Friday, September 17, 2021


Karina Longworth's Contact Sheet Book a Must for Film Fans

If you're a film fan, then the name Karina Longworth is likely very familiar to you. She produces and hosts the unique podcast entitled "You Must Remember This," which regularly delves into the Golden Age of Hollywood and tells stories, some of which aren't particularly well-known, about its famous denizens--actors, actresses, directors, screenwriters, and others.

In 2014, Longworth published a very interesting book entitled Hollywood Frame By Frame, which is a collection of contact sheets and photos shot by set photographers. Contact sheets, in the days before digital photography, were created by printing strips of film onto photographic paper. These contact sheets gave publicists, art directors and others at-a-glance images that could be used in marketing and publicizing films. Every set had--and has--a still photographer around to capture key moments during shooting.

In Longworth's book, she focuses on films made between 1951 and 1997, and covers many of the classic films from that era, as separated into a few categories. By flipping through the book, the reader/viewer gets a time capsule of the making of those films as seen through the set photographers' lenses. What's kind of fun is that the sequences of photos capture some fun and funny moments between serious poses. It's sort of a backstage pass to the world of moviemaking, and in this case, some of the biggest blockbusters of the time.

The book is available as a downloadable ebook from Apple iBooks at only $3.99. But you can also get a traditional edition via Amazon.

Just go to https://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Frame-Unseen-Contact-1951-1997/dp/1616892595/ref=asc_df_1616892595/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=316665678877&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14676371902271821733&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9052774&hvtargid=pla-491760528849&psc=1.