Letters to aspiring directors, producers, screenwriters, and other creatives from one of the world’s leading teachers of film. Suber emphasizes that what is required of a professional in the world of film is not just technique, but an understanding and ability to deal with the realities of how films get made.
Howard Suber was the founding chair of the Film and Television Producers Program at UCLA, where he has been a faculty member for more than 47 years. He has taught thousands of young filmmakers in more than 65 different courses covering most areas of film and television as both arts and industries. In recent decades, 2/3rds of his students have been screenwriters. He has also taught a several-week workshop for the winners of the Independent Feature Project, West's screenwriting competition.
Suber's book, THE POWER OF FILM (thepoweroffilm.com), produced reactions such as these:
"Howard Suber is one of the foremost teachers of film in the world."
--Geoffrey Gilmore, Director, Sundance Film Festival
"Howard Suber's understanding of film storytelling fills the pages of this wise, liberating book. Much of it is surprisingly contrary to what "everyone knows." A remarkable work."
-- Francis Ford Coppola
"For years students in Howard Suber's legendary classes at UCLA begged him to write a book. Now that he has delivered it, filmmakers, scholars and anyone else with a serious interest in film can rejoice. A fascinating and thought-provoking work."
-- Alexander Payne, Director/Screenwriter, Sideways, About Schmidt
"What Aristotle did for drama, Howard Suber has now done for film. This is a profound and succinct book that is miraculously fun to read."
-- David Koepp, Screenwriter, War of the Worlds (2005), Spider-Man, Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
Suber's book, LETTERS TO YOUNG FILMMAKERS/CREATIVITY AND WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET YOUR FILMS MADE produced reactions such as these:
"Letters to Young Filmmakers is full of wisdom, insight, anecdote, and knowledge distilled from years of experience, relationships, and contemplation. His genuine understanding of how the film business operates makes his advice to young filmmakers sound, inspiring and, above all, useful."
-- Geoffrey Gilmore, Director, Sundance Film Festival, 1990-2010; Chief Creative Officer, Tribeca Enterprises.
"Wise, kind, and direct. Howard Suber's advice is as piercing as Don Corleone telling Michael who not to trust, and just as vital. I LOVE this book!"
-- David Koepp, screenwriter Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
"This master teacher of film provides us with a multitude of brilliant insights and sound, sage, advice. He has mentored generations of writers, directors, and producers with his intelligence and compassion for the art of film and the industry that sometimes manages to produce it."
-- Tom Sherak, President, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"Those of us lucky enough to work in film exist at an often vexing intersection between art and commerce, but also between creativity and achievability, idealism and practicality, inspiration and dogged perseverance. The maddening contradictions of what we do to make movies are explored in Letters to Young Filmmakers in a way you won't find anywhere else. Howard Suber was the single most influential professor I had at the UCLA film school. In this sometimes painfully honest and always wise book, he brings decades of filmic and life experience to questions that everyone working in film, whether beginner or established professional, must deal with."
"Suber's in-depth knowledge of film is simply unmatched. This is 50 years of cinematic wisdom expressed with wit, precision and philosophical elegance. An indispensable, inspiring piece of work from a truly legendary teacher who has somehow still managed to remain one of Hollywood's best kept secrets. Not anymore!"
-- Sacha Gervasi, director, Anvil! The Story of Anvil!; screenwriter, Steven Spielberg's Terminal.
Suber has been a consultant and expert witness for every Hollywood studio and several networks and cable companies, especially dealing with issues of screenplay copyrights and creative control, and he has been employed to advise a major studio on screenplays being considered for production.
He was been an Associate Dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, Television and Digital Media, and President of The Society for Film Studies, the national scholarly organization in the field, and has been awarded UCLA's Distinguished Teaching Award and life achievement awards from two film festivals.
Before being asked to develop UCLA's Producers Program in 1987, he devoted nearly 20 years to developing and chairing UCLA's program in film history, theory, and criticism, including creating and chairing the Ph.D. program in film and television. He was also a member of The National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, which selects 25 films each year for national recognition and preservation.
Suber was the Director and one of the founders of the UCLA Film Archive, which became the largest such institutional collection outside the Library of Congress during his tenure.
