Video Production Books

It is simply one of the most inspiring and novel books ever written about film production: Jean-Pierre Geuens' FILM PRODUCTION THEORY. This is not a "how to" book, it is a book that raises strategic questions about what we perceive as standard filmmaking practices and accepted aesthetic (professional) norms. What Geuens sets out to do is to open the potential filmmaker's mind to alternate ways of "skinning the cat" or alternate approaches to filmmaking from various significant aspects: screenwriting, composition, staging, sound, editing and even direction. The book is literally a testament to the benefits (and the pain) of thinking differently- of going against the grain and standing your ground. Geuens reveals the real reason anyone should go to film school and it is not to make a delightful reel of your work that imitates hollywood production values and conceits... He reminds us that what we love about certain filmmakers was born from those particular individual's unwillingness to conform- to challenged the pre-existing notions; so therefore this book inspires you to challenge, to explore, to take risks and more importantly to appreciate the risks and challenges taken by others. It is the kind of book that could be read simultaneously with any "standard" required film production book. Geuens repeats the rules and then reveals to you how others have broken the rules and still made provocative,groundbreaking and classic work. For graduate students, Geuens puts various thinkers (Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Nietzche and Bazin) to great use and allows their thoughts to be easily understood in the context of film production. For the practicing (struggling) filmmaker, Geuens renews your faith in the differences between your work and "hollywood", your work and the conventional, the unique experiences of your soul and the "system". The lignt that permeates Geuens work is that he forces you to decide whether you are trying to really make films or trying," to use filmmaking to secure the easy life." (pg. 256) All in all this was a compelling, throughly engaging and necessary read for anyone interested in film, films studies, film production and film criticism.

I picked up this book thinking it would be a dry treatise about lighting and camera direction etc. But having not attended film school I thought it'd be good information to lay under my practical film Production experience.

...and it certainly opened my eyes.

This is a book for filmmakers, film critics, and those with a deep interest in film.

It does NOT tell you HOW to make a movie. It provides food for thought about the major production decisions that the Producer and/or Director considers when making a motion picture.

It is an extremely "thinky" book. Moored in the French New Wave, American Zoetrope and to a lesser extent Spanish and Italian cinema. It praises experimentation and asks the reader to consider the effect of everything that they will put into the film. Likewise, the author derides "Hollywood" for sacrificing the potential of the motion picture as art form in order to accumulate as much money as can be made. While this feeling is prevelant throughout the text, it is refreshingly not overbearing.

The book reads like a series of lectures about film theory on such topics as Film School, Writing, Directing, Framing, Lighting, Sound and Editing. In this format it is digestible in small chunks and allows the reader to process what they have read before taking on the next topic.

As an Independent Producer, I found the points in this book to be worthy of consideration as I develop, plan, shoot, and finish my projects. I don't agree with everything he says, but he says it in such a way as to help me understand the impact of my decisions (e.g. to shoot on location vs. on a soundstage). I could easily see myself skimming through this text before any project to help me frame my approach. This is as much a testament to its depth and density as it is to its worth.

It is a new century, a new reality... Hail the new art form! one that will only 100 years of life awaits to be fully and beautifully exploited by new kinds of filmmakers, artists, philosophers, dreamers and siners!

This is the one book you need to read to fully understand the capabilities of Cinema as a true art form, not an obscene business.

Thank you Mr. Geuens, blessings to your creatively anarchic mind.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!

First I thought what could this book tell me what I didn't know already. But then I realized this is not just about filmmaking, this book is about you and me and what we call life. It's a story of looking behind the curtain and seeing the wizzard but not giving up your dream. Deeply inspiring and ultimatly insightful, this is the one text everybody who cares about movies should read. I read this book in a day and I hope Mr. Geuens will continue to write. So fasten your seatbelt and be prepared to see your preconceived ignorance shatter into a thousand little pieces and out of it will rise a new outlook on life and the movies.

Film Production Theory is an exciting and important book. Most importantly, the book outlines what is at stake aesthetically and philosophically in what appear to be merely technical considerations that enter into the making of film. Unlike many other works that focus upon the finished product, or, upon the personalities behind the product, Geuen's book focuses upon the techniques of cinema, with an eye to clarify what are the assumptions about the nature of cinema that are implicit in those techniques. For example, with respect to screenwriting Geuens points out that the standardized approach to screenwriting, in which dialogue is the most prominent feature and camera movement and angles are for the most part deliberately left out, implies that film is about story first and image second and also implies a less than fully collaborative relationship between writers and directors. Of course some writers and directors do collaborate very effectively -- but in doing so they are going against a trend that is implicit in the mainstream traditions of filmmaking, traditions that make it difficult for filmmakers to, say, let images and settings be the impetus for a creative and improvisational approach to telling stories. In addition to screenwriting, Geuens gives very helpful and detailed analyses of the nature of film school, the techniques of directing and lighting and cinematography and sound and editing. In all this, he is not simply aiming to criticize the way films usually get made, or the techniques that get applied to filmmaking, but primarily to show that such techniques pretend to be the best and only professional way to do things when in fact there have been remarkable films made differently and with far different results. In fact, the first few chapters of the book are attempts to understand why and how the "Hollywood system" came to be what it has become, what impact it has had culturally, and along the way to consider and highlight paths that were never or rarely taken. Sometimes Geuens can get a bit heavy handed and he is certainly not without his own strong views, but the book as a whole works to open up and clarify and illuminate the process of filmmaking. He is extremely well read in philosophy and critical theory and film theory, and draws upon ideas from people like Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze and many others, but never simply in the form of obscure name dropping. His references to such thinkers almost never fail to be both extremely helpful on the nature of film and quite clear in its summary of the often obscure thoughts of difficulty philosophers. The book is both an exceptional guide for the aspiring filmmaker and a powerful complement to works of film theory that focus on the product rather than the process. I consider the book the most important book on film I have read in a very long time, and can't recommend it highly enough.

Darcie Denkert has given us a gem. Her lavish book with its incredible photographs tells Broadway and Hollywood tales with purpose. She discusses the influence of Broadway on filmmaking and the all-important connection between the two art forms in highly intelligent and most enjoyable prose. Her knowledge of the genres is huge, yet she lays it out in a natural way, never inserting herself into the stories, although she no doubt has many of her own across a distinguished career. Her passion for the subject is palpable. The people and places come alive in the telling.

This book is required reading for all budding theater impresarios and filmmakers.

You might expect that a work filled with such brilliant photography in the coffee-table sized format to be all fluff. Wrong, Ladies and Gentlemen. This work actually has something to say and does it in an intelligent fashion! Not for just anyone, but if you truly Love the American Musical it is a Must Have. Since I teach Musicals, both Broadway and Hollywood, this is a welcome reference work. Besides the photos are wonderful and many not seen elsewhere.

I couldn't agree more with the other two reviews. This is a marvelous book that any musical and/or movie musical fan will devour. And the design, layout and pics are all sensational. If only "A Chorus Line" had been included, the book would be perfect. (Maybe Denkert was precluded from writing about it for some reason.) In any event, this is a reader-friendly (not to mean dumb) coffee table book that won't break your wrists or the bank.

Being an observer of plays and movies with a particular interest in musicals I've long been puzzled by the difficulty there seems to be with moving a musical from Broadway to Hollywood. Why does a smash hit like Gypsy, sometimes called 'The best damn musical ever,' basically flop on screen?

Darcie Denkert is an expert on both Broadway and Hollywood. In this book she has carefully researched a series of the most famous musicals that were made into movies. Sometimes, like with Gypsy, the play simply doesn't translate into the big screen. The scene at the train station, for instance when Rose is shifting her attentions to Louise after June left in the play works well. The train station doesn't look like a train station, it looks like a set. The orchestra is visible, the song works. In the movie, at a real train station, you don't just burst into song. And the stars, great movie stars, just didn't fit.

This is the kind of information that only an insider with a foot into each camp could get and then put into a book. Referring to Gypsy again, the author also tells us how the stories got written, who did what, how did the music get written, what did they do in the screenplay to adapt it?

The book covers 6 big plays: My Fair Lady, West Side Story, Gypsy, The Sound of Music, Cabaret, and Chicago, and 8 smaller ones. This format gives all the space that is needed to completely tell the story. Gypsy, for instance gets 38 pages, and they're big pages. To we outsiders, not plugged into either Broadway or Hollywood, this is an absolutely fascinatin book.

darcie denkert has done a fabulous job talking about the great shows of broadway and their translation to the screen. i love this book--the illustrations are insightful and the text is very well thought out. it should be a great addition to any college course on musicals.

it is also a great thing to see a woman's voice come through on this subject that is dominated my many great writers such as ethan morrden and mark steyn.

go, darcie!

I've got to hand it to the author, this book did exactly what it said it would do. I needed to learn Premiere fast and now, although I'm no expert, I'm pretty comfortable. I was surprised it was in color too, especially since it was less than $15.

The Focal Easy Guide to Premiere Pro by Tim Kolb is just that - easy. As a longtime Premiere (and now Premiere Pro) user, I found it very easy (there's that word again) to search through the book and find references to tools or procedures that needed "refreshing" in my mind. Even if you use Premiere Pro everyday, you don't use every tool or technique on every project, so the help file and good reference books like this are essential when deadlines are looming or you are just experimenting with new ways to jazz up your videos. The descriptions are easier to follow and are better organized than the online help included with the program. They often go well beyond the information that Adobe includes in the help files.

Aiding me in my searches (and for new users, making Premiere Pro easier to understand) are the book's graphics. The graphics used for the screenshots in this book are, in a word, spectacular. They are crisp, clear and large enough so that even a casual viewing conveys lots of information immediately. They are what sets this book apart from so many other "getting started" books.

I really wish that I had had this book available when I was first learning Premiere; it would have saved me lots of time and lots of bumps from banging my head against the wall.

Jeff Bellune
Owner
Bellune Digital Video Services

A great find! This little book helped me get up to speed with Premiere Pro quickly. It is not a watered down "for dummies" book, but is not an 800-page bible either (which I don't need!!). Instead it gets right down to business and shows you how to get through your first couple projects with ease. The full color, price and ease of use make this a great package.

This book is certainly a great way to get your chops, being taught by someone who uses the application for real world work - on a daily basis.

I've followed Tim around the web for years, on different forums and as a respected expert editor and Adobe guru. You can find him online and pick from his reviews, articles and posts that all clearly demonstrate his qualifications and insights before you buy the book... But no need, it's cheap! Very easy to get way more than 15.00 of value from this book. You really can't go wrong.

It's far better than trudging through a boring black and white book (typical software manual) that covers everything but what you really want to know! The book is laid out very well, lots of color. It offers a very visual method of learning the app and why the different parts of the app are there..what they do.

I've used Premiere for 4 or 5 years now. Premiere Pro is quite different. This book is a great primer and companion for learning the ins and outs of this newly revamped Non-Linear Editor.

I am really of two minds about this book. My impression is that it would be almost useless to teach someone how to use Premiere Pro. I still liked it.

I am no great video editor but I do have some, small familiarity and have learned some things from other books. Based on that experience, I doubt this book would have done much good at all in learning to operate the program. Where I found it useful is in its overview and presentation. It does a great job of explaining broad concepts and giving a feel for the capabilities of the program. It also give some of the very basics of the mechanics of how to edit. I suspect I will find this book useful as a continuing reference not to explain the particulars of how to do something but to explain conceptually what can be done. I will use it as a jumping off point to investigate specific topics in other books.

The illustrations in this volume are luxurious. They are full color screen shots and are big enough, barely, to see what is happening on the screen. How I wish other training aids had as nice visuals!

This is a great overview of modern video technology and achieves the authors' goal, namely "easy to understand explanations of the entire world of video."
Each chapter is pretty much self-supporting, so you don't have to read the entire book cover to cover. Having said that, the book is a fairly quick read. The copious illustrations are clear and the use of real world equipment is helpful to those that may be exposed to it.
This isn't the book to give detail about ever single aspect of a topic, but it certainly gives you enough to make use of the more specialised texts.

This book will help the novice understand the basics of video. It covers everything in video to allow for a broad knowledge into this field.

When i started to read this book, I could no longer stop with to reading it.
It's reads so nice and everything is explained so clearly.
That is what i've to say about it.
If you want to know more about video, go buy this book. it really helps alot.

"How Video Works" was just the right book for me. For the reader who has little knowledge of video, or who wants a comprehensive review souce that treats the subject from the ground up, this is an excellent choice. Video is a feature of my business, but I am not a technician. This book gave me the understanding I needed to be effective when discussing video and made an immediate impact on my ability to work with customers. It is an excellent reference, well written, and easily readable by both the technician and non-technician alike.

This book really helped me understand all the parameters of video and audio and all the different formats, particularly the new stuff like hi-definition. it made something that seemed complicated easy. A great read for anyone who is interested in learning more about the technical side of video

I bought this book after having owned the editing program for about a year........and suffered all the heartache that can occur if you do not know what you are doing....including crashing Windows.....finally located this superb manual that is user friendly and written by a pro in the field. Since that time, I have produced several projects that are startlingly complex.......and am currently being PAID to produce VHS/DVD productions. A MUST BUY if you purchase Pinnacle Studio 8.

Well laid out and quite thorough. Really a must-have if you are new to Pinnacle Studio DV.

I've had this book for less than a day and it's already paid for itself. I bought Studio 8, which now has been updated to version 8.10 (eight point ten, not 1.0). I figured even if the book were good for the very first versions of Studio 8, OK. As soon as you open the book, you see that Jan refers to changes made as recently as v. 8.6; I was thrilled. This is a brand new book/edition. Studio 8 ships with a 258 page manual right out of the box, which is somewhat amazing for a piece of software like this, but admittedly, the manual is very remedial. This book, from the earliest pages, delves into some seriously useful components within Studio. I have a bunch of these Visual QS books; I'm always ammazed at the bang for the buck in every one of them, this one no exception.

This book is a MUST for anyone new to Pinnacle Studio. I bought the software thinking I could "figure it out on my own"...Not!
This book has saved me!

This book tries to sell itself on the photos of the GUI that you will be using. The photos are a bit small, but good enough when you really need them, which is rare, because the author does a wonderful job of explaining how Pinnacle works. I recieved the software with no documentation and within a few minutes of opening this book I was well on my way to creating DVDs out of some digital movies. The author does a great job explaining both the simple and the complex parts of the software. And refreshingly, the author actually offers opinions on better ways to do some tasks. This is a good buy for anyone using this software.

I bought this book for a production class, and thought "Yet another book to sell", but after reading it, I decided to keep it. Each chapter goes to the point, and lists all the important facts needed for TV and film production. The CD that comes with it is full of generic production forms that can be modified easily. Overall, it has value, and it's cheap too.

I loved the speedy service. I needed the textbook for class, and it came early the following week, just in time for lectures and homework. The condition stated by the company said used and even claimed there is a high chance of some damage. I could swear this book is brand new. Not a single thing about it shows that it is warn, even the CD that came with it is unopened. Love it.

This great book should be a staple in every classroom. It instructs with clarity and insight, and gives real, practical, working knowledge from inside the world of TV and video production. It's conversational style makes ingesting the material a pleasure. You'll easily want to read and re-read it; and no holes will remain in your understanding, as it seems that every question was anticipated and then answered.

The book is extremely well written and very comprehensive. It provides a great entry-level introduction to the world of TV and Video Production while also managing to deliver thought-provoking and educational perspectives via "interviews" with many long-term practitioners.

Cathrine delivers here a complete collections of issues for those looking to learn all the details about producing TV and for those who are also considering to take the "jump" and start their own company.
Her advice and simple style make this book a "must" for those trying to get as much information as possible in a single piece.
Also of interest is the second part of the book, with several interviews with real people/producers, dealing with the most vexing questions about producing TV in the 21st century.
I can't wait for the next edition.

Quinlan has a unique way of portraying a movie start: a few enlightining words about his/her looks and performing capacities. And that goes for his "film stars" book as well as his "film directors" (where he has more room to go into details).
When I went to Britain last week, i looked for a new edition of his "film stars", as the last one I got (and the last one known here in Portugal) was from 5 years ago, the 2000 edition; unfortunately I was told that no new edition had been released.
The "film stars" is a complete and excellent work, though one can always come up with some name that is not included (the one that comes always to my mind is the talented late american actor J.T. Walsh)

David Quinlan has an uncanny knack for describing actors and actresses in four or five perfectly chosen words, or less. If you love movies, you need this book.

I watched the Oscars with this next to me, and it made them so much more fun! Look up fun, strange and important facts about your favorite stars and see some of the quirkiest, yet best descriptions of the actors you'll ever read!. The author describes everyone by their physical attributes - but it's like reading the cartoon page. This one is guaranteed to make you laugh!

If you want to know every movie that your favorite actor has made, this is the book for you!!! It is well organized, incredibly detailed and up to date!!! Keep a copy next to your TV!!!

This book has been an invaluable resource for quenching my film knowledge thirst since I got my hands on my father's 1st edition copy around '82 or so. Due to publisher's restraints, author Quinlan gradually, and unfortunately, weeded out entries for lesser known, or no longer relevant, stars over the years. But fret no more! This edition appears to include every entry he's ever created.
Whether you're looking for the complete filmography of the world's most well-known actors (Eastwood), the birthdate of you're favorite cult star (Marie Windsor anyone?), or the names of those long lost Lon Chaney titles, you'll find yourself immersed in this bible of film history.
Quinlan's research is thorough (and I do mean thorough! Before IMDB came around, I'd never seen anything like it), well-spoken, and virtually flawless in its accuracy. This edition is fairly up-to-date (through 2001 I think) & packs many surprises about the status of actors actors you might have already assumed dead, retired or out-of-work. Superb!

I bought the first edition 2 years ago and then the second edition to keep up with new changes because this book is a very good and complete introductory course on making real world video (i.e. starting from choosing DV camcorders to final production and delivery to the world depending on your budget).

It starts from current DV technology (like CCD and DV formats) and then introduces various DV camcorder types depending whether you are normal consumer or pro-sumer or professional users. (It even shows you the approximate price range for various camcorder class.)

It then introduces how scripts planning should be like for making different scenes of video (newscast or documentary or movie). It teaches different techniques of shooting pictures/video by cameras/comcorders (angles, views, lighting and audio control). I likes the book giving you various examples of lighting equipments and audio equipments required for making good video.

For movie pre-production process, it tells what kind of production crews and things you will need and do for different stages (including cost ranges). For movie post-production process, it shows how to edit all movie and audio footages into final movies and how to fix video/audio problems. It also describes what types of movie editing systems (computers, hardware equipments and software video applications) available in the market depending on high-end, mid-range, or low-end production and budgets. It also describes how the final process of movie copies are generated and delivered to the world.

I like the book because it gives me pretty good ideas how DV movies are made with real equipments that are availalbe in the current market. This book is highly recommended especially for serious beginning DV/movie producers.

This book should be required reading for anyone making a digital movie with more ambition than experience. This book will be worth its cost in just the first project by eliminating many of the learning mistakes we all make. I wish someone would have sat down with me and given me this advice when I started and yet, even with many projects behind me, this book offers me new ideas. Reading the book and the watching the DVD are like having real work experience - both in production and post-production. In one memorable section of the DVD, Pete Shaner sits down with you and gives you lots of advice on how to shoot and things to consider in shooting and editing.

Highly recommended reading...for the home hobbyist...the USC film student...the software geek... or AV professional.

The authors approach the Digital Video Universe in a real world, common sense and entertaining prose...allowing the reader to apply their level of interest, budget, technical background, project objectives and pace to a surprisingly current and comprehensively deep offering of digital video material.

The supportive DVD is awesome!

This book took me into a whole new World. I sure could have used it before I bought my used BetaCam! Now I can work quicker, cleaner, look like a pro and save $$$. The furture of film making is here. Thanks guys!

As the prices of digital data capture and storage have dropped, new avenues of artistic creation have opened up. One of these areas is in the realm of digital video, where it is possible to make movies using simple and relatively inexpensive digital equipment. However, the fact that the equipment is now cheap does not make it any easier to make movies that people would want to watch. There is an enormous amount of subtle technique involved in making a movie, and until I read this book, I had absolutely no idea how complex a simple shot can be. This is a book that will show you how to make a digitally recorded movie, and should be the first thing you read if that is your aspiration.
It all starts with planning, from the initial idea, on to budgeting, clearing all legal hurdles, organizing and shooting the scenes, editing and cleaning the stored scenes, and ending with publicizing and distributing the finished product. All are so complex, that you do not make a movie, you survive its' creation. The fact that the movie can now be stored on digital devices only significantly affects one of these steps.
Written primarily for those who are interested in making DV projects for entertainment, this is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. The number of detail hurdles that need to be cleared to make a movie are astounding, and kudos to the authors for explaining all of those hurdles in great detail.

My personal hero of the aforementioned European art-movie genre -- Robert Bresson -- is the subject of a new book edited by James Quandt. Robert Bresson includes interviews with the director by fellow filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and Paul Schrader and French film critics Michael Delahaye and Michel Ciment. There are also homages from directors like Martin Scorsese and Rainier Werner Fassbinder, as well as essays by Roland Barthes and Alberto Moravia. One might wonder why such famous and accomplished people took the time to write about a French filmmaker whose movies are not known to the general moviegoing public. The answer is that the late Bresson actually was one of the great figures in cinema. His austere directing style relied on slow and beautiful imagery and much suffering on the part of his main characters, resulting in films that, once experienced, is never forgotten. One can describe Quandt's book the same way

Imagine a young film director making a somewhat controversial first film, with a script by someone on the order of Saul Bellow, followed by a more successful film with recognizable stars and a labyrinthine script by someone like Harold Pinter. Have him drop out of sight for four years, only to emerge from obscurity with a movie about a country priest, filmed (spectacularly) in rural (RURAL!) Massachusetts. Etcetera. There is really no way to imagine Robert Bresson otherwise. We owe it to the French film industry (if something so UNconsolidated could be called an industry) that Bresson was permitted to flourish at all. It wasn't simply as if he was waiting around, all his life, for a financier (14 films in forty years of activity). But where else on earth could this austerely Catholic artist have found work but in France, the most religiously cynical country in Europe? His films are a rebuke to anyone stupid enough to expect anything conventional. Bresson questioned everything in film - even the central point of the medium. His films deny the viewer the usual crutches en route to an idea. Bresson leads us silently, without promptings, toward a disbelief we had long since suspended but never seriously questioned. He makes the word 'genius' clean again.

Imagine a young film director making a somewhat controversial first film, with a script by someone on the order of Saul Bellow, followed by a more successful film with recognizable stars and a labyrinthine script by someone like Harold Pinter. Have him drop out of sight for four years, only to emerge from obscurity with a movie about a country priest, filmed (spectacularly) in rural (RURAL!) Massachusetts. Etcetera. There is really no way to imagine Robert Bresson otherwise. We owe it to the French film industry (if something so UNconsolidated could be called an industry) that Bresson was permitted to flourish at all. It wasn't simply as if he was waiting around, all his life, for a financier (14 films in forty years of activity). But where else on earth could this austerely Catholic artist have found work but in France, the most religiously cynical country in Europe? His films are a rebuke to anyone stupid enough to expect anything conventional. Bresson questioned everything in film - even the central point of the medium. His films deny the viewer the usual crutches en route to an idea. Bresson leads us silently, without promptings, toward a disbelief we had long since suspended but never seriously questioned. He makes the word 'master' clean again.

last year i recieved one of the best christmas presents i could ask for: this book. while i wouldnt recommend it to anyone that isnt a bresson fan it holds plenty to mull over for those that are. while a few of the articles are dull and/or pretentious more often than not they are highly illuminating as to the director's methods. there are one or two articles devoted to each of his films and a few that are just about his films in general. this first section of the book ends with bresson's cinematographer for "diary," through to "joan of arc" writing about his love/hate relationship with bresson and an interview with the young man who played the lead in "the devil, probably." the second part of the book contains three interviews with bresson: the paul schrader, which is fidgety and odd; the godard, which is exhaustive, rambling and very enlightening; and the final one whose author slips my mind which is great but unfortunately short (conducted after the completion of what would be bresson's last film, "l'argent"). the final section of the book is basically several directors talking about why they like bresson. this section ranges from short, humorous stories (the fassbinder and aki kaurismaki) to long essays on bresson's style(malle, etc.). other directors quoted in this final section include tarkovsky, bertollucci, wenders, hal hartley, and atom egoyan.

Editor James Quandt, an esteemed film curator at the Cinematheque Ontario, has assembled the best writings on Robert Bresson, intelligently balancing scholarly analysis (including that of Barthes and Moravia), filmmakers' homages (from Scorsese to Fassbinder, Cocteau to Duras), and accessible primers on the French director's work (by Susan Sontag and Andre Bazin, among others). Particularly noteworthy are the interviews Bresson conducted with Jean-Luc Godard, Paul Schrader, and the French critics Michael Delahaye and Michel Ciment. A MUST for anyone interested in film history and in one of the few directors worthy of the appellation "genius."

This book lays out an entire course of training exercises in the most explicit, practical, down-to-earth manner I've ever encountered. It is of enormous value to actors, directors and especially to those who teach these disciplines. Susan Strasberg wrote in the foreword: "When I read Lorrie Hull's book, I thought, 'My God, she's done it! She's caught so much of the work.' She got the answers, wrote them down, used them in her own twelve years of teaching for my father and then translated it all into an understandable, explicit, practical book that offers valuable tools for any actor [beginner or professional], as well as for writers, directors, and teachers. I'm sure a lot of misconceptions about my father's work will be cleared up by this book. After reading "Strasberg's Method," I feel sure that my father, 'Pop,' wherever he is, would be enormously pleased."

This book lays out an entire course of training exercises in the most explicit, practical, down-to-earth manner I've ever encountered. It is of enormous value to actors, directors and especially to those who teach these disciplines. Susan Strasberg wrote in the foreword: "When I read Lorrie Hull's book, I thought, 'My God, she's done it! She's caught so much of the work.' She got the answers, wrote them down, used them in her own twelve years of teaching for my father and then translated it all into an understandable, explicit, practical book that offers valuable tools for any actor [beginner or professional], as well as for writers, directors, and teachers. I'm sure a lot of misconceptions about my father's work will be cleared up by this book. After reading "Strasberg's Method," I feel sure that my father, 'Pop,' wherever he is, would be enormously pleased."

The best technical manual available for an easy to read understanding of those techniques and procedures used in "Method" acting. Extremely rich in detail, laced with dozens of examples and personal anecdotes, this book leaves nothing out as it takes the reader through practically every element of the "Method" and its vocabulary. Relaxation, Sense Memory, Concentration, Imagination, Substitution, Justification, Animal Exercise, Personal Object, Private Moment, Affective Memory, Song and Dance, Inner Monologue, Narrative Monologue, Speaking Out, Moment-to-Moment, and Subtext are just a few of the terms which Ms. Hull explains with crystal clarity. The book also includes advice to Directors, an exhaustive scene list, a glossary, suggested reading and tons of other valuable information. Indispensable. -- TheatrGROUP

An extremely helpful book for actors, directors, and acting teachers. Hull gives in-depth descriptions of exercises used by Strasberg and does a great job of telling why the exercises work with examples. The book is broken up into sections. One concentrates on the actor, another concentrates on the director, another on the teacher. Has a great section with suggestions for scenes. Highly reccommended. The appendices have been extremely useful.

An in-depth chronicle of Strasberg's approach to the actor's art, detailing the full vocabulary of "method" acting in easy to understand language, this book is the "bible" of Strasberg's "method". No actor's library is complete without it.