In these vivid and revealing interviews, a diverse collection of filmmakers talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut and tells the inside story of the film's creation. Along the way, every aspect of the movie industry is explored-from writing the script and raising the money to casting the actors and assembling the crew, from shooting and editing to selling the movie and screening it. These interviews are not only memoirs of particular movies; each one is also an emotional journey in which the director relives the pain and elation, the comedy and tragedy, of making a first feature film.

A sequel to the critically acclaimed My First Movie, Stephen Lowenstein once again talks to some of our most celebrated filmmakers about their debut films. Lowenstein interviews ten directors about their career-launching film and how they got the movie off the ground: how they raised the finance, found actors, searched for locations, worked with the crew and saw the project through to completion. Filmmakers interviewed include Richard Linklater on Slacker; Alejandro González Iñárritu on Amores Perros; Terry Gilliam on Jabberwocky; and Sam Mendes on American Beauty. A wonderfully rich compendium that is lively, informative, funny, and often surprising.

Gotta go fast! Sonic the Hedgehog is racing back to the big screen for a brand-new action-packed adventure. This storybook is perfect for fans of the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie who want to re-experience the first film before watching the sequel. Includes a sticker sheet featuring Sonic and his friends!

Nobody forgets their first time--and film directors are no exception. In these vivid and revealing interviews, a collection of filmmakers as diverse as the Coen brothers and Ken Loach, Ang Lee and Kevin Smith, Anthony Minghella and Gary Oldman, Neil Jordan and Mira Nair talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut--be it "Angel or "Blood Simple, "Clerks or "Diner, "Muriel's Wedding or "Truly, Madly, Deeply--and tells the inside story: from writing the script to raising the money, from casting the actors to assembling the crew, from shooting to editing, from selling the movie to screening it. Along the way, every aspect of the movie industry is explored: from dealing with agents and moguls for the first time to pitching your movie as a debutante director, from languishing in development hell to confronting test audiences from hell. The questions have been posed by Stephen Lowenstein, a young director with two acclaimed short films to his credit. Remembering the struggle to launch their careers, the directors have opened up about their first films and themselves to an unprecedented degree. Each chapter is not only a memoir of a particular movie, but also an emotional journey in which the director relives the pain and elation, the comedy and tragedy, of making a first feature. For anyone who wants to direct movies, these tales of triumph and disaster, of sleepless nights and nail-biting days, will be enthralling and terrifying in equal measure. For all other film fans, the interviews provide fascinating and entertaining insights into filmmakers who have become household names.

This book teaches first-time directors how to make the most of their first opportunity using straightforward, results-orientated instructions.

A true-life Catch-22 set in the deeply dysfunctional countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, by one of the region’s longest-serving correspondents. Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent—she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about our ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider’s account of the “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America’s initial routing of the Taliban, when we failed to finish the job. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a record low, electricity is a pipe dream, and of the few remaining foreign troops, some aren’t allowed out after dark. Meanwhile, in the vacuum left by the U.S. and NATO, the Taliban is regrouping as the Afghan and Pakistani governments floun­der. Barker watches Afghan police recruits make a travesty of practice drills and observes the disorienting turnover of diplomatic staff. She is pursued romantically by the former prime minister of Pakistan and sees adrenaline-fueled col­leagues disappear into the clutches of the Taliban. And as her love for these hapless countries grows, her hopes for their stability and security fade. Swift, funny, and wholly original, The Taliban Shuffle unforgettably captures the absurdities and tragedies of life in a war zone.

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts? Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost? FantasticLand is a modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.