5 comments about Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects.

1. No one would ever have guessed that when Industrial Light & Magic opened its doors in Maren County that day way back in 1975 that they would produce the standard by which other special effects and other effects houses would be judged. ILM has formed the cornerstone of LucasFilm Ltd. a company that has spawned more spin-offs such as THX Sound, Skywalker Sound, all held neatly under the Lucas Digitial banner. Back in the days of Star Wars it was mostly using what was already known, and inventing everything else. ILM has been at the forefront ever since, from the early days of motion control cameras controlled by Apple computers the latest CG marvel like Galaxy Quest, Phantom Menace or Mission to Mars.

   The Art of Special Effects deals more with the older films-those before 1986, illustrating a time when computers were not so large a part in the film-making process. It gives the reader a great look at the sheer amount of detail that went into the models, the props, costumes from Star Wars to Explorers, from Raiders of the Lost Ark to the some of the Star Trek films, ILM constantly and consistently proven to innovative. The book as a whole is on a level lower than, say, Cinefex magazine, assuming that the reader doesn't know how blue screening and rotoscoping works or how miniatures are lensed. It is light reading without getting itself bogged down in too much technicality, for those who want that, read Cinefex.

   It also strikes me that this book is also best at presenting a dying era. A time when model makers kit bashed hundreds of plastic models just to build a Super Star Destroyer - few companies bother with that any more when everything can be rendered on a Silicon Graphics box and Maya and Soft Image software. Such films as Star Trek: Insurrection used few practical models and a completely CG Enterprise-E. The time of the supremely detailed, hand crafted model or set may be at an end, and I think the industry will be sadder for it. Partially because when I read Cinefex, a lot of what I see is the same-different movie, different space ship, but they're all rendered the same way and most use the same software, with only minor modifications or original code going into it to get a certain look or solve a certain problem.

   I suspect the Digital Realm of the movies, while producing better special effects, lacks the mystique of knowing that several people labored for months to build that model. That instead it was modeled by a few people over a period of a week. (Though it should be noted that a lot of films, including the Phantom Menace, used practical models). I suspect their days are number.




2. Thomas Smith was general manager of Industrial Light and Magic a year before he came to write this impressive book. The book is centred around the film special effects creations of ILM between 1975 and 1985. This includes the then "Star Wars" trilogy, two Indiana Jones movies and other lesser known projects. For the Star Wars fan theres plenty to learn about one of your favourite movies. This book is lavishly illustrated with full colour photos including triple page or gatefold images. The focus though is on how the effects are done and who did them at ILM. From the art work in developing concepts of storylines, through modelling, creature creation, the actual filming methods and matte image creation to the finishing touches of animation and optical compositing this book gives a gradual demonstration of the work of a special effects company. For someone with no knowledge what so ever of special effects this is a good introduction and to those involved it must be fascinating as well. As Thomas Smith points out, while film fans still love the movies from this era (1975-85), movie goers constantly seek new visions on screen. The digital era has brought movies like Toy Story etc but these were just figments of imagination at the writing of this book so its worth noting Thomas Smith's far-sightedness in the final chapter on digitized movies. The format of the book is to take each department of the special effects process and show what it does and where its part comes in the crafting of a movie. In each chapter there are short biographies of the leading people in each area of effects, this is a nice touch as it can serve as guide for those interested in getting involved. Its worth noting, many of those profiled have a long interest in their specialty going back to their youth and through the various twists and turns of working in an industry knew of other members of the ILM company before actually joining this now esteemed organisation. Thomas Smith by no means is setting out to sell ILM's considerable expertise though he tells the story of a company making dreams into reality, itself moving from an idea to a serious business proposition. (As a final note another book on movies of this period Paul Sammons "Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner" contains insightful descriptions about the crafting of a movie not least its special effects.)



3. Years ago I longed for this book, as it sat on the shelf in the local book store(it was not cheap). I received it with much gratitude on my birthday. Now as a teenager I found a reinterest in this book, and was overjoyed when the next book "into the digital realm" came out. For anyone who is captured by the magic of special effects, this is for you.



4. Pér tutti quelli che vogliono sapere come fanno i film, per tutti quelli che amano Star Wars con tutti i suoi segreti, direi che questo è il libro che fà propio al caso vostro.Scritto in un inglese molto facile è un libro che può veramente appassionare



5. This book shows how I.L.M. made most of their films. It goes into full detail about special effects for their films

1 comments about Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life.

1. This the book Herbert fans have been waiting for. Mr. Gould fills in the human gaps that Edward N. Waters skimmed over in 1955. You need to own both books to get the full picture. It is also wonderful to see Herbert treated with the respect he deserves. All too often books purporting to cover American musical theatre and Broadway history give short shrift to Victor Herbert, one of the foundations of it all. If you don't believe that statement, you need to read this book. Kern, Cohen, Berlin, Hammerstein II, they all followed the path carved by Victor Herbert and benefited from the legal and congressional battles Herbert and Sousa fought together and the organization Herbert help found - ASCAP - which protects every single musician who followed him. Yes, he's been gone for 84 years but he remains a giant in American Musical History and this book proves it!

2 comments about A Chorus Line: The Complete Book of the Musical.

1. A Chorus Line is what many people (with the exception of this reviewer) considers the best musical ever written. I feel that the best musical ever written wa Chorus Line's original Tony award competitior, Chicago (which alas, won no awards that year.) That isn't to say that I don't like the show. I think it has one of the best musical books ever written and some nice songs.
   The show tells the personal stories of dancers auditioning for an unknown musical in 1975. The stories range from hysterical to sad to disturbing. I'm sure that the actor\dancers that told these tales were exceptional. Some of them, like Kelly Bishop and Donna McKechnie, have gone on to great success.
   The show's score is nice, but nowhere near the calibur of Chicago's excellent music and lyrics. Marvin Hamlisch supplies nice tunes with a soft rock beat. The most memorable is "One" which is sort of like a Jerry Herman showtune. "Dance: Ten;Looks: Three" is also charming. The montage, which includes two good songs "Hello 12, Hello 13, Hello Love" and "Nothing" also has nice music.
   Ed Kleban's lyrics are conversational and blend well with the dialouge. They are sometimes funny and sometimes touching. However, they are sometimes rather predicitable and nowhere near the brillance of Fred Ebb's ironic, cynical lyrics for Chicago.
   However, the book is so superb, it makes the okay score nearly perfect for the show.
   I do think that A Chorus Line is an important piece. It's extremely well written. However, I doubt if any busy director would take the time to personally talk to eac auditioner about their life. The story is slightly implausable.
   However, the great director- Michael Bennet, the great writers and cast made this show a singular sensation that brought tourism and prosperity back to New York.



2. C'mon! A chorus Line is THE best musical ever written! Now you can have the chance to own a wonderfully published script to this amazing music. I also suggest buying the cd to the musical to go with the script. It's just a pity that this script can not encapsulate the performances of the original cast as well. But I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too. But you can buy this script... and for a severely discounted price!...Congratulations. Jump at this deal immediately.

4 comments about Autobahn: A Short-Play Cycle.

1. I have both read these plays and seen them produced at a small theater in Los Angeles. Whether on the page or stage, these plays are always interesting, incisive, and leave you pondering them for days afterward. Much like a good short story, LaBute is able - in just a few pages - to conjure up his worlds and characters in full, letting you know enough about them that you have a good idea (often an unsettling one, to tell the truth) of what happens to characters once the play ends.
   
   It's not all doom and gloom, though. There are laughs throughout, even the occasional sweet moment, albeit against backdrops that aren't 100% wholesome. Although if you are looking for 100% wholesome, LaBute wouldn't be your first choice. From an acting point of view, it's difficult to find material that does a better job of celebrating theater in its most basic form. Difficult to be sure (in many of the plays, one of the characters doesn't say anything at all!), but thrilling when well executed.
   
   The short play, like the short film, doesn't have a lot of marketability in the commercial sphere, and it is a treat that one of our leading playwrights has tried his (expert) hand at them. If you like short stories, or are a fan of good writing for the stage, you'll enjoy Autobahn.



2. Autobahn is a collection of seven vignettes that all take place in cars. That's the basic idea, but anyone familiar with Mr. Labute's work should be aware by this point that nothing he writes is ever as simple as it's synopsis or (how I loathe this word) it's PLOT. Just as In The Company Of Men is not simply about two men who torment a deaf woman, this is so much more than what it initially appears and intelligent readers will be rewarded for their efforts.
   
   The scenes range from funny to disturbing to downright heartbreaking: A man questions his wife about having been raped while on a business trip only to discover that it was consensual. A mother picks up her daughter from rehab only to listen to a painful but honest confession of a desire to relapse. A pedophile kidnaps a young girl and drives her to a desolate lakeside cabin, all the while convincing her that it will be fun.
   
   The interesting thing about Autobahn, and the challenge I think for actors and directors, is performing a play which is so spatially limited. Movement is cut way down and what we are left with are the words they speak and the stories they tell. In this way Autobahn can be read as experimental, but it is also deeply rooted in classic storytelling; folks sitting around a campfire, the guy at the bar telling you a tale of loss or betrayal, or (as is the case here) the driver telling the hitchhiker a story they can not ignore but probably do not want to hear. The doors are locked, the speedometer is rising and the radio is broken. All you can do is listen. Enjoy.



3. I just saw a production of this, and unlike my fellow reviewer, who appreciated it's depth and power, I and my friend who went with me, were pissed and aggravated at the excess that Autobahn represents.
   Now I've read much of LaBute's work, and seen several of his films, so I am aware of his style. I have liked his works and notice when he is active. But this was a lesson in the danger of artistic ease, of guaranteed publication, of knowing that there will be people lined up to see one's newest work; because the name has overtaken the substance of the work. And like a subplicant I and my friend went to see this...and it was a lousy experience. And not for the acting, or the set. But because putting people into a car to deal with each other's various conflicts or monumental gaffs or uncontrollable urges and thinking that is all that is needed to illuminate our dark recesses is naive at worst and cruel at best. And nine scenes of cruelty is not my idea of a good time, nor are nine scenes of foolishness.
   LaBute mailed this one in. One star for the scene Bench Seat (with possible half credit going to the actors) and an occaisonal laugh.



4. I've read all of Labute's plays, and this one is greater than the others in some new and interesting ways. I always read his introduction last, because it usually gives away some of the story. This intro said two really cool things.
   
   He introduces the first cool thing by a fellow playwright wanting to "see his play performed in living rooms, in front of audiences of ten or twelve people. I feel the same way. Theater is anywhere you make it. I hope that with this print edition of autobahn actors take the text and memorize it, gather their friends in their own cars, and take off down the road, filling those intimate interiors with my words and their emotions. That would be a pleasure to behold."
   
   This is really cool, because as I was reading one of the six acts in the play called "long division," I realized that was a play that I would enjoy memorizing and performing in front of friends. I'm not an actor at all, but this book contains a bunch of one person and two person stories that are short enough for the lay person to memorize. That's what I think is cool about this book, is I could picture high school drama classes using this, and it really is some of the best literature out there.
   
   It's also ironic, because all of his books have a warning about needing to arrange a royalty schedule for any public performance of his play.
   
   The second cool thing is about how plays encourage the imagination by having very scaled down and limited sets. I saw a local play that had a limited set about a week after reading this intro, and Labute's discussion on this aspect of theater accentuated my experience.
   
   About the actual stories...I keep using the word "haunting" to describe his work. It's extremely well written, and the stories just stick with me. I keep thinking of the story where the girl tells her mother "I know I'm gonna do everything within my power to use again." For some reason I can't get that out of my mind, and I think that it's kind of an allegory to a bunch of other things in life. The other one that sticks with me is where the husband tries to convince himself that the wife didn't do it again. "You didn't, did you? No, you didn't. I know you wouldn't do that again. Right? You would not...Honey? Angel?"
   
   The rest of the stories are like that...they haunt me because they stick with me.

5 comments about The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance.

1. A great little book on a woman we never heard much about. I've always wondered about her personal life - WOW - more painful than I imagined. Wish she got her Hollywood Star before she died. She worked really hard only to be a second banana, but we loved her, and boy - was she good!!!



2. I loved this book. I've read several books on Lucille Ball and this was a very cool opportunity to read about her famous sidekick. I have to say, I have a whole new view on Ethel now!



3. Book was in very good shape. I would buy another book from this vendor. The only thing I had trouble with was that it took a little longer then I expected to receive in mail.



4. Glad I got a chance to check this book out...it was very interesting as I'd heard about some of the tiffs between them but never really got into it. While I am sure a few different takes on her life/their lives could also fill in the missing pieces..its a good read and provides the rest of the story to the generally heroic and sweentened up picture often given about Ms. Ball and the whole show in general. They were all each and as a group irreplacable and perhaps may have never really understood their "fate" or "destiny" in the place of American life at the time. What a wonderfully talented, funny, and brillant pair and team of actress/actors they were. While all was not well on the show or in that era as with any...to this day they can make you laugh your head off without the crudeness so many comdieans and shows resort to today. The effort and work put into such show outdoes shows today by far. They were great at what they did for the time that they did it. It was also very sobering to read a human real or truer side to them as the pollyannaness of television lives can sometimes rub off on the viewers. Reading it though I could not help feel a sort of sadness ; Ms. Vance..never really being happy. Perhaps its just the way it was told or written. I would like to read other books about her/them to get a more indepth idea. In any case..I recommend taking a spin with this book.



5. When I ran across a softback edition of this book, I was floored. I had no idea a book had been written about Vivian Vance. Where had I been? I bought it thinking ,well, it'll be superficial at best. Boy, was I wrong. This is an excellent, in depth and very revealing life story of one of television's best loved ladies. Alvin Walker and Frank Castelluccio have written one of the best biographies on a legend I've ever read. And Vivian Vance is a legend, if an often overlooked one. From her humble showbiz beginnings, to a Broadway career, to her fateful reading with Lucille Ball for the part of Ethel Mertz---I could not put this book down. Vivian Vance came to life on those pages and I learned that there's a lot more to a "second banana" than just the character they play. Vance never escaped her role as Ethel, but she lived a full and complete life worthy of this book and was a more accomplished actress than given credit for. Her years of baffling mental problems, the estrangement with her mother, her extensive stage work, her often rocky relationship with Lucille Ball (not to overlook William Frawley) are all here as well as the huge amount of humanitarian work she did for mental health later in life. This is a highly recommended read for anyone who loved watching Ethel as well as Lucy. It reveals the fascinating woman behind the "mask" of Ethel Mertz, a landmark television icon and an American showbiz legend known as Vivian Vance.

1 comments about What the FACH?! ~ The Definitive Guide for Opera Singers Auditioning and Working in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

1. This book is absolutely fantastic - and a very entertaining read! I can't think of another book or resource anywhere that even comes close to providing such useful information. The others that I've read are outdated and just don't thouroughly cover the information like this book does. Everything I need for my next visit to Germany and Austria is in this book, and Shepard presents it all in a clever writing style that kept me interested from start to finish. I especially appreciated that he never watered down the information or skipped over important details. I am most definitely recommending this book to all of my friends.

5 comments about The Sopranos: Selected Scripts from Three Seasons.

1. Being female, it's difficult for me to appreciate the full context of why the Soprano's series is so appealing to men; but it surely is. To the extent that the series reflects the lives they lead, and hence, is the art by which they are most likely to identify with the dynamics, it must be successful due to its popularity. To the extent that it doesn't, it offers the opportunity to prevent lives from having to. Either way, it's a win-win situation since the positive and negative effects can be visualized and measured on the screen rather than through the high risk performance that people must try to live through to survive. Perhaps that is the series' peculiar appeal: safety and entertainment through scrutiny of what people could construe as dangerous territory involving dangerous people. To the extent that it measures a code of justice not often available to people on the outside, it serves to make the world a safer place because of its portrayals.



2. I bought this for my son because he is a huge Sopranos fan. However, I snatched it away from him and had a great time reviewing the scripts.
   When you watch the show, the dialogue is often lost or ignored because the viewer tends to be caught up in the action. By having a script handy, you get a chance to analyze the writing style. While the plots have a great deal to do with the show's ultimate popularity, the crisp and effective dialogue which remains true to each character's development is equally important.
   If you are interested in learning how to write for tv or movies, the scripts are great to analyze.



3. It's a book that contains five scripts of the best show on TV. It's more than just a TV show, it's a cultural event. It captures the modern day mafia in a brilliant, clever, dramatic, and often times funny way. If You are an inspiring writer, wishing to find a good book for form, or seeking a great work to emulate, then this is the book for You...



4. The big irony is that when you read "The Sopranos: Selected Scripts from Three Seasons" expecting to have increased respect for the writers, what you come away with is even greater respect for the actors. I like to look over scripts of favorite television shows, not just to see what was changed, deleted or added to what eventually aired, but to enjoy the stage directions, where the writers work in all sorts of fun and telling details. However, compared to most other television scripts David Chase and company do not provide a lot of extra tips (neither did Shakespeare, come to think of it). Consequently, the chief attraction here for fans of the shows ends up being the dialogue that never made it to the screen along with the introduction by Chase.

   Of course the introduction is insightful, albeit relatively short, as Chase talks about the creative and casting process. I particularly liked the part when he explains the multiple strands that comprise each episode (a rule clearly violated by the "College" script, which only has two) and the process by which "Soprano" scripts are written. The results are the "final" (i.e., shooting) scripts, and why the title page of each episode lists the various revisions (blue for 1st, pink for 2nd, yellow for 3rd, etc.). Unfortunately, unlike some other script collections, there are not any notations on the pages to indicate what color they are; I admit, I am curious as to what pages make it from the first draft all the way through production.

   For selecting only five scripts from the first three seasons of "The Sopranos," this collection does a nice job. You have to have the "Pilot" episode and "College" is clearly the most memorable show from the first season. "The Happy Wanderer" is another pivotal episode in the show's history and "The Knight in White Satin Armor" contains one of the biggest surprises. "Pine Barrens" represents a prime example of the comic extremes of which the show is capable. So I have no complaints given the collective results. The final comment would be that it is interesting to read hour-long television scripts without teasers and four acts; just another reason to applaud HBO's efforts in this area. So, where is the script collection for "Six Feet Under"?




5. I've been waiting for the screen plays to be released ever since seeing the first season of THE SOPRANOS. The only draw back is the print doesn't seem dark enough. I hope it won't fade quickly. That said, it's still a great book and would make a wonderful gift to any hardcore fan of the show. Keep your fingers crossed that other scripts will soon follow.

1 comments about Speak With Distinction: 75 Minute Audio Practice Cd And Booklet (Applause Acting Series).

1. see title - not a comprehensive cd at all. you're better off with the book and just listening to and watching good speakers when you can.

3 comments about Breathing, Movement, Exploration.

1. This book bridges eastern and western perspectives on the body to formulate a movement approach to performance that could be the basis for a Stanislavski based acting class or a performance class that is some combination of actors, dancers and performance artists. The exercises are concise, clear and guide the reader through increasinly levels of self-awareness and application of this knowledge to performance.



2. This book is great. The concept of feel, fuse and follow integrated me with my body in ways I never thought possible.



3. This book was a revelation to me in integrating my physical life with my imagination. The easy to follow explorations guided me from an understanding of my body to new ways of moving and working with a script. I found its focus on breathing and imagery expanded my ability to create a character.

1 comments about Musical Scene Study : The Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein (Study Guide) (Study Guide).

1. As my daughter is studying musical theater, this item will be just right. She has looked it over and is very excited about getting back to college and putting it to use. I would be very interested in any other products of this kind!