Books

On Film-Making – An introduction to the craft of the director

Table of Contents

Alexander Mackendrick On Film-Making

Introduction

Prologue

Part One: Dramatic Construction

  • The Pre-Verbal Language of Cinema
  • What is a Story?
  • Exposition
  • Modernist Trends
  • A Technique for Having Ideas
  • Slogans for the Screenwriter's Wall
  • Exercises for the Student of Dramatic Construction
  • When Not to Write a Shooting Script
  • Once Upon a Time…
  • Activity versus Action
  • Dramatic Irony
  • William Archer Revisited
  • Plausibility and Willing Suspension of Disbelief
  • Density and Subplots in Sweet Smell of Success
  • Cutting Dialogue
  • The Solomon Exercise
  • The Director and the Actor

Part Two: Film Grammar

Epilogue