive access to the men and women who built and battled with CAA—including co-founders Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer and rivals like Ari Emanuel of William Morris Endeavor—as well as the stars themselves, Miller spins a unique and unforgettable tale of brilliance, ambition, betrayal, and outrageous success.
Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System by Sharon Waxman (2006)
The 1990s saw a shock wave of dynamic new directing talent that took the Hollywood studio system by storm. At the forefront of that movement were six innovative and daring directors whose films pushed the boundaries of moviemaking and announced to the world that something exciting was happening in Hollywood. Sharon Waxman of the New York Times spent the decade covering these young filmmakers, and in Rebels on the Backlot she weaves together the lives and careers of Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction; Steven Soderbergh, Traffic; David Fincher, Fight Club; Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights; David O. Russell, Three Kings; and Spike Jonze, Being John Malkovich.
The Studio by John Gregory Dunne (1998)
In 1967, John Gregory Dunne asked for unlimited access to the inner workings of Twentieth Century Fox. Miraculously, he got it. For one year Dunne went everywhere there was to go and talked to everyone worth talking to within the studio. He tracked every step of the creation of pictures like Dr. Dolittle, Planet of the Apes, and The Boston Strangler. The result is a work of reportage that, thirty years later, may still be our most minutely observed and therefore most uproariously funny portrait of the motion picture business.
They Can Kill You… but They Can’t Eat You by Dawn Steel (1984)
The personal story of one of Hollywood's key players recounts Steel's early life on the wrong side of the tracks, entrance into the business world as a college dropout and secretary, and rise to the presidency of Columbia Pictures.
Where Did I Go Right? You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead by Bernie Brillstein (2001)
Show biz legend Brillstein reveals 40 years of gossip, humor, and colorful stories as founding partner of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment. Weaving into the worlds of John Belushi and Jim Henson, he takes the reader behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and more.
BOOKS ON PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION
Clearance & Copyright: Everything You Need to Know for Film, Television, and Other Creative Content (2023)
A guide to almost every conceivable rights issue that filmmakers, videomakers, television producers, andInternet content creators might encounter.
Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate by Steven Bach (1999)
Heaven's Gate is probably the most discussed, least seen film in modern movie history. Its notoriety is so great that its title has become a generic term for disaster, for ego run rampant, for epic mismanagement, for wanton extravagance. It was also the film that brought down one of Hollywood’s major studios—United Artists, the company founded in 1919 by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin. Steven Bach was senior vice president and head of worldwide production for United Artists at the time of the filming of Heaven's Gate, and apart from the director and producer, the only person to witness the film’s evolution from beginning to end.
Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking by Spike Lee (1987)
Reveals the creative and production processes behind the low-budget independent film She's Gotta Have It, which became a major critical and commercial success, and provides the entire shooting script of the film.
Keys to the Production Office by Jennifer A. Haire and Gilana M. Lobel (2022)
Opening a door to the real behind-the-scenes of a film or television show, this book explores the reality of working in the Production Office as an Office Production Assistant. Drawing on over 40 years’ combined experience, authors Jennifer A. Haire and Gilana M. Lobel map out a career path into the industry by providing comprehensive practical information designed specifically for individuals pursuing the entry level role of the Office PA.
Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez (1996)
This is both one man's remarkable story and an essential guide for anyone who has a celluloid story to tell and the dreams and determination to see it through. Part production diary, part how-to manual, Rodriguez unveils how he was able to make his influential first film on only a $7,000 budget. Also included is the appendix, The Ten Minute Film Course, a tell-all on how to save thousands of dollars on film school and teach yourself the ropes of film production, directing, and screenwriting.
Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era By Jon Reiss (2009)
The independent film community is a buzz with the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. No longer can filmmakers expect their films to be acquired and released nationally. But just as the digital revolution created a democratization of the means of production, a new hybrid model of distribution has created a way for independent filmmakers to take control of the means of distribution. This hybrid approach is not just DIY or Web based it combines the best techniques from each distribution arena, old and new. Jon Reiss spoke with countless filmmakers, distributors, publicists, web programmers, festival programmers and marketing experts to create this ultimate guide to film distribution and marketing for the digital era.
When The Shooting Stops… the Cutting Begins by Ralph Rosenblum and Robert Karen (1996)
The story of one of the most important and least-understood jobs in moviemaking-film editing-is here told by one of the wizards, Ralph Rosenblum, whose credentials include six Woody Allen films, as well as The Pawnbroker, The Producers, and Goodbye, Columbus. Rosenblum and journalist Robert Karen have written both a history of the profession and a personal account, a highly entertaining, instructive, and revelatory book that will make any reader a more aware movie-viewer.
BOOKS ON DIRECTING & WRITING
The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (2014)
Joseph Campbell, arguably the greatest mythologist of the twentieth century, was certainly one of our greatest storytellers. This masterfully crafted book interweaves conversations between Campbell and some of the people he inspired, including poet Robert Bly, anthropologist Angeles Arrien, filmmaker David Kennard, Doors drummer John Densmore, psychiatric pioneer Stanislov Grof, Nobel laureate Roger Guillemen, and others. Campbell reflects on subjects ranging from the origins and functions of myth, the role of the artist, and the need for ritual to the ordeals of love and romance.
Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey Into Story by John Yorke (2015)
In this exciting and wholly original book, John Yorke not only shows that there is truly a unifying shape to narrative—one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within—he explains why, too. With examples ranging from The Godfather to True Detective, Mad Men to Macbeth, and fairy tales to Forbrydelsen (The Killing), Yorke utilizes Shakespearean five-act structure as a key to analyzing all storytelling in all narrative forms, from film and television to theatre and novel-writing—a big step from the usual three-act approach.
Life Isn’t Everything by Ash Carter and Sam Kashner (2019)
An up close and personal portrait of a legendary filmmaker, theater director, and comedian, drawing on candid conversations with his closest friends in show business and the arts―from Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep to Natalie Portman and Lorne Michaels.
Making Movies by Sidney Lumet (1996)
Why does a director choose a particular script? What must they do in order to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout—involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis—in the heart of New York’s diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchos happy? From the first rehearsal to the final screening, Making Movies is a master’s take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdotes.
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field (2005)
Syd Field's books on the essential structure of emotionally satisfying screenplays have ignited lucrative careers in film and television since 1979. In this revised edition of his premiere guide, the underpinnings of successful onscreen narratives are revealed in clear and encouraging language that will remain wise and practical as long as audiences watch stories unfold visually—from hand-held devices to IMAX to virtual reality and whatever comes next.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee (1997)
McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
The Tools of Screenwriting: A Writer's Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay by David Howard and Edward Mabley (1995)
David Howard and Edward Mabley illuminate the essential elements of cinematic storytelling, and reveal the central principles that all good screenplays share. The authors address questions of dramatic structure, plot, dialogue, character development, setting, imagery, and other crucial topics as they apply to the special art of filmmaking.
True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet (1997)
One of our most brilliantly iconoclastic playwrights takes on the art of profession of acting with these words: invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school. Acting schools, “interpretation,” “sense memory,” “The Method”—David Mamet takes a jackhammer to the idols of contemporary acting, while revealing the true heroism and nobility of the craft. He shows actors how to undertake auditions and rehearsals, deal with agents and directors, engage audiences, and stay faithful to the script, while rejecting the temptations that seduce so many of their colleagues.
BOOKS ON FILM THEORY & CRITICISM
The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris (1996)
The bible of auteur studies, is a history of American film in the form of a lively guide to the work of two hundred film directors, from Griffith, Chaplin, and von Sternberg to Mike Nichols, Stanley Kubrick, and Jerry Lewis. In addition, the book includes a chronology of the most important American films, an alphabetical list of over 6000 films with their directors and years of release, and the seminal essays "Toward a Theory of Film History" and "The Auteur Theory Revisited." Over twenty-five years after its initial publication, The American Cinema remains perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject.
Audience-ology: How Moviegoers Shape the Films We Love by Kevin Goetz and Darlene Haymen (2021)
Audience-ology takes you to one of the most unknown places in Hollywood—a place where famous directors are reduced to tears and multi-millionaire actors to fits of rage. A place where dreams are made and fortunes are lost. This book is the chronicle of how real people have written and rewritten America’s cinematic masterpieces by showing up, watching a rough cut of a new film, and giving their unfettered opinions so that directors and studios can salvage their blunders, or better yet, turn their movies into all-time classics.
Farber on Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber (2016)
Farber was an early discoverer of many filmmakers later acclaimed as American masters: Val Lewton, Preston Sturges, Samuel Fuller, Raoul Walsh, Anthony Mann. Farber on Film brings together this extraordinary body of work in its entirety for the first time, from his early and previously uncollected weekly reviews for The New Republic and The Nation to his brilliant later essays on Godard, Fassbinder, Herzog, Scorsese, Altman, and others.
Film as a Subversive Art by Amos Vogel (1974)
Accompanied by over 300 rare film stills, Film as a Subversive Art analyzes how aesthetic, sexual and ideological subversives use one of the most powerful art forms of our day to exchange or manipulate our conscious and unconscious, demystify visual taboos, destroy dated cinematic forms, and undermine existing value systems and institutions. This subversion of form, as well as of content, is placed within the context of the contemporary world view of science, philosophy, and modern art, and is illuminated by a detailed examination of over 500 films, including many banned, rarely seen, or never released works.
For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies by Pauline Kael (1996)
A collection of film reviews, most of them originally published in The New Yorker, selected from the author's previous collections, covers movies from Hud to Dances with Wolves.
Inside Inside by James Lipton (2007)
A behind-the-scenes tour of the making of the Emmy-nominated television show Inside the Actors Studio describes the host and author's experiences during noteworthy interviews, from Christopher Reeve's first appearance after his accident to Robert De Niro's and Martin Scorsese's disclosures about their co-development of the famous mirror scene.
Kings of the Bs (1975)
Working within the Hollywood system : an anthology of film history and criticism.
Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow (2011)
A decade after her death, Pauline Kael remains the most important figure in film criticism today, in part due to her own inimitable style and power within the film community and in part due to the enormous influence she has exerted over an entire subsequent generation of film critics. During her tenure at the New Yorker from 1967 to 1991 she was a tastemaker, a career maker, and a career breaker. Her brash, vernacular writing style often made for an odd fit at the stately New Yorker. Brian Kellow gives us a richly detailed look at one of the most astonishing bursts of creativity in film history and a rounded portrait of this remarkable (and often relentlessly driven) woman.
Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies by Ann Hornaday (2017)
Veteran film critic Ann Hornaday walks us through the production of a typical movie -- from script and casting to final sound edit -- and explains how to evaluate each piece of the process. How do we know if a film has been well-written, above and beyond snappy dialogue? What constitutes a great screen performance? What goes into praiseworthy cinematography, editing, and sound design? And what does a director really do? In a new epilogue, Hornaday addresses important questions of representation in film and the industry and how this can, and should, effect a movie-watching experience.
When Movies Mattered by Dave Kehr (2011)
Presents a wide-ranging and illuminating selection of Kehr’s criticism from the Reader—most of which is reprinted here for the first time—including insightful discussions of film history and his controversial Top Ten lists. Long heralded by his peers for both his deep knowledge and incisive style, Kehr developed his approach to writing about film from the auteur criticism popular in the ’70s.
BOOKS ON COMEDY
And Here's the Kicker: Conversations With 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft by Mike Sacks (2009)
Every great joke has a punchline, and every great humor writer has an arsenal of experiences, anecdotes, and obsessions that were the inspiration for that humor. In fact, those who make a career out of entertaining strangers with words are a notoriously intelligent and quirky lot. And boy, do they have some stories.In this entertaining and inspirational book, you'll hear from 21 top humor writers as they discuss the comedy-writing process, their influences, their likes and dislikes, and their experiences in the industry.
It’s Garry Shandling’s Book by Judd Apatow (2019)
Garry Shandling was a singular trailblazer in the comedy world. His two hit shows, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and The Larry Sanders Show, broke new ground and influenced future sitcoms like 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and his stand-up laid the foundation for a whole new generation of comics. There’s no one better to tell Shandling’s story than Judd Apatow—Shandling gave Apatow one of his first jobs and remained his mentor for the rest of his life—and the book expands on Apatow’s Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary, The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling.
I’m Dying Up Here by William Knoedelseder (2017)
In the mid-1970s, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Richard Lewis, Robin Williams, Elayne Boosler, Tom Dreesen, and several hundred other shameless showoffs and incorrigible cutups from all across the country migrated en masse to Los Angeles, the new home of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. There, in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams and laughter, they created an artistic community unlike any before or since. It was Comedy Camelot -- but it couldn't last. In I'm Dying Up Here he tells the whole story of that golden age, of the strike that ended it, and of how those days still resonate in the lives of those who were there.
Poking a Dead Frog by Mike Sacks (2014)
Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.
Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow (2016)
From the writer and director of Knocked Up and the producer of Freaks and Geeks comes a collection of intimate, hilarious conversations with the biggest names in comedy from the past thirty years—including Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Harold Ramis, Seth Rogen, Chris Rock, and Lena Dunham.
Writing the Romantic Comedy by Billy Mernit (2001)
Whether you’re a first-time screenwriter, an intermediate marooned in the rewriting process, or a professional wanting to explore the latest genre trends, this thoroughly charming and insightful guide to the basics of crafting a winning and innovative script will take you step by step from “meet cute” all the way to “joyous defeat.” You’ll learn the screenwriting secrets behind some of the funniest scenes ever written; how to create characters and dialogue that getsparks flying; why some bedroom scenes sizzle and others fall flat; and much more.
FICTION BOOKS
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion (1984)
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Joan Didion's Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil---literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul---it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.
What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg (1993)
The classic book that shaped two generations’ view of the movie business and introduced the archetypal Hollywood player Sammy Glick. He’s got a machete mouth and a genius for double-cross. As Budd Shulberg—author of the screenplay On the Waterfront—follows Sammy’s relentless upward progress, he creates a virtuoso study in character that manages to be hilariously appalling yet deeply compassionate.
TELEVISION SHOWS
Project Greenlight Season 1 (2001)
From Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and producer Chris Moore, comes this innovative series in which aspiring filmmakers win the chance to make a movie.
Project Greenlight Season 2 (2003)
The second season of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's movie making reality series goes a different route when it's two professionals realizing their vision on screen instead of just one: writer and director.
Project Greenlight Season 3 (2005)
"Box Office or Bust" Ben Affleck, Chris Moore, Matt Damon and Wes Craven convene with fellow panel members to select three scripts and three director candidates.
Project Greenlight Season 4 (2015)
From Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and producer Effie Brown, comes this innovative series in which aspiring filmmakers win the chance to make a movie.
Project Greenlight: A New Generation (2021)
This relaunch of Project Greenlight will focus, under the guidance of Issa Rae as Executive Producer, on the next generation of diverse, up-and-coming talented female filmmakers who are given the chance to direct a feature film.
Lastly, the Criterion Channel to discover important classic and contemporary cinema from around the world.
Phenomenal list, very excited to dig in!
Great piece, thank you for including Filmmaker!