2/26/2007

Reading What They Don't Teach You at Film School, by Camille Landau and Tiare White. Why she is reading it--the title says it all. She went to film school, but didn't learn much about the business end of it and, as far as types of films, they concentrated more on concept films rather than the current project she's working on--narrative. She's writing a screenplay about children who uncover a crime, which she'll shoot in June 2008.

Books she's read recently, other than books about budget, finance, the business side of film making, have been Cool for You, by Eileen Myles and an anthology put out by the Dave Eggers crew, The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers-- http://books.believermag.com/.

Her favorites are Joyce Carol Oates--she's read all her books; trashy novels from the 80s, like V.C. Andrews; and, her true favorite, James Baldwin. In his book, Another Country, she says you find a piece of yourself. She talked about how how brazen Baldwin was, that he wasn't afraid to talk about complex issues like race and sexuality in a forward way that was way ahead of his time, and that it's reassuring how contradictory and complex he creates the world, because that's how it is. We're all complicated people and we look for that in life and in art.