Product Description

These are just some of the questions you'll find answered in The Complete Guide to Making a Movie. All filmmakers need to understand each and every step of the production process. This guide walks you through the entire production process, from preproduction to postproduction, including a, step-by-step listing of the duties and responsibilities of each crew member. A clear understanding of how the budget level of a production will impact the production process is emphasized throughout. Ultimately, readers gain a clear understanding of each step of the production process and how these processes can differ depending on the budget.

The Complete Guide to Making a Movie discusses both the process involved in making a film or video, along with the various people filmmakers will encounter in each area. These include:

* Budgeting

* Script breakdown and scheduling

* The production team and office

* The director's team

* Casting and actors

* The art, camera, and sound departments

* Special effects

* Wardrobe, makeup and hair

* Locations and the transportation department

* Production and editing

* Music and titles

A FREE one-of-a-kind CD contains many of the production forms movie and video makers will encounter. Blank versions of every form mentioned in the text are included, helping readers put what they have learned in the text into practice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #431305 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 293 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780205507221
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Lorene M. Wales spent 10 years working in the feature film industry on such films as UHF starring weird Al Yankovic, Firebirds starring Nicholas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones, The Cemetery Club starring Diane Ladd, Olympia Dukakis and Ellen Burstyn and Money for Nothing starring John Cusack, including over 20 low and medium budget features. She is currently chair of the Cinema-Television department at Regent University. In addition to producing films and teaching film and video production, Dr. Wales continues to work professionally, having produced a short film, On the Edge, which won a Bronze award at the Houston International Film Festival as well as a Faculty Merit award for the University Film and Video Association.

Customer Reviews

Good information, bad writing
This book explains the nuts-and-bolts of film production. It contains a lot of good information, but is one of the worst-written nonfiction books I have ever read. The author, who has only 2 credits on the IMDB, knows her stuff, but she apparently didn't know enough to work with a ghostwriter.

For example, every time she has occasion to use the pronouns "he" or "she," she uses both! I am not kidding here, folks. Throughout the ENTIRE book, she uses the phrase "he or she" every time possible! This, and other choices she made in writing style, has the effect of making her book read like a government manual.

So, if it's information you crave, get this book. She doesn't cover everything, and some of her knowledge seems more academic than practical (she's a teacher -- I feel horrified for her students if she teaches the way she writes), but there is no other single source I know of that contains detailed descriptions of all the jobs on a movie production, including the less glamorous but necessary ones like Production Office Coordinator.

But be prepared to read it in very small doses, because her writing style will make you gag.

Oh, and astonishingly, she list real names, addresses, and phone numbers of cast and crew members from a shoot she did! I was aghast. She and her publisher should be expecting lawsuits soon, I would imagine, when the people listed in her book get wind of it.

Here's a quote to give an example of her sloth-like writing style: "The best boy electric is the person who works directly under and assists the gaffer. He or she is also in charge of the lighting truck and is responsible for the lighting inventory. To do this he or she completes frequent inventories of all the lights and lighting equipment to ensure nothing is lost or, if something is damaged, that it is returned."

Any English major could reduce that paragraph to half it size and make it twice as readable, not to mention correct the punctuation.

But, again, no other book offers this info. So if you need to know, then this is the only source to drink in all that knowledge, foul-tasting as it may be.

OUTSTANDING, simple, concise, clear, complete information.
My friends and I are making a film and all three of us bought this book. We've began referring to it as "The Book" because there seems to be no question it doesn't address. The included CD with ALL the forms you will ever need is a great addition. Get this book and make your movie!! The world needs more independent productions to get out true, honest messages!

Textbook Quality!
This book is super detailed in its step by step approach to Moviemaking, yet not too over technical that you have to be a rocket scientist to get it. Taking you throught the process one one level at a time, if you follow the steps in this guide you can't go wrong!