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Books : Poetry, Drama & Criticism : Drama : Film & Television Screenplays
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Tom Stoppard has always had an ear for the Bard, stretching back to his surreal and hilarious early plays Rosencrantz and Guildernstein are Dead and Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoots Macbeth. For those who have already seen the film of Shakespeare in Love, this screenplay offers a chance to savour Stoppard's exuberant collaboration with the renowned screenwriter Marc Norman. The result gives us amongst many other things a dog, Hamlet, Kit Marlowe, Elizabeth I and probably one of the best screenplays based around Shakespeare in modern cinema.
The pace of the script, from its opening long shot of London in 1593, to the final shot of Viola (played in the film by Gwyneth Paltrow) walking off into her brave new world, is breathtaking. The verbal fireworks and Shakespearean borrowings are not only worthy of the Bard himself, but perfectly recreate the conditions of the Elizabethan theatre. The jokes and allusions fly thick and fast, often straining the agility of even the most nimble Shakespeare scholar, but at the heart of the screenplay is both a compelling love story and an ingenious perspective on the inspiration behind both Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night. A wonderful piece of writing--long may Shakespeare in Love keep the Bard in fashion! --Jerry Brotton
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Books Sold by IBX
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Books Sold by IBX
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Alan Bennett's award-winning series of six television monologues, Talking Heads, may have been first aired in 1988, but over a decade later it is still impossible to read these deeply moving and affectionate scripts without hearing the voices of the actors who played them. Maggie Smith as the alcoholic vicar's wife finding a semblance of happiness in an affair with an Indian shop owner, Patricia Routledge as the poisonous neighbour, Julie Walters as the over-the-hill dolly bird auditioning for a porn film and of course Thora Hird as Doris, the old lady alone in her home having fallen and broken her hip. All great performances and all made possible by Bennett's wonderfully observant and poignant scripts. Bennett rightly notes in his introduction to the pieces that, maybe apart from Doris, his narrators are artless in that they "don't quite know what they are saying and are telling a story to the meaning of which they are not entirely privy". But through their artlessnes they reveal more about Britain today and the stresses and strains placed upon ordinary people, than any number of docu-soaps that now claim to show us real life. --Nick Wroe
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For many people under 35, their most vivid glimpses of Britain's illustrious history have been through the Blackadder chronicles which brightened television screens from 1983 to 1989. Their constantly reborn protagonist, Edmund Blackadder, flounced through a bloody Middle Ages, a campy Elizabethan court, even camper Regency revels, and the rat-infested trenches of the Great War, armed with only his repulsive servant Baldrick, and a fine line in complex insults ("you would bore the leggings off a village idiot"; "he's got a brain the size of a weasel's wedding tackle").
Now you can brush up your Blackadder with a fine collection of the complete scripts, interspersed with useful titbits on medieval torture instruments, the menu in Mrs Miggins' coffee house, and the Prince Regent's laundry list. Bereft of their familiar faces and voices, television comedy scripts often fall flat--and Blackadder without the rubber-faced consonant-spitting of its hero Rowan Atkinson is surely unthinkable. But here the Blackadder oeuvre, penned by Richard Curtis and various collaborators, stands up wonderfully.
Curtis's bizarre, surreal take on English history takes up where 1066 and All That left off, wickedly skewering venerable historical personages, and hilariously literalising the classic clichés of textbook history (marvel again at the Puritan Whiteadders sitting on spikes so they won't enjoy their dinner). Classily produced, and with royalties going to the entertainment charity fund, Comic Relief, this is one TV tie-in well worth getting. --Alan Stewart
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How does a spec script differ from a shooting script? What kind of fasteners should one use to bind a script? How did the term MOS come to mean without sound? You'll find the answers to these pressing questions and much more in David Trottier's eminently usable Screenwriter's Bible. The avuncular Trottier--a writer-producer, script consultant, and seminar leader--has written a friendly guide through the Hollywood morass. He touts it as six books in one: it's "a screenwriting primer, a screenwriting workbook, a formatting guide, a spec writing guide, a sales and marketing guidexcfb [and] a resource guide." Much of Trottier's advice is common sense: "Don't write anything that cannot appear on the screen"; to keep casting options open, don't make your physical descriptions too specific; "don't say Ron Howard is looking at the project if he is not." But there are things to know about Hollywood that are, well, quirkier. Don't write the title of your script on the front cover or side binding; present action sequences using the "stacking action" style; in query letters and scripts alike, avoid "big blocks of black ink." Trottier's guidance--from character development and revision to queries and pitches--is invaluable. Getting in the door can seem impossible, but it's not, necessarily. "If you write a script that features a character who has a clear and specific goal," says Trottier, "where there is strong opposition to that goal leading to a crisis and an emotionally satisfying ending, your script will automatically find itself in the upper five percent."
(By the way, MOS is said to have "originated with German director Eric von Stroheim, who would tell his crew, 'Ve'll shoot dis mid out sound'"). --Jane Steinberg, Amazon.com
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Books Sold by IBX
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Books Sold by IBX
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