I get caught so much in the writer's chair that I forget there's a world outside of screenplays. If you're new to Hollywood or aspiring to visit and work here, this book gives you all the details on the how and why of every job in town. It walks you through the titles and why they matter. Mark Kermode has done a trilogy of books thus far that are his broader takes on cinema (as opposed to, for his instance, his excellent BFI tome on Silent Running). I’ve enjoyed the other two – Hatchet Job and The Good, The Bad & The Multiplex– a lot. But It’s Only A Movie just about edges them for me.

Film books | Books | The Guardian Film books | Books | The Guardian

The ambitious plan by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to set up the first major Hollywood movie studio since United Artists enjoyed some success. Still, over 20 years on, DreamWorks is a different beast to the one it once was. Nicole LaPorte and Stephen Hoye’s chatty history goes through the creation of the studio, and how it stumbled through its early days before hitting success with the likes of Gladiatorand American Beauty. The late Dawn Steel was one of the first women to ever run a Hollywood movie studio, heading up Columbia Pictures in the late 1980s, before setting up Steel Pictures and making films such as Cool Runnings. Not only may you find a new passion but you may also uncover a hidden talent that you weren’t even aware of. My classmate started the program thinking her main skills were as a journalist. After doing the casting process once, she discovered she had a great eye for spotting talent and really enjoyed communicating with the actors. Now, she is the go to casting director for all projects!While I tried to avoid screenplay books here, I did want to mention this masterful autobiography. Goldman is one of our greatest storytellers and he weaves an excellent tale detailing how it all happens. He doesn't shelter you from the ups and downs. There have been many conversations about just how close to the mark the many stories that Peter Biskind explores in Easy Rides Raging Bulls are. But one thing is fairly certain: that by the time you get to the end of his gossip-y book, you’ll have a list of films to watch that’s comfortably in double figures (assuming you’ve not seen them before, of course).

10 Best Filmmaking Books to Read in 2020 - StudioBinder 10 Best Filmmaking Books to Read in 2020 - StudioBinder

Grant turns his witty, critical eye to the likes of Hudson Hawk (his account of this one being a particular delight), Bram Stoker’s Dracula(a movie you can feel him aching to like slightly more than he ultimately did) and L.A. Story. As a snapshot of ’90s movie-making, it’s pretty much unparalleled, all the better for us not having to wait 20 years until these stories spilled out. I’ve a real soft spot for books that go into forensic detail about the making of just one film. But even without that, David Itzkoff’s superb dissection about the making of Sidney Lumet’s classic Networkwould be a must-read.How far would you go to get your first feature funded? In the case of Robert Rodriguez – now best known, of course, for the likes of Spy Kids and the Sin City films – he’d sell his body to medical science. Less a great book perhaps, more a really, really interesting one. For what sets Rubins’ story of taking his idea to the movies apart is he charts the before, middle and after of its development. All from the writers’ perspective. On top of that, you get the original script for Groundhog Day that Rubins wrote, which is notably different, before it went through the system. Penned by Robert Hofler, this biography charts the rise of producer Allan Carr, whose name adorns most infamously both Grease and the Village People movie musical, Can’t Stop The Music. Oh, and Grease 2.