Table of Contents

Every entry in What are we Watching? has six sections:

1. What’s it all about: a brief description of the plot
2. Trivia Tidbits: a few facts about the movie
3. Fabulous Film-making: some wonderful movie making techniques you can see in the movie and apply to your own film-making, too.
4. Super Storytelling: some great story telling techniques you can use in your own writing, whether you write screenplays, short stories, tell stories aloud or use storytelling in any other medium. A lot has to do with structure which is applicable to presentations and academic writing too.
5. Credits: the crew and actors who worked on the film.
6. Want More? lists other films made by the same director.

Because each entry has all of these, in the interest of brevity, the only two  specific sections I’ll mention below each title listed here will be the theme of Fabulous Filmmaking and the theme of Super Storytelling.  Again, each film in the book has all six of the above sections.

Table of Contents

Introduction

How This Book is Organized

The Movies:

1. Singin’ in the Rain
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Sound Counts
   • Super Storytelling: Thinking About Genre
2. The Adventures of Robin Hood
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Color Speaks
   • Super Storytelling: Pacing and Layering
3. Bringing Up Baby
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Hollywood Continuity
   • Super Storytelling: First Act Set-up
4. What’s Up Doc
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Homage and Learning from the Masters
   • Super Storytelling: Do a Dialogue Check
5. To be or not to Be
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: The Power of Repetition
   • Super Storytelling: Make your Characters Human
6. The Lavender Hill Mob
   • Fabulous Film-making: Shot Variation and Visual Storytelling
   • Super Storytelling: The Power of Reversal
7. Duck Soup
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Letting Actors do Their Thing
   • Super Storytelling: What do you Care About?
8. Some Like it Hot
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Visual Depth
   • Super Storytelling: Characters Change
9. Radio Days
   • Fabulous Filmmaking: Music Matters
   • Super Storytelling: The Big Picture
10. My Favorite Year
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Location Specific
    • Super Storytelling: Point of View and Theme
11. The Quiet Man
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Fisticuffs
    • Super Storytelling: Handling Backstory
12. The Thief of Bagdad
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Guiding the Eye
    • Super Storytelling: Theme Matters
13. The Truman Show
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Creating Your World
    • Super Storytelling: Burning Bridges
14. North by Northwest
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Editing
    • Super Storytelling: The Macguffin
15. Kind Hearts and Coronets
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Unique Characters
    • Super Storytelling: Surprise, Surprise
16. The Ladykillers
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Collaboration
    • Super Storytelling: Character and Conflict
17. Roman Holiday
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Keep it Visual
    • Super Storytelling: How’s Your Beginning
18. The Importance of Being Earnest
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Close-ups
    • Super Storytelling: Reactions Count
19. Whisky Galore!
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: Planning and Varying
    • Super Storytelling: Trying Hard and Being Funny
20. Hellzapoppin’
    • Fabulous Filmmaking: That Fourth Wall
    • Super Storytelling: Tell your Own and Follow Your Own Rules

Go Make Movies

Acknowledgements

About the Author