Book Reviews: Breaking In & Is There Life After Film School

If I'm not writing, I'm catching up with my enormous backlist of movies or books. My booklist is topped with writing/production books as you can see on the right side of my blog page. (This does not to include a HUGE stack of American Cinematographer magazines I subscribed after I got out of my film school.)

I recently finished Breaking In : How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start by Nicholas Jarecki and enjoyed it enormously. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's trying to MAKE IT as a film director. I liked the fact that the book canvases 20 different types of recent "name" directors who had different experience/perspectives making into the world of feature productions, NOT short films. Yes, shorts are for play/test/trial/whatever, and features are where big boys with big money with big businesses rumble in the bronx. Since the book format is in interview format posed by the author, it cuts the fat and goes straight for the meat; how did these directors got their start making features? And their answers rarely disappoint. The consistent theme and the 'key' to breaking in is that they were resilient in making their films and they were writers with their original scripts. They may not be writing anymore, but almost all of them got their start with their original scripts that attracted interests, attentions, and finally finance. Basically, if you don't own an interesting script that people were willing to bank on, you are forever working on other people's films--like myself right now. If you are short on time, just read the interviews of the directors you like or interested and skip to the valuable summary at the afterwords at the end.

I actually like this book a lot better than The First Time I Got Paid for It book since I'm more of an aspiring film director than an aspiring writer. (I know my humane limits.) Honing my skill as a writer + editor is my interim steps becoming a great director. Every aspiring director should pick up this book, in my humble opinion, and work harder honing their script/skills, because latest digital film revolution/evolution just put more people in reach of a camera and materials for cheap and less effort.

Second book I read recently is Is There Life After Film School: In Depth Advice From Industry Insiders by Julie Maclusky. It's also an interview format book for various other members of film industry, not just a director. Just over 200 pages of different perspectives from various individuals who work in the industry, not limited to a director. If you don't have your eyes set on becoming a director, but exploring to work in the entertainment industry, you should skim through over a cup of coffee. I especially like the section at the end where she interviews a Spanish producer and screenwriter Mardik Martin where he recounts his working relationship with "Marty" Scorsese and his advice as a screenwriter.

Entertainment biz is hard, but it's not impossible, demonstrated by the people on these books. That keeps me going, and going, despite against all odds.