
Lumet worked for fifty years across every genre, budget, and format. This is his account of how a film actually comes together — from the first read of a script through the final mix — told with the specificity of someone who had solved each problem many times.
Chosen by shared topics, the entries that hold them, and the people who recommended both.
Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy, All the President's Men, and The Princess Bride, and this book is his frank account of what it is actually like to write for Hollywood. His central claim — that nobody knows anything — is an important corrective to every book on this list that treats filmmaking as a solved problem.
Recommended by: Tim Ferriss
How young directors and drugs remade Hollywood in the 1970s, from Easy Rider on.
How storyboards become shots, and how shots are built into film sequences.
Film editing explained: why cuts work when they follow the rhythm of thought.
Directing as finding the simplest images that carry the story.
Oral history of CAA and the agency model.
Recommended by: Joel Connolly
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