Search

The British Film Industry in 25 Careers tells the history of the British film industry from an unusual perspective - that of various mavericks, visionaries and outsiders who, often against considerable odds, have become successful producers, distributors, writers, directors, editors, props masters, publicists, special effects technicians, talent scouts, stars and, sometimes, even moguls. Some, such as Richard Attenborough and David Puttnam, are well-known names. Others, such as the screenwriter and editor Alma Reville, also known as Mrs Alfred Hitchcock; Constance Smith, the'lost star'of British cinema, or the producer Betty Box and her director sister Muriel, are far less well known. What they all have in common, though, is that they found their own pathways into the British film business, overcoming barriers of nationality, race, class and gender to do so.Counterpointing the essays on historical figures are interviews with contemporaries including the director Amma Asante, the writer and filmmaker Julian Fellowes, artist and director Isaac Julien, novelist and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, and media entrepreneur Efe Cakarel, founder of the online film platform MUBI, who've come into today's industry, adjusting to an era in which production and releasing models are changing – and in which films are distributed digitally as well as theatrically.

'What I remember was that it was the first time a piece of fiction had had such a devastating emotional effect on me. A lot of children remember seeing cartoons, Pinocchio or Bambi or something that breaks their heart. I remember seeing The Blue Angel and it breaking my heart. It was the first time I realised there was an adult world - that adults could damage each other or destroy each other emotionally. It might have fed into a whole series of epiphanies about my own upbringing. I was living in a family where my grandparents had separated in quite complex circumstances. Perhaps it resonated with some elements of that, to do with simply how love can be a rupturing and damaging emotion as well as a healing one. Also, to see somebody who is in an authority position made so small, so diminished, by the feeling of having no control.'Anthony Minghella / The Blue Angel'In a strange, lethal way, I was suddenly wildly attracted to the process of filmmaking, even though it is described as a nightmare - a matter of horror - in that film. There is a trancelike atmosphere. Suddenly, I was reminded that you can feel like it's a matter of life and death when you make a film. It changed from being a mediocre feeling of emptiness in your life to something that feels necessary. I realised that filmmaking can be many things - and it can be narcotic in a way. You can become addicted to it.'Thomas Vinterberg / Hearts of Darkness Screen Epiphanies brings together 32 leading film-makers to discuss the films that inspired them to pursue a career in the movie business, or which influenced their own film-making practice, or which stayed with them because of their depictions of familiar communities, intense human relationships or unknown worlds. Beautifully illustrated with images from the films discussed, Screen Epiphanies is a thought-provoking and often moving insight into the creative process and the way in which artists are inspired by each other's work, but also into the centrality of cinema in all our lives, and its power to change our ambitions and how we see the world around us.

Responsible for hiring all members of cast and crew from the director onwards, the producer's role is central to the making of any film and responsibilities can include everything from script development to securing financing to masterminding a film's marketing campaign. While few film producers are household names, they wield a degree of control that only the biggest name directors can aspire to. As with all of the FilmCraft titles, this book is based on new indepth interviews and features such greats as Tim Bevan, Marin Karmitz, Jeremy Thomas, Jon Kilik, Lauren Shuler Donner, Jan Chapman, and Peter Aalbæk Jensen.

Presiding over the'golden era'of the British Film Industry from the mid to late 1940s, J. Arthur Rank financed movies such as Oliver Twist, The Red Shoes, Brief Encounter, Caesar and Cleopatra and Black Narcissus. Never before, and never since, has the industry risen to such heights.J. Arthur Rank charts every aspect of the robust film culture that Rank helped to create. Having started out with relatively little knowledge of the cinema, Rank's sponsorship was to bring about astounding progress within the industry, and by establishing an organization comparable in size to any of the major Hollywood studios, Rank briefly managed to reconcile and consolidate the competing demands of'art'and'business'- an achievement very much absent from today's diminished and fragmented film industry. Macnab goes on to explain the eventual collapse of the Rank experiment amidst the economic and political maelstrom of post-war Britain, highlighting the problems still facing the industry today. By meshing archival research with interviews with Rank's contemporaries and members of his family, this definitive study firmly restores Rank to his rightful place at the hub of British film history.