Drawing upon his own creativity and experience as a Director or Director of Photography on more than thirty films, David Worth lets his imagination run wild in The Citizen Kane Crash Course in Cinematography. The result? One of the most fascinating books you'll ever read about filmmaking. Written mostly in screenplay format, the story focuses on how legendary cinematographer Gregg Toland taught “Boy Wonder” Orson Welles all he needed to know about cinematography before Welles began shooting Citizen Kane. It's a fun and enlightening read!

Scheduled for publication in September of 2008, this unusual book is Worth’s fictional account of interactions between Toland and Welles  after Welles asked Toland to teach him all about the Art of Cinematography. “It only took half an hour,” Welles would later tell his admirers – but, of course, it took longer.

Taking readers back to that important weekend in 1940, Worth opens his tale at the RKO Commissary after lunch on a Friday afternoon. Toland shows his newly won Oscar statuette (for Wuthering Heights) to Welles, who’s still eating. Welles tells Toland he’ll have THREE of them “by this time next year” and invites the cinematographer to join him at his table. Toland insists he can help Welles become the great American Director. “I know nothing about filmmaking … I’ve got a big ego and a bigger IQ, I’m a quick study and I want you to teach me what you know,” Welles replies.

Toland insists he can teach Welles everything about cinematography in two days, so the deal is set. They meet over the weekend in  Welles’ Presidential Suite at the famed Beverly Hills Hotel. But not before a bit of carousing at three of Welles’ favorite hot spots: the Brown Derby Restaurant, the Musso & Frank Grill and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Readers interested in cinematography should certainly be pleased with the information Toland relates to Welles during their weekend together, especially his use of Madame Gaylord’s lookalike stars as models for various types of lighting and shots. But it’s the insider tidbits about movie stars and events of that era which make this book so interesting to film fans like me. Where did Clark Gable propose to Carole Lombard? How glamorous was the first Academy Awards presentation? What was the favorite watering hole of the founders and inventors of the language of motion pictures -- including such film giants as D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and John Ford?

Dramatic illustrations by Muse Greaterson enhance the artistry of this book, and the Appendix contains valuable resources about cinematography as well as more details concerning Toland and Welles. However, the author issues an appropriate warning to readers. “This is an R-rated story and if you are easily offended it may even be X-rated,” Worth admits. “It uses the coarse language that is normal for many movie sets and film crews and depicts the kinds of attitudes toward woman that existed … in the pre-Civil Rights world of Hollywood in the 1940s.”

With his impressive and entertaining first book, Worth succeeds in helping readers understand the art of cinematography as well as its contributions to quality motion pictures.       

This is the biggest electric train set a boy ever had! -- Orson Welles

(The Citizen Kane Crash Course in Cinematography is published by Michael Wiese Productions. For more information, please go to www.mwp.com or to  www.davidworthfilm.com.)