It's a comprehensive step-by-step overview of how to complete a low-budget short film and get it shown. It discusses how to write a short script, prepare it for production with a scene breakdown or storyboard, direct the film or work with a director, audition and cast the actors, participate in the shoot, work with an editor, and promote your film.
Anyone can make a short film, right? Just grab some friends and your handheld and you can do it in a weekend or two before being accepted to a slew of film festivals, right? Wrong. Roberta Munroe screened short film submissions at Sundance for five years, and is an award-winning short filmmaker in her own right. So she knows a thing or two about how not to make a short film. From the first draft of your script to casting, production, editing, and distribution, this is your one-stop primer for breaking into the business. Featuring interviews with many of today's most talented writers, producers, and directors, as well as revealing stories (e.g., what to do when the skinhead crack addict next door begins screaming obscenities as soon as you call "action") from the sets of her own short films, Roberta walks you through the minefield of mistakes that an aspiring filmmaker can make--so that you don't have to make them yourself.
Named One of The Hollywood Reporter’s “100 Greatest Film Books of All Time” Famed independent screenwriter and director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Spy Kids, Machete) discloses all the unique strategies and original techniques he used to make his remarkable debut film El Mariachi on a shoestring budget. This is both one man's remarkable story and an essential guide for anyone who has a celluloid story to tell and the dreams and determination to see it through. Part production diary, part how-to manual, Rodriguez unveils how he was able to make his influential first film on only a $7,000 budget. Also included is the appendix, "The Ten Minute Film Course,” a tell-all on how to save thousands of dollars on film school and teach yourself the ropes of film production, directing, and screenwriting. A perfect gift for the aspiring filmmaker.
Filmmaking the definitive resource for filmmakers, blows the doors off the secretive film industry and shows you how to adapt the Hollywood system for your production. Full of thousands of tips, tricks, and techniques from Emmy-winning director Jason Tomaric, Filmmaking systematically takes you through every step of how to produce a successful movie - from developing a marketable idea through selling your completed movie. Whether you're on a budget of $500 or $50 million, Filmmaking reveals some of Hollywood's best-kept secrets. Make your movie and do it right. The companion site includes: Over 30 minutes of high-quality video tutorials featuring over a dozen working Hollywood professionals. Industry-standard forms and contracts you can use for your production Sample scripts, storyboards, schedules, call sheets, contracts, letters from the producer, camera logs, and press kits 45-minute video that takes you inside the movie that launched Jason's career. 3,000 extras, 48 locations, 650 visual effects-all made from his parent's basement for $25,000.
"Discover vital insider tips on producing movies with a micro budget! Covering both tried and true filmmaking techniques as well as insight on marketing, selling, and distributing your film, Raindance Producers' Lab, Second Edition is the ultimate independent filmmaker's guide to producing movies. This edition has been updated to include: fresh features on low-budget, high quality video cameras, including new digital camera options such as DSLRAn extensive selection of new case studies and interviews with industry talents such as Ewan McGregor, Ate de Jong, James Youngs, Joe Pavlo, Martin Myers, Rolin Heap, and more; essential advice on how to make the web work for you and promote your films through Twitter, Facebook and other social media platformsAll new postproduction workflows. A companion website (www.lotonobudgetfilmmaking.com) providing all the contracts and material you need to run a production company and make successful low budget movies. The verdict is in: if you're looking for a clear-cut, no-nonsense approach to micro-budget filmmaking and producing, Elliot Grove's wealth of teaching and filmmaking experience combined with winning formulas for marketing and promotion make this book a must-have one-stop shop for filmmakers! "--
Lloyd Kaufman, the writer/producer/director of such cult-classic films as The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke 'Em High, and Tromeo and Juliet, offers a guide to movie-making unlike any other available anywhere. In 25 years, Kaufman, along with partner Michael Herz, has built Troma Studios up from a company struggling to find its voice in a field crowded with competitors to its current--and legendary--status as a lone survivor, a bastion of true cinematic independence, and the world's greatest collection of camp on film. As entertaining and funny as it is informative and insightful, Make Your Own Damn Movie! places Kaufman's radically low-budget, independent-studio style of filmaking directly in the reader's hands. Thus we learn how to: develop and write a knock-out screenplay; raise funding; find locations and cast actors; hire a crew; obtain equipment, permits, and music rights (all for little or no money); make incredible special effects for $0.79 each; charm, schmooze, and network while on the film-festival circuit; and, finally, make a bad actor act so bad it's actually good. From scriptwriting and directing to financing and marketing, this book is brimming with utterly off-the-wall, decidedly maverick, yet consistently proven advice on how to fully develop one's idea for an independent film.
Documentary films have enjoyed a huge resurgence over the last few years, and there's a new generation of filmmakers wanting to get involved. In addition, the digital revolution has made documentaries even more accessible to the general filmmaker. Documentary films can now be shot professionally using cheaper equipment, and smaller cameras enable the documentarian to be less intrusive and therefore more intimate in the subjects' lives. With an increasing number of documentaries making it to the big screen (and enjoying ongoing sales on DVD), the time is right for an information-packed handbook that will guide new filmmakers towards potential artistic and commercial success. The Documentary Film Makers Handbook features incisive and helpful interviews with dozens of industry professionals, on subjects as diverse as interview techniques, the NBC News Archive, music rights, setting up your own company, the Film Arts Foundation, pitching your proposal, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Documentary Channel, the British Film Council, camera hire, filmmaking ethics, working with kids, editing your documentary, and DVD distribution. The book also includes in-depth case studies of some of the most successful and acclaimed documentary films of recent years, including Mad Hot Ballroom, Born Into Brothels, Touching the Void, Beneath the Veil,and Amandla! The Documentary Film Makers Handbook will be an essential resource for anyone who wants to know more about breaking into this exciting field.
This approach, honed after years of on-set experience and from teaching at UCLA, NYU, and Columbia, and endorsed by many in the industry, including director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and producer/actor Edward Asner, aims to provide a helpful reference and resource for directors and actors alike. It combines underlying theory with dozens of exercises designed to reveal the actor's craft. There is material on constructing the throughline; analyzing the script; character needs; the casting and rehearsal processes; film vs. theater procedures as well as the actor and the camera. Distilling difficult concepts and a complex task to their simplest form, the author explains how to accurately capture and portray human behavior. The author's discussion of creative problems she has encountered or anticipated after years of experience, and her suggested solutions and exercises, are immediately useful. Additionally, hear what the actors have to say in excerpts from interviews with such acclaimed actors as Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Glenn Close, Robert Redford, Christopher Walken, Julianne Moore, and Michael Douglas (to name a few) who discuss their work with directors, what inspires them, and what they really want from the director.
