There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it
Born in Leytonstone, East London. My father was a greengrocer. When I was five, he sent me to the local police station with a note. The officer locked me in a cell for ten minutes and said, 'This is what we do to naughty boys.' I have been afraid of the police -- and fascinated by fear -- ever since. I studied engineering at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation, then worked at Henley's drawing title cards for silent films. Tip: The difference between suspense and surprise is information. Surprise is a bomb going off. Suspense is showing the audience the bomb under the table while the characters eat lunch. I made 53 films. Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, The Birds. Francois Truffaut spent a week interviewing me -- that book taught more about filmmaking than most film schools. I never won a Best Director Oscar. That tells you everything about the Oscars.
Film Directing
Art · 55y
Suspense & Thriller Craft
Art · 55y
Storyboarding
Art · 50y
Screenwriting
Art · 50y
I'll teach you to terrify an audience without showing them anything. We study the shower scene in Psycho (70 cuts, no knife-on-skin contact), the crop duster in North by Northwest (silence is scarier ...
€35 per_session
I planned every frame before we rolled camera. By the time we shot, the film was already made -- the set was just a formality. We'll storyboard a five-minute suspense sequence from your script. Every ...
€28 per_session
The definitive book on filmmaking. Truffaut asked me 500 questions over five days. Every answer is a masterclass. This is the first American edition, 1967. Dog-eared at the Vertigo chapter because eve...
€5 per_day
Bernard Herrmann wrote the Psycho strings, the Vertigo spirals, and the North by Northwest overture. Without his music, my films are half as terrifying. We study how music creates dread, release, and ...
€20 per_session
Cards, prompts, and exercises for creating compelling plot devices. The MacGuffin is the thing the characters care about but the audience doesn't -- it's the excuse for the story, not the story itself...
€3 per_day
Exported from BorrowHood · 2026-03-10