cover image The Big Picture: Lessons from a Life on the Set

The Big Picture: Lessons from a Life on the Set

Tom Reilly, . . St. Martin?s/Dunne, $24.95 (239pp) ISBN 978-0-312-38038-0

After working on more than 40 films as an assistant director and associate producer, Reilly has written a valuable guide that film students and novice filmmakers will find illuminating and insightful. In 50 short essays Reilly analyzes the problems that often surface on movie sets, and offers solutions. He walks the reader through techniques he has observed over the years while working on films with Alfonso Cuarón, Sydney Pollack, Woody Allen and other top directors. The approach is not a routine rehashing of Hollywood anecdotes but a crash course covering specific situations and working methods: “Woody may not plan the day’s shots until he is on the set on any given day, but he absolutely considers the abutting scenes and how they were, or will be, shot.” Reilly opens with film set slang and jargon (“martini” = last shot of the day) and then moves on to cover everything from schedules, blocking actor movements, camera angles and master shots to variables in sunlight and the color palette: “Before you settle on that dress you think possibly might be raspberry pink, consider what color the walls will be painted on the set where the dress will be worn.” Every page is packed with such practical tips and insider information, and Reilly caps off his fascinating facts and figures with a glossary of film terms. Minus padding or wasted words, this is a book that could well become a bible and standard reference text for aspiring filmmakers. (May)