Undated photo of Paul Schrader. Unknown photographer.

Screenwriter and director Paul Schrader has donated his collection to the Harry Ransom Center. Schrader wrote screenplays for such iconic films as Taxi Driver (1976), Blue Collar (1978), Raging Bull (1980), American Gigolo (1980), The Mosquito Coast (1986), and Affliction (1997).

Schrader had previously donated Robert De Niro’s costume from Taxi Driver after De Niro donated his archive to the Ransom Center in 2006. The costume is now on display in the Ransom Center’s exhibition Making Movies, which runs through Aug. 1.

The Schrader collection consists of more than 300 boxes and includes outlines and drafts of scripts and screenplays, correspondence, production materials, videos, audio tapes, press clippings, photographs, and juvenilia.

The collection will be made accessible once it is processed and cataloged. A small…

Click image to enlarge. Set still of the boathouse set from ‘Rebecca,’ 1940.

The art director, in creating the environment that a character inhabits, reveals much about a character’s personality through the type of house, the style of furniture, the pictures on the walls, and even the items on the coffee table or in the kitchen sink. Furthermore, the sets designed by an art director must correspond to the geographic and historical context of the story.

Here, producer David O. Selznick writes in a memo to director Alfred Hitchcock and art director Lyle Wheeler that their movie’s title character, Rebecca, would have decorated her boathouse in a style reflecting her personality, and that the inside would look much different from the outside.

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Continue Reading Art Director: Set design for boathouse in "Rebecca"

Contact sheet of research photos for 'North by Northwest' taken by Ernest Lehman.

Alfred Hitchcock directed a string of masterpieces in the 1950s including Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), and Psycho (1960). At the height of this remarkable run came North by Northwest (1959), a unique marriage of Hitchcock’s trademark suspense and humor. Ernest Lehman, well known in Hollywood for adaptations such as Sabrina (1954) and The King and I (1956), wrote the screenplay, his only original work and which is widely regarded as his best.

View a slideshow of Lehman’s photographs of Mount Rushmore from his research trip. The photographs were developed from previously unstudied negatives found in the Lehman collection.

This is just one film scene highlighted in…

Behind the scenes photograph of Alfred Hitchcock drawing a storyboard for ‘Spellbound’; ca. 1945

Except for the actor, no other position in filmmaking is as much discussed or as little understood as that of the director. Directing a film requires sensitivity to the story, understanding of technical filmmaking processes, and coordination of these two skills. It also demands the ability to communicate, persuade, and shape the work of other artists and technicians working on the film.

Visit the Ransom Center’s website to listen to an audio clip of director Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman developing the storyline for what would be Hitchcock’s last film, Family Plot (1976).

Director Alfred Hitchcock frames Ingrid Bergman in a still from the set of

The art of cinematography goes far beyond the simple recording of a scene or event. It is a creative and interpretive process that involves many skills and techniques, some that are shared with still photography and some that are unique to motion pictures.

The cinematographer can manipulate the image through the selection of film stock, by moving the camera, or, in the case of digital cameras, through the adjustment of color sensitivity, light sensitivity, and image contrast. Color filters can be used for dramatic effects, and lenses can be chosen for their control of perspective and spacial relations. A cinematographer may film a subject in sharp focus but…

Click image to enlarge. Early draft of the screenplay for ‘Shakespeare in Love’ by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, 1998.

Of all the elements of filmmaking, the screenplay is arguably the most important. It is also the element most debated, discounted, discarded, and arbitrated. More often than not, the screenplay is an adaptation of another work—a novel, play, news story, biography, or even another screenplay.

The screenplay expresses character and narrative and is therefore the focus of interpretation by the director, actors, and designers. Furthermore, the screenplay is the foundation on which all the other artists and technicians base their work. Whether a scene takes place indoors or outdoors, for example, may affect the sets the art director designs and builds and…

Click image to enlarge. Norman Dawn. Card 5, June 1907.

Special effects in film are most often associated with monsters and space aliens, explosions and gunfire. While such features certainly fit into that category, more often than not special effects are used to make something look real and normal that would otherwise be too difficult or expensive to photograph. Fair weather, for example, can be unpredictable; exotic or imaginary locations may be inaccessible or may not exist at all. But both can be realized through the use of matte paintings, glass shots, or other special effects techniques.

Many of the techniques were devised in cinema’s earliest years by Norman O. Dawn (1886–1975) and subsequently refined and improved by succeeding special effects artists.…

Click image to enlarge. Continuity supervisor’s copy of The Prize, 1963.

Film editing is the selection, arrangement, and combination of shots into sequences, sequences into scenes, and scenes into the final film. Editing is where a motion picture takes its final shape.

The editor controls and often enhances the emotional and narrative aspects of a motion picture. Through the selection of “takes” or alternate versions of the same shot, the placement of “cuts,” and the layering of images, sound, and music, the editor manipulates time and space, controls the pacing and rhythm of the story, shapes the actor’s performances, guides the viewer’s attention, and creates an emotional connection with the viewer. Indeed, the editor can, in some cases, effectively rewrite and redirect…

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…