An essential text on filmmaking that every student, scholar, and teacher of films should own. In it, some of the motion picture industry's most important directors including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Howard Hawks, Louis Malle, Federico Fellini, Blake Edwards, Francois Truffaut, and René Clair answer questions on the decisions that all directors must make before filming a movie, questions that help the reader understand the concept of filmmaking. They cover all aspects of filmmaking including script choices, planning, casting, actor choices, editing, rehearsing, and music scoring. Garnett also elicited vital information on the directors' source of inspiration, how they started their career, their philosophy of filmmaking, and their objectives for making their films.