Tennessee Williams on Stage & Screen in New York -Festival Begins December 9th
Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder - Coming in February
5 Chillers in the Universal Cult Horror Collection on DVD
Robert Redford in Downhill Racer on DVD
Ballast - Lance Hammer's Critically Acclaimed Drama
Z - Costa-Gavras's Oscar-winning Thriller on DVD

Noted Actor Martin Landau, Director Mark Rydell and Writer Lyle Kessler to Offer The "Total Picture Seminar" at UCLA on Inter-relationship of Actors/Writers/Directors

Academy Award winning actor Martin Landau, Oscar®-nominated director Mark Rydell and noted playwright/screenwriter Lyle Kessler, who have more than a century of leadership of the Actors Studio program between them, will conduct the Total Picture Seminar, an immersion course in the inter-relationship of the three critical disciplines of narrative film-making.. writing, acting and directing.. on November 14 and 15 at UCLA. Landau, multiple Oscar nominee and winner for "Ed Wood," stated that "while the three individual disciplines are skillfully taught in various educational venues, this is the first immersion seminar in how they interplay in the creative process, an imperative aspect in the success of projects and of careers."

Rydell and Landau have been directors (along with the late Sidney Pollack) of Actors Studio West since the late sixties and Kessler, also prominent in the Actors Studio program, has been Director of the Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

"While there are ample instructions in the skills of each discipline, no one has taught the even more complex ways in which actors, writers and directors can collaborate on the most artistically rewarding level," notes Rydell, whose Oscar nominated directorial career includes "On Golden Pond," "The Rose" and "The Cowboys."

Kessler, whose stage plays and screenplays have been directed by such talents as Alan Pakula and Gary Sinese and acted by Al Pacino, Albert Finney, Danny Glover, Cuba Gooding Jr., Brian Dennehy, Mathew Modine and others, said, "While film-making has long been hailed as a collaborative art, this is the first effort to teach the fine art of collaborating in these three disciplines which have been the basis of drama for two and a half millennia and over a century of narrative film-making."

The program will be "as active and interactive as is the process of film production," Landau added, with full active participation in the creation and filming of a series of five minute, two character plays to be supplied by writer students in the course, to be filmed by one of the industry's top cinematographers.

Professionals and students in each of the crafts can explore participation in the seminar on the www.thetotalpictureseminar.com website. Fee for the two day event is $250