Book Soup hosts Robert Relyea on Sept. 10

Relyea was assistant director on The Alamo

Robert E. Relyea, a fifty-year veteran of the movie industry and assistant director on John Wayne's The Alamo, will appear at a world famous book store on the Sunset Strip this month to promote his new action-packed autobiography.

The two-hour signing will take place 7 p.m. Wednesday, September 10 at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Relyea will be signing copies of Not So Quiet On The Set: My Life In Movies During Hollywood’s Macho Era, which promises to become a must read for anyone who yearns to know the “real” stories about the movies.

Co-authored by son Craig Relyea, Not So Quiet On The Set provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes, first person look into Hollywood’s movie-making landscape during the turbulent pre-and post-Kennedy years in America. The book also chronicles Relyea’s relationship with John Wayne on the set of The Alamo, one of the icon's most enduring films.

Tidbits include:

• The Duke's explosive temperament, who dispensed with the pleasantries when it came to dealing with demanding fans.

• The time when Wayne punched a horse for biting him on the backside. The force of the star's punch brought the animal to its knees.

• How co-star Richard Widmark wanted to go toe-to-toe with Wayne after he called Widmark a “little son of a bitch.”

• Setting up the film's final battle sequence, which required thousands of extras and took more than a month to shoot.

The 348-page work includes candid photos of Relyea on the sets of epic films and presents rare insights into the mechanics and politics of filmmaking, defining a dynamic period in motion picture history. A unique collaboration between father and son, Not So Quiet On The Set not only illustrates how the movie industry really works, but also provides a revealing portrait of Hollywood’s loss of innocence.

For more information, go to www.booksoup.com or www.NotSoQuietOnTheSet.com.

Christopher Keane finds the passion

Get Keane on passion

When a new or veteran screenwriter comes to me for help, the first question I ask is this:

What's the story you need to tell?

The question goes right to the heart of the writer's passion, which to me is the crucial ingredient in any script. After twenty years writing and teaching in the movie business, I can tell the difference between someone's passion to write a story and a mild interest in getting into the industry.

What about the changing face of the movie business — in The New Hollywood? Bring your passion, yes, but the rules have changed. Hollywood draws from the provinces. Studio pictures fail where scripts from beyond Hollywood's borders prevail. Why? And how? And why are so-called smaller movies drawing top actors and directors, paying the big dollars, winning the big awards?

In The New Hollywood, subject matter defies industry convention and wisdom. While the top producers wrangle for big budget features, everyone else climbs outside the Hollywood box looking for dynamic product.

How do you tap that source? Why are story preparation and story beats the driving forces behind great scripts? How do you NOT fall into the flat character hole? How do capitalize on your own passion for a story, rather than derivative junk, to bring your script home?

When Kyle Rankin (co-director of 2003's Project Greenlight, shooting this spring in Austin, Texas) walked into my class four years ago, a fire burned. Kyle had a story to tell. He wanted to get the story out, and in class he did, and now he's launched a career.

It's all about passion and canniness and paying attention to a changing Hollywood. Kyle didn't write the movie he thought Hollywood might want to see. He wrote the story he needed to tell. He had the passion and I had the tools to help him turn the story into a knockout screenplay, which he then made into a movie.

I bring the same tools to my Script Analysis and into my Screenwriting Workshops. You bring the passion and I'll bring the nuts and bolts and together we'll build the world of your screenplay.

Unlike some teachers who do not write for the movie business, I am a working screenwriter. I'm currently writing a script for Samuel L. Jackson. I just finished an action comedy optioned by Michael Schiffer's Ballpark Productions. I had a series on last year off one of my books (The Huntress USA Network). And when all this is cleared out, there's a family-in-crisis story I'm dying to write.

If you've got the passion to tell a story that lives within you, bring it and we'll find a way to make it happen.

For more information on Christopher Keane's now book Romancing the A-List, go to www.keanewords.com or www.amazon.com.