FLC Staff Picks Blog

Vickie's Picks: Filmmaking

by Vickie Montigaud-Green on 2021-07-06T11:56:52-04:00 | 0 Comments

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For the budding Chloé Zhao filmmakers out there, or anyone who loves to watch and talk film, we have a great collection of film manuals and methods, plus film histories, biographies, interviews and criticisms. Our stacks will equip you with the resources you need to create high quality visuals ... or to just while away time reading about film. A sampling from our shelves (791.4s, TR 800s, and 070s) is below.

note: Follow the title links to get a full description or to the "place a hold". We'll pull it for you!

A New History of Animation by Maureen Furniss

Call Number: TR 897.5 .F87 N49 2016

A New History of Animation guides readers through the history and context of animation from around the world. The book assumes no prior knowledge of the subject and explains all the key technical concepts, filling a gap in the market for a complete and well-researched animation history textbook that can be used by teachers in trade schools and universities worldwide, as well as by readers interested in the story of this evolving medium.

A Critical Cinema 5 by Scott MacDonald

Call Number: 791.4375 M135c

MacDonald engages filmmakers in detailed discussions of their films and of the personal experiences and political and theoretical currents that have shaped their work. The interviews are arranged to express the remarkable diversity of modern independent cinema and the interactive community of filmmakers that has dedicated itself to producing forms of cinema that critique conventional media.

Motion Picture and Video Lighting by Blain Brown

Call Number: TR 891 .B76 M68 2019

Lighting is at the heart of filmmaking. The image, the mood, and the visual impact of a film are, to a great extent, determined by the skill and sensitivity of the director of photography in using lighting. Motion Picture and Video Lighting explores technical, aesthetic, and practical aspects of lighting for film and video. It covers not only how to light, but also why.

The Vampire Film: from Nosferatu to True Blood by Alain Silver; James Ursini

Call Number: PN 1995.9 .V3 S55 2011

Tracking the form's evolution from such 1970s reinventions as Count Yorga Vampire and Blacula , The Hunger and Vampire's Kiss in the Eighties, Interview with a Vampire , Bram Stoker's Dracula , and the Blade series in the Nineties, through 30 Days of Night , I Am Legend and the Twilight and Underworld series plus celebrated international examples such as Thirst and Let the Right One In.

Videojournalism: multimedia storytelling by Kenneth Kobre

Call Number: TR 895 .K63 V53 2012

Videojournalism is a field that has grown out of traditional print photojournalism, slideshows that combine sound and pictures, public radio, documentary filmmaking and the best of television news features. This amalgam of traditions has emerged to serve the Internet's voracious appetite for video stories.

Reel to Real: race, sex, and class at the movies by Bell Hooks

Call Number: 791.43 H784r, 1996

bell hooks comes to film as a cultural critic, fascinated by the issues movies raise--the ways cinema depicts race, sex, and class. Reel To Real collects hooks' classic essays on films such as Paris Is Burning or the infamous "Whose Pussy Is It" essay about Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, as well as newer work on Pulp Fiction, Crooklyn and Waiting To Exhale. hooks also examines the world of independent cinema. Conversations with filmmakers Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, and Arthur Jaffa are linked with critical essays.

The Coen Brothers by William Rodney Allen (Editor)

Call Number: 791.430233 C672Yco, 2006

Joel and Ethan Coen started their careers in obscurity on a shoestring budget in Minneapolis. Working entirely outside the studio system, the Coen brothers scored an unlikely first success in 1984 with their postmodern noir film Blood Simple. The Coens' films all share a quirky ambience that critics have come to identify as "that Coen brothers feeling." Tricky moving camera work, frequent use of the voiceover, homages to directors and cinematic genres, a fascination with unexpected and off-kilter violence, and omnipresent black humor are all defining elements of the Coens' cinematic world.

Documenting Ourselves: film, video, and culture by Sharon R. Sherman

Call Number: 070.18 S553d, 1998

Since Robert Flaherty's landmark film Nanook of the North (1922) arguments have raged over whether or not film records of people and traditions can ever be "authentic." And yet never before has a single volume combined documentary, ethnographic, and folkloristic filmmaking to explore this controversy. What happens when we turn the camera on ourselves? This question has long plagued documentary filmmakers concerned with issues of reflexivity, subject participation, and self-consciousness.

Kiss the Blood off My Hands by Robert Miklitsch (editor)

Call Number: PN 1995.9 .F54 K57 2014

In Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Robert Miklitsch curates a bold collection of essays that reassesses the genre's iconic style, history, and themes. Contributors analyze the oft-overlooked female detective and little-examined aspects of filmmaking like love songs and radio aesthetics, discuss the significance of the producer and women's pulp fiction, and investigate topics as disparate as Disney noir and the Fifties heist film, B-movie back projection and blacklisted British directors.

Documenting the Documentary by Barry Keith Grant (Editor)

Call Number: 070.18 D637, 2014

Thirty-one film and media scholars, many of them among the most important voices in the area of documentary film, cover the significant developments in the history of documentary filmmaking from Nanook of the North (1922), the first commercially released documentary feature, to contemporary independent film and video productions like Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) and the controversial Borat (2006).

Looking Past the Screen by Eric Smoodin (Editor); Jon Lewis (Editor)

Call Number: 791.43 L863, 2007

Looking Past the Screen advances a more expansive American film studies in which cinema is understood to be a social, political, and cultural phenomenon extending far beyond the screen. This volume brings together film histories that draw on primary sources including collections of personal papers, popular and trade journalism, fan magazines, studio publications, and industry records.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the art of editing film by Michael Ondaatje

Call Number: TR 849 .M87 O53 2004

The Conversations is a treasure, essential for any lover or student of film, and a rare, intimate glimpse into the worlds of two accomplished artists (Michael Ondaatje and Walter Murch) who share a great passion for film and storytelling, and whose knowledge and love of the crafts of writing and film shine through.

Young Orson: the years of luck and genius on the path to Citizen Kane by Patrick McGilligan

Call Number: PN 1998.3 .W45 M34 2016

The defining wunderkind of modern entertainment gets his due in a groundbreaking new biography of his early years--from his first forays in theater and radio to the inspiration and making of Citizen Kane. In the history of American popular culture, there is no more dramatic story--no swifter or loftier ascent to the pinnacle of success and no more tragic downfall--than that of Orson Welles.

note: unless otherwise stated, descriptions were edited from publisher information.

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