Scholars of film studies will appreciate this daring and inventive collection, and readers with a general interest in film studies will enjoy its accessible style.

"This book explores the complex, multifaceted and contested subject of risk in the film business. How risk is understood and managed has a substantial impact upon which films are financed, produced and seen. Founded on substantial original research accessing the highest level of industry practitioners, this book examines the intertwined activity of independents, large media companies including Major studios, the international marketplace, and related audio-visual sectors such as high-end television. The book shows how risk is generally framed, or even intuited, rather than calculated, and that this process occurs across a sliding scale of formality. This work goes beyond broad creative industries characterisations of a "risky sector" and concentrations on Box Office return modelling to provide a missing middle. This means a coherent analytic coverage of business organisation and project construction to address the complex practicalities that mobilise strategic operations in relation to risk, often in unseen business-to-business contexts. Informed by economic sociology's concepts addressing market assemblage and valuation, alongside applications of science and technology studies to media and communications, the book respects both the powerful roles of social and institutional actors, and affordances of new technologies in dealing with the persistent known unknown - the audience. Examining a persistent business issue in a new way, this book analyses top level industry practice through established mechanisms, and innovations like data analytics. The result is a book that will be essential reading for scholars with an interest in the film business as well as risk management more broadly"--

Documentary, Performance and Risk explores how some of the most significant recent American feature documentaries use performance to dramatically animate major categories of risk. The fact that these documentaries do rely on such performance is revealing both in terms of trends in American feature documentary, and in relation to the currency of ideas about risk in contemporary Western societies. The book takes a detailed look at the performance of risk and demonstrates the rewards of close critical attention to formal composition and performance. Covering An Inconvenient Truth, Super Size Me, Capitalism: A Love Story and Jackass: The Movie, it explores how these high-profile films offer up compelling narratives and images of individuals ‘acting on risk’. The films seek to both confront and control the contours of their environments in ways that reveal much about how a particular set of beliefs about risk and the individual have come to inform our lives. This wide-ranging analysis of feature documentary is ideal for scholars and postgraduate students studying documentary film, film and media studies.

This book explores the complex, multifaceted and contested subject of risk in the film business. How risk is understood and managed has a substantial impact upon which films are financed, produced and seen. Founded on substantial original research accessing the highest level of industry practitioners, this book examines the intertwined activity of independents, large media companies including major studios, the international marketplace, and related audio-visual sectors such as high-end television. The book shows how risk is generally framed, or even intuited, rather than calculated, and that this process occurs across a sliding scale of formality. This work goes beyond broad creative industries characterisations of a "risky sector" and concentrations on Box Office return modelling, to provide a missing middle. This means a coherent analytic coverage of business organisation and project construction to address the complex practicalities that mobilise strategic operations in relation to risk, often in unseen business-to-business contexts. Informed by economic sociology’s concepts addressing market assemblage and valuation, alongside applications of science and technology studies to media and communications, the book respects both the powerful roles of social and institutional actors, and affordances of new technologies in dealing with the persistent known unknown – the audience. Examining a persistent business issue in a new way, this book analyses top level industry practice through established mechanisms, and innovations like data analytics. The result is a book that will be essential reading for scholars with an interest in the film business as well as risk management more broadly.

Nothing can slow down this investigator from pursuing justice—except a beautiful witness on the run, in this reader-favorite story from New York Times bestselling author Lori Foster! When Detective Logan Riske goes undercover to find Pepper Yates, a potential link to his best friend’s unsolved murder, he vows to gain her cooperation by any means necessary. But the elusive beauty is more suspicious—and in far more danger—than he expected. And the last thing Logan needs is to start caring for her…. Pepper has spent years dodging the corrupt club owner who will stop at nothing to keep her silenced. She can trust no one, not even the handsome new “construction worker” who’s moved in next door. The heat between them is undeniable. But will surrendering to passion bring her the safety she so desires—or will her feelings for Logan draw them both into a killer’s crosshairs? Previously published. Read the entire smoldering Love Undercover series: Book 1: Run the Risk Book 2: Bare It All Book 3: Getting Rowdy Book 4: Dash of Peril

A New York Times bestseller from the author of The Rules of Magic: In 1980s America, a family copes with their daughter’s terrifying diagnosis. In a lovely old house near the coast of Massachusetts, the Farrells go through the routines of a typical August morning. Eight-year-old Charlie, a junior biologist and dinosaur expert, tries to collect one of his insect specimens. His sister, Amanda, a talented gymnast who at eleven years old is already saving her money to try out for the Olympics, prepares for her last meet of the summer. Ivan, their absent-minded father, is involved with his work as an astronomer. Out in the garden, his wife, Polly, wonders how she can trick her children into eating more zucchini. They are a family as unique and ordinary as any other, but their world will soon be shattered when Amanda is diagnosed with the disease that has been making headlines lately: AIDS. The new and still-mysterious ailment scares them—and their friends and neighbors as well. In an instant, everything that gave their lives meaning is ripped away, and the intimacy that once came so naturally vanishes. Too overcome with grief to turn to each other, Ivan and Polly seek solace elsewhere. Charlie is abandoned by his best friend and, for long stretches at a time, forgotten by his parents. Amanda, who holds on to her dreams so tightly, must somehow find a way to let go. Torn apart by the prospect of their loss, Polly, Ivan, and Charlie must find the courage to come back together again—for Amanda’s sake and for their own. At Risk is an exquisite book about true sorrow and even truer devotion.

Why the future of popular culture will revolve around ever bigger bets on entertainment products, by one of Harvard Business School's most popular professors What's behind the phenomenal success of entertainment businesses such as Warner Bros., Marvel Entertainment, and the NFL—along with such stars as Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and LeBron James? Which strategies give leaders in film, television, music, publishing, and sports an edge over their rivals? Anita Elberse, Harvard Business School's expert on the entertainment industry, has done pioneering research on the worlds of media and sports for more than a decade. Now, in this groundbreaking book, she explains a powerful truth about the fiercely competitive world of entertainment: building a business around blockbuster products—the movies, television shows, songs, and books that are hugely expensive to produce and market—is the surest path to long-term success. Along the way, she reveals why entertainment executives often spend outrageous amounts of money in search of the next blockbuster, why superstars are paid unimaginable sums, and how digital technologies are transforming the entertainment landscape. Full of inside stories emerging from Elberse's unprecedented access to some of the world's most successful entertainment brands, Blockbusters is destined to become required reading for anyone seeking to understand how the entertainment industry really works—and how to navigate today's high-stakes business world at large.