Books on Film

Ivete Lucas

Filmmaking book: On Writing by Stephen King: King's work is very structured, but he doesn't think about structure when he writes. He starts with an engaging premise and lets the story flow out of him first. That's very similar to what I do as a director/editor in my documentary work. Shooting and editing is my way of crafting a story. And even though I'm making docs, I want them to flow like fiction.

Influential book: Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar: One of the most important books in Latin American literature. The story is told in chapters that you can read through like a regular book, or follow directions and skip from chapter to chapter, hence the name. This book blew my mind in so many different ways. It showed me that there's more than one way to tell a story, that stories are like puzzles that you put together, and that if you move one part of the puzzle to the beginning or near the end, everything changes. I apply that to my editing a lot.

Favorite Adaptation: The Shining: If I could revive Stanley Kubrick, I would. The magic that happened when they combined Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson, and Shelley Duvall can never be replicated. No remakes Hollywood, please!

Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan's latest film is "The Send-Off," which recently took home Best Short Doc at the San Francisco International Film Festival.