Menu 

Join Now!

It's Free and Easy

Login

View All Courses
Audrey Hepburn by Erwin Blumenfeld | Keira Knightley by Ellen Von Unwerth | Steve McQueen by William Claxton | Eva Green by Hugh Stewart | On the Set of Doctor Strangelove | Natalie Portman by Tim Walker | Steve Martin by Mark Seliger | Sarah Jessica Parker by Mark Seliger | Bette Midler by Annie Leibovitz | Jennifer Lawrence by Ellen von Unwerth | Nicole Kidman by Gilles Bensimon. | Salvador Dalí and his Motorcycle | Amanda Seyfried by Ellen von Unwerth | Bill Cosby by Michael Rougier | Keira Knightley by Emily Hope | The Big Lebowski by Jeff Bridges | John Barrymore and Sid Grauman | Gwen Stefani by Lorenzo Agius | Robert Downey Jr. by Rankin | Jennifer Lawrence by Ellen von Unwerth | Keira Knightley photographed by Ellen von Unwerth | Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and R2-D2 | Zooey Deschanel by Stewart Shining | Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr. (1924) | On the set of Oblivion (2013) | Christopher Nolan on the set of Inception | On the set of Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang (1927) | Scarlett Johansson by Gilles Bensimon | Clint Eastwood by Herb Ritts | Rachel Weisz by Mike Thomas | 1138 Behind the Scenes Photos of the Star Wars Trilogy | Eva Green by Greg Williams | Emma Watson by J. Welter | Jessica Chastain by Danielle Levitt | Dustin Hoffman by Ara Güler | Winona Ryder by Steven Meisel | Jessica Chastain by Max Vadukul | Jude Law by Simon Emmett | Marisa Tomei by Ruven Afanador | Uma Thurman, Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett by Annie Leibovitz | Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr by Eric Charbonneau | Eva Green Photographed by Patrick Demarchelier | Caroll Spinney on the Set of Sesame Street | Emma Stone by Mario Testino | Mads Mikkelsen by Kenneth Willardt | Zooey Deschanel by Stewart Shining | Kevin Bacon by Frank Micelotta | Mila Kunis by Terry Richardson | On the Set of "Raging Bull" by Brian Hamill | Kristen Stewart by Norman Jean Roy | Emma Watson by Mark Seliger | Ben Affleck by Sebastian Kim | Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder on "Some Like It Hot" | Marion Cotillard by Bruce Weber | Jessica Chastain by Mert and Marcus | Jim Carrey by Platon Antoniou | Richard Gere by Platon Antoniou | Megan Fox by Marc Horn | Jessica Alba by James Houston | Dakota Fanning by Eric Ray Davidson | Cate Blanchett by Steven Klein | Anne Hathaway by Kurt Iswarienko | A Visual Compendium of Cameras | Makeup Tests for "Raging Bull" | Charlotte Gainsbourg by Kurt Iswarienko | Jennifer Lawrence by Patrick Frase | Javier Bardem by Nigel Parry | Olivia Wilde by Marc Hom | Marilyn Monroe at the Actors Studio in NYC | Judi Dench and Helen Mirren by Annie Leibovitz | Drew Barrymore by Matthew Rolston | Tilda Swinton by Tim Walker | Leonardo DiCaprio by Max Vadukul | Tilda Swinton by Tim Walker | Helena Bonham Carter by Bryan Adams | Jeff Goldblum by John Kobal | Amber Heard photographed by Ellen von Unwerth | Dustin Hoffman and Bob Fosse by Steve Schapiro | Anthony Hopkins by Dan Winters | Daniel Day Lewis by Annie Leibovitz | Olivia Wilde by Michael Muller | Samuel L. Jackson by Patrick Hoelck | Liv Tyler by James White | Christina Applegate by Andrew Macpherson | Natalie Portman by Michelangelo di Battista | Isabella Rossellini by Michel Comte | Juliette Binoche by Brigitte Lacombe | Louis Armstrong by Philippe Halsman | Gary Oldman by Patrick Fraser | Christina Hendricks by Kurt Iswarienko | Penelope Cruz by Cass Bird | Jodie Foster by Robert Ascroft | John Travolta by Firooz Zahedi | Jeff Bridges by Michael Muller | Scarlett Johansson by Ruven Afanador | Naomi Watts by Ruven Afanador | Clint Eastwood by Tazio Secchiaroli | Mila Kunis by Yu Tsai | Charlie Chaplin as "The Champion" - 1915 | Chris Pine by Sam Jones | Scarlett Johansson by Alexi Lubomirski | Marilyn Monroe by Milton Greene | David Cronenberg on the set of Naked Lunch | Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney and Orson Welles | James Dean by Phil Stern | Marilyn Monroe by Bert Stern | Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms by Sam Jones | Peter Dinklage by Howard Schatz | Quentin Tarantino on the Set of "Death Proof" | Marion Cotillard by Dominique Issermann | Angelina Jolie by Alexei Hay | Naomi Watts by Ruven Afanador. | Pierce Brosnan, by Ben Watts | Jennifer Lawrence by Max Abadian | Penélope Cruz by Mert & Marcus | Emma Watson by Mark Seliger | Marilyn Monroe by John Vachon | George Clooney by Sebastian Kim | Christina Hendricks by Max Abadian | Nick Nolte by Jake Walters | Matt Smith by Chris McAndrew | Amy Poehler by Chad Griffith | Elisabeth Moss by Steven Pan | Mark Ruffalo by Gavin Bond | Marion Cotillard by Peter Lindbergh | Amy Adams & Meryl Streep by Brigitte Lacombe | Isla Fisher by Chris Nicholls | Sean Connery on the Set of "Diamonds Are Forever" | Yul Brynner and Frank Sinatra by John Dominis | Bruce Willis by Mario Testino | Marion Cotillard by Mark Seliger | Emma Watson by Sean Cook | Gwyneth Paltrow by Dan Winters | Willem Dafoe by David Sims | Matt Damon by Mat Szwajkos | Noomi Rapace by Sølve Sundsbø | Eva Green by Steve Shaw | Anita Ekberg by Yul Brynner, 1956 | Heath Ledger as the Joker | Jerry Lewis by Marco Grob | Kirsten Dunst by Idil Tabanca | Orson Welles by Robert Doisneau | Christina Ricci by Tom Munro | Angelina Jolie by George Holz | Jason Clarke by Michael Muller | Frank Sinatra publicity photo for ‘Pal Joey’, 1957. | Marion Cotillard by Steven Klein | Rachel Weisz by Greg Williams | Steve McQueen by William Claxton | Kristen Stewart by Tom Munro | Audrey Hepburn by Erwin Blumenfeld
View All Images
Join To Bookmark

Salvador Dalí’s Dream Sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound”

In the 40s psychoanalysis was all the thing. Hollywood mogul David O Selzneck pressured Alfred Hitchcock to use psychoanalysis as a driving plot point for a film. The result was Spellbound and who else could they turn to for crafting a bizarre dream sequence than the master of surrealism himself: Salvador Dalí.

via OpenCulture

Join To Bookmark

Ground Hog Day’s Scribe Danny Rubin’s 10 Rules for Screenwriters

Screenwriter Danny Rubin shares his 10 rules for screenwriters.

The comfort of rules can be very important to a writer’s motivation because telling them the truth (there are no rules and nobody knows anything) is for most people not useful and a little intimidating.

Here’s my list. It’s designed for screenwriters writing screenplays, but all kinds of dramatic fiction and nonfiction can be invigorated by the same rules. Or not. Equally.

1. Writers write. And rewrite.

Everybody’s got a great idea for a screenplay. “All I need is someone to write it down for me,” says my neighbor, my barber, my UPS guy. Nope. Coming up with great ideas is part of the job, and I certainly spend a portion of my “writing” time on the sofa and in the shower; but most ideas tend to look fully formed and perfect until you actually try to write them down.

If you are a writer, you are actually writing things down. And then we rewrite. Getting to the end of a 120-page feature film is huge, and I often print it out and spend the rest of the day just picking it up and feeling its heft. I did that! Yes I did! But getting to the end is not the same as finishing. Most writing takes place after the initial basecoat is laid down.

2. Show it, don’t tell it.

Anybody can create a character who opens his mouth and tells us everything that’s on his mind, and some people can even make those words funny or poetic or heartbreaking. But movies are first and foremost a visual medium, and the strongest screenplays take advantage of that. What can a character do to show us how they feel or what they are thinking about? What scenes can you create and in what order can you arrange them in order to show us a routine or an intention or a memory? Dialogue is most amazing and powerful in a movie when it is not forced to carry the burden of exposition. Concentrate on showing and the telling will take care of itself.

The Daily Beast | Read the Full Article

Join To Bookmark

My Life as a Screenwriter You’ve Never Heard Of

Well now you’ve heard of him: Justin Marks has written over 20 movie screenplays and seen his TV pilots greenlit — but as he explains, the life of a Hollywood scribe is far more lows than highs if your name isn’t Aaron Sorkin.

Screenwriter

Here’s a day in the life of a writer that you don’t always get to hear about.

It was 5 p.m., and I was playing Call of Duty. Why? Because I wanted to. The phone rang; it was a producer with whom I’d just spent the past two years laboring over a cable pilot, a time-travelly science fiction thing. We’d delivered the final cut to the network, and we were awaiting The Call — the one where you hear that your show, which tested well, is being picked up, that your life is about to change.

But the producer had That Voice. Any experienced writer knows That Voice. Because That Voice means one thing: The network passed. “Hey,” the producer said, “we fought for it till the end. We’ll find something else.” I agreed. And that was that.

Probably not three minutes had elapsed in my game of Call of Duty. Two more minutes to go upstairs and erase my now-dead pilot’s name off the list of projects on my dry-erase board. Two years of effort gone in five minutes.

As I wiped the board clean, I saw another project listed below. Kind of a back-burner thing — I was busy at the time — but I owed the producer a call. So I picked up the phone. Told him I was in. By the next morning, I was back at the keyboard, as if yesterday’s pilot had never happened.

And that, my friends, is what it means to be Just Another Working screenwriter.

During the past decade, I’ve been paid to write just shy of two dozen screenplays. Some scripts get made, but most don’t. My name has only remained on one. I’ve been lucky enough to write originals and adapt comic-book properties (Green Arrow) and popular toys (He-Man, Voltron). I make a decent living, but it’s not all glitz and glamour. My wife and I live in a comfortable house in Los Feliz. I drive a Prius, a car they might as well hand out with WGA cards.

The Hollywood Reporter | Read the Full Article

Via Go Into The Story

Join To Bookmark

Saying No To Jobs And Getting Paid

Andreas Bergmann explores some of the business aspects of being a photographer which can also be applied to work for hire filmmakers. Should you work for free, and should you accept under paid jobs?

saying-no-05

One of the hardest lessons to learn, and not only learn but accept and incorporate into your way of doing things, is that sometimes you just need to say no to jobs. For your own sake, for your client’s sake, and for your career’s sake. I think this is proportionally harder the earlier you are in your career as a photographer, and making these decisions can feel like walking a tightrope, but I sure would have benefited from someone sitting me down and telling me this a looooong time ago. So today we’re going to talk about saying no to jobs, and getting paid.

Before we get started tho, the subject require a disclaimer. I’ve spent a lot of time talking this over with photographers from my own local network, a whole bunch of photographers way up the food chain from me, and I’ve arrived at some thoughts I believe to be useful for most photographers, especially new ones. But, obviously this isn’t always true for everyone, so don’t take it as a recipe for success, take it as a bunch of thoughts and ideas you can build on and draw inspiration from in your own life as a photographer.

“That isn’t in our budget”

Imagine the following: Your price for doing a commercial shoot that will be published in X countries, in Y media over the next Z months is say… 2000 space bucks. It is completely irrelevant what any actual price would be, so we’re going with “space bucks” as the currency since I’m a sci-fi dork. Your client informs you that the budget for this shoot is only 500 space bucks, and eagerly awaits your reply. I’ve been in this type of situation more times than I can count, and the first myriad times it happened I was so dazzled by the fact that someone actually wanted to hire me, that I just said yes. I was sure that the next time the client had more money they’d come to me again, happy to be able to actually pay my actual salary this time. I was equally certain that the goodwill I had generated would really pay back over time. Unfortunately neither of those assumptions tend to be true.

DIY Photography School | Read the Full Article

 

 

Tropfest NY 2013
Join To Bookmark

Pages from the Official Star Trek Writers’ Guide, 1967

Take a look at a few pages from the original guide from 1967 explaining how each Star Trek episode was to be written:

Trek guide1

Trek guide2

Join To Bookmark

Doug Richardson on the Writer’s Nightmare

Doug Richardson details the Writer’s Nightmare and the complex relationship between a writer’s words and an actor’s delivery.

I’d just typed FADE OUT for the umpteenth time in my short career. The draft was neat and a tightly wound one hundred and fifteen pages of thrills and chills. It felt bulletproof and as close to perfect as anything I’d yet fashioned. Once it was bound by three brass brads and a cover page, had you gently flicked it with a fingernail, I would’ve bet a dinner at Spago that you’d have heard it ring like Waterford crystal.

Then into the batter’s box stepped actor Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman. We weren’t more than acquaintances, but there was a period when Paul would occasionally swing by my tiny studio office to seek refuge amongst my guitars and silly desk toys. On this day he flopped into the chair across from me, humming a tune in his head while finding a sudden interest in the freshly minted screenplay I’d just culled from the printer.

“Ooooooh,” said Paul in a rare, non-paid detour into his Pee Wee Herman persona. “New words.”

“Hot off the printer,” I proudly said.

“Ever hear of Writer’s Nightmare?” he asked.

“Uh… no.”

Paul released a laugh channeled directly from Hades. He fanned the pages of the new screenplay like a deck of cards.

“Need to pick a random page,” he said. “Tell me when to stop.”

“Stop,” I said.

“And let the Writer’s Nightmare begin.” The actor grinned as he stopped thumbing pages and from the very top left of the clean sheet, began reading my screenplay aloud. “Exterior. Theme park entrance. Day…”

Now, if you’ve ever imagined a talented actor reading your work aloud and hearing the musical notes of a heavenly chorus, this wasn’t it. This was a talented comedian who, with certain glee, was hell bent on initiating me into a select club of word-jockeys who’ve been through the nightmare and lived to tell. That’s because Paul Reubens, choosing to orate sans anything remotely resembling his famous alter ego, switched into his best staccato and read my chosen page with the flattest and undramatic affect imaginable. Sure. The action description sounded dry, like a Christmas toy instruction manual read by a robot low on battery power. It was when he came to the dialogue that I felt the first stab of pain.

Doug Richardson | Read the Full Article

Older Posts