Books on Directing

[billyireland]

Okay about a yeart ago I expressed my interest in screenwriting here and got directed towards McKee's Story (by Michael K, iirc - thanks a million, btw). Since then I have read the Robin Russin/William Down book entitled Screenplay which I found to be even more impressive than McKee's effort (mainly due to their taking it as less of an art than a formula compared to the aformentioned Bobby, and the broader regions covered by the book), Syd Field's book (also) called Screenplay, Aristotle's Poetics, and am about to get into reading Advanced Screenwriting by Linda Seger... and An Askew View - a great book closely analysing Kevin SMith's works. My knowledge of movies is undeniably richer because of these books.

Anyway, now I'd like to find some books on directing, to understand other aspects of cinema and have a bit more knowledge on the in's & otu's of what a director does (I know most of their job, but I'd say there area couple of bits I'm still ignorant to). If anybody can point me towards some of the better books on direction, it would be appreciated. Thanks.

*For those thinking this belongs in the 'books' section, I decided to put it in both incase one thread came up blank, and since it does bear relevance to movies and could come in handy to some others reading, also.

[Freestyle2000]

If you haven't read books by Sergei Eisenstein, you are not a director. Start with "Film Form."

RS

[hobbes]

There's a book called "My First Movie" (or maybe My First Film) that's pretty interesting in a non-academic sense. It's not a text really, but had a lot of interesting insight. It's basically a series of interviews with maybe a dozen directors that tread the same ground. Why they wanted to direct, what experience they had, how they got their feet in the door, how they got their funding, what problems they had, what they think of the films now, etc, etc. Kevin Smith, Pedro Alomadovar, PJ Hogan, the Coen Brothers and a lot more I'm forgetting.

I haven't looked at it in years, but it was a good read. I'm no expert, but I found reading about directing (serious academic books anyway) was very useful, but only if you were doing. I was grounded in the basics, but had trouble creating the shots I wanted so I found reading about lighting and the use of black and white and a lot of photography books to be useful in that I could take ideas and try to apply them.

Film was plan B in university and I never needed to pursue it, but I'm still about halfway to a degree I'll never wind up finishing.

If yr curious I can find the book, the publisher and the editor.

cheers,
hobbes

[billyireland]

Thanks lads... I think I kmnow the one you're on about hobbes, I'll scour amazon.co.uk for it and if I can't find it, I might PM you in a week or two.