Getting Started in Film

This book turned out to be a fairly good intro to careers in the film industry. A lot of the information is out of date as of this writing, but it still presents a full picture. I like the fact that it covers many professions in the industry - publicist, lawyer, sound editor, effects designer, agent - not just star, director, and writer. In each job category, they inverview 2 or 3 pros and record the answers. The book is a straightforward collection of interviews, and a few stood out for me. It was interesting to see cinematographer/director Haskell Wexler's take on things. I enjoyed reading about Tom Schulman, the once hot writer of "Dead Poets Society", and some of his working methods. There were also a couple of excellent quotes that stayed with me. Walter Murch, a sound editor, described the industry as seeming like a blank wall for beginners, but that was ultimately good, because if one is going to survive in the industry, one has to be the kind of person who can tear down walls, or climb over them, etc. He also said that we sit on 3-legged stools (the legs being talent, luck, and persistence), that are constantly being tossed around, and that we need to have at least 2 of those legs, or else forget it. DP Allen Daviau came up with a good one too - he said that critical studies of films tended to make him laugh, because he knew from experience how so many things in any film are the result of luck, or breaks of some kind or another, scheduling problems, lack of equipment, etc. - but every time he read a master's thesis or a review, it would make it sound as if everything had been planned out from the very beginning to be exactly the way it was.