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The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit
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88/99
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About This Book
From the award-winning screenwriter and director of cult classic Bull Durham, the extremely entertaining behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film, and an insightful primer on the art and business of moviemaking. Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely revered as the best sports movie of all time. But back in 1987, Ron Shelton was a first-time director and no one was willing to finance a movie about baseball--especially a story set in the minors. The jury was still out on Kevin Costner's leading-man potential, while Susan Sarandon was already a has-been. There were doubts. But something miraculous happened, and The Church of Baseball attempts to capture why. From organizing a baseball camp for the actors and rewriting key scenes while on set, to dealing with a short production schedule and overcoming the challenge of filming the sport, Shelton brings to life the making of this beloved American movie. Shelton explains the rarely revealed ins and outs of moviemaking, from a film's inception and financing, screenwriting, casting, the nuts and bolts of directing, the postproduction process, and even through its release. But this is also a book about baseball and its singular romance in the world of sports. Shelton spent six years in the minor leagues before making this film, and his experiences resonate throughout this book. Full of wry humor and insight, The Church of Baseball tells the remarkable story behind an iconic film.
Reviews
"A down-and-dirty account of how the unlikely 1988 classic was conceived, made and sold, soup to nuts, from idealistic plans to corporate reality."
"Shelton's book illuminates the centrality of that universal passage."
"There's plenty of the inside-the-movie revelations that making-of fans crave, about the film's stars ..."
"Shelton has been in the movie business for a long time, and he has the exasperation with studio decisions to show for it."
"Told purely from the creator's perspective, this book is a lively, witty master class in screenwriting and film direction, much in the cheeky spirit of Bull Durham ..."
"The author, who displays sheer, unadulterated love for his subject, also delivers a savvy, unusually informative tutorial on how to take a motion picture from the concept stage to script development, casting, production, and post-production."
"Shelton goes into great detail about the post-production work, as the movie team and studio executives argue endlessly about which scenes to include and which to cut."
"Shelton's writing voice is clear and good-humored, and while nothing groundbreaking, the book embodies the vintage wistfulness and romance that the movie continues to represent."
"And the creativity continued during the actual filming, the editing, the music, the costumes and all the other stuff that goes into making a movie."
"The more pages I dog-ear, the more compelling I found the book."
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