Screenlife. In Search of a New Language of Cinema

In 2015, a Hollywood film was released that changed perceptions about how cinema can be made: in the thriller "Unfriend" everything that the viewers saw was on a computer screen. The action of the film unfolded on a desktop among folders and open tabs on the internet, social media, and search engines. The idea of transferring our life on the screens of devices—computers and smartphones—into cinema was conceived by director and producer Timur Bekmambetov, who also coined the name of the new film format—screenlife. Since then, films in this new format have raised tens of millions of dollars at the global box office and received awards at the most prestigious film festivals in the world—from Berlinale to Sundance. In this book, the ideologist of screenlife, Timur Bekmambetov, along with his Russian and Hollywood colleagues, will explain how to create cinema on the screen of your computer and phone—from the idea and script to shooting and editing.