Photograph of Dimitri Tiomkin conducting orchestra for Duel in the Sun, 1946

Music has been an integral part of motion pictures since the earliest days of filmmaking. While full orchestral scores were written especially for select major productions such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924), most early films were shown accompanied by a pianist or organist who had compiled the score from a small sheet music library that was organized by mood. The pianist synchronized the music to the film by using a “cue sheet,” a list of the film’s action and title cards in the order in which they appear. Whether for an exciting chase sequence or a tender love scene, for suspense or nostalgia,…

Arguably Britain’s greatest production designer, Alfred Junge was born in Germany and spent his teenage years working as an apprentice to a painter. At eighteen he was “kissed by the Muse” and began working in theater, painting sets, designing costumes, and operating special effects. In the late 1920s he began working with British International Pictures and later Gaumont British where he gained a reputation not only for his brilliant designs but also for his organizational skills in running a large staff of art directors and craftsmen.

Junge’s best known film work is on Black Narcissus (1947), the story of emotional tensions among a group of Anglican nuns who try to establish a convent in the remote reaches of the Himalayas. Director Michael…

Notebook from Andre Dubus collection

The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the papers of American writer Andre Dubus (1936-1999). Dubus was widely considered a master of the short story. His story collections include Separate Flights (1975), Adultry and Other Choices (1977), Finding a Girl in America (1980), We Don’t Live Here Anymore (1984), and Dancing After Hours: Stories (1996), among others.

Makeup reference photo of Vivienne Leigh

Like costumes, hairstyles and makeup can reveal nuance and place characters in an emotional, geographical, or historical context. Certain hairstyles, for example, are instantly associated with certain periods, such as the bob cut in the 1920s or the ducktail haircut of the 1950s. Film makeup must look natural and appropriate when magnified on the big screen. It must also be durable enough to survive multiple takes and reproducible in case retakes are needed at a later time.

This makeup reference photo of actress Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind, for example, suggests not only character Scarlett’s O’Hara’s emotional state, but her current economic situation—her face is dirty from working in the dusty fields. Real tears…

Click on image to enlarge. “A Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures” by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc., June 13, 1934.

The process of making movies involves thousands of decisions. Each decision is a turning point with rewards and consequences. Every detail matters to the success or failure—artistically and financially—of the final product. While filmmaking is fundamentally a collaborative effort, one person often dominates that process: the producer.

This document, “A Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures” by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc., is an example of one issue that producers have had to deal with throughout cinema history: censorship.

Since the earliest days of commercial filmmaking,…

In anticipation of the opening of its exhibition Making Movies, the Harry Ransom Center kicks off the promotional campaign “Script to Screen,” featuring online content that highlights the creative work that takes place behind the scenes in filmmaking.

Today, you can view a video preview of the exhibition, which opens February 9.

Featuring items from the Ransom Center’s extensive film collections, the exhibition reveals the collaborative nature of the filmmaking process and focuses on how the artists involved—from writers to directors, actors to cinematographers—transform the written word into moving image.

Highlights include original scripts, storyboards, production photos, and call sheets, in addition to screenplays from The Third Man, North by Northwest, and Shakespeare in Love and costumes from Gone With The Wind, An…

The Ransom Center has acquired a collection of letters written by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to Ray Roberts, who was her colleague at Doubleday & Co. The letters date from 1978 to 1992 and are from the Roberts’ collection. Kennedy began her publishing career at Viking in 1975 and became an associate editor at Doubleday in early 1978. There are 50 letters from Kennedy to Roberts, more than half of which were sent between 1978 and 1980 while Kennedy and Roberts were colleagues.

The Ransom Center will launch the “Script To Screen” promotional campaign next week in anticipation of the upcoming exhibition Making Movies, which opens February 9. Starting Monday, the Ransom Center will feature online content that highlights the creative work that takes place behind the scenes in filmmaking.

Featuring items from the Ransom Center’s extensive film collections, Making Movies reveals the collaborative nature of the filmmaking process and focuses on how the artists involved—from writers to directors, actors to cinematographers—transform the written word into moving image.

This video gives an overview of the Ransom Center’s film collections and highlights many items that will be included in the exhibition.

Jayne Anne Phillips visits the Ransom Center. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

Last September, the Ransom Center acquired the papers of writer Jayne Anne Phillips. Phillips, who was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for her novel Lark & Termite, shares her recommended reading in the latest issue of Ransom Edition.

Known for her poetic prose and her in-depth study of family dynamics, Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Shelter, and Motherkind. The critically acclaimed writer has received a number of major literary prizes, including a Guggenheim fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Phillips is professor of English and director of the Master of Fine Arts…

Albert Camus, taken by Alfred Knopf in Stockholm during the week in which Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize, December 1957.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the death of the French novelist and philosopher Albert Camus in a tragic car accident. Yet, as the online review The Daily Beast observes, he remains “the most widely read of all the postwar French writers and [is] hip enough to inspire a comic-book series.”

In addition to the manuscript of his novel The Misunderstanding and other items in the Carlton Lake Collection of French Literature, the Ransom Center holds several fascinating few folders of correspondence between Camus and the publisher Blanche Knopf, to which a couple of additional letters have recently been added.

Few of…