Film Business Production

Today's most acclaimed film directors reveal intimate behind-the-scenes details of their most influential work and their unique approaches to their art. In the companion to the Silver Plaque-winning Starz/Encore documentary series, this book offers interviews with 13 top filmmakers. Contains each director's filmography, complete listings of major awards, and cast credits for all films discussed.

10 Keys to Making a Low-Cost Documentary Feature describes a low-cost approach for producing a feature-length documentary with a budget under $50,000. It features an approach I have used that combines interviews with interviewees and experts along with B-roll shots of activities to use with voice-overs from the interviews. It also suggests ways to find interviewees, obtain funding for the film, and more.The book is formatted like a journal, so readers can write down their ideas for what to do after reading each tip.

Hollywood produces its on-screen heroes to take crucial steps to achieve their goals, and often against all odds. These same principles can be applied to anything you are seeking to accomplish or improve in your own story or life. Recognizing and following these proven and tested, cinematic stages of the hero's transformation will help you exponentially upgrade your process, mindset, awareness, and ultimately fine-tune your purpose.

In the book, you'll learn everything you need to know about AFM. What badge to buy, what projects to bring, what printed materials you need, and all important etiquette tips for maximizing your success at the American film market. Producers need to understand distribution to find success, and this guide is a primer for the most reliable way American filmmakers can find traditional, non-DIY distribution.

10 Tips for Promoting a Local Screening of Your Film describes some ways to promote a local screening. It suggests different promotional strategies for putting on your own event or helping an organization promote your screening. Then, the audiobook focuses on how to use Eventbrite and Meetup to sign-up attendees and receive advance payments. The audiobook is formatted like a journal, so listeners can write down their ideas for what to do after reading each tip.

10 Tips for Making a Final to Do List for Distributing Your Film summarizes the key tasks to do to successfully distribute your film. It features key marketing and promotion tasks, such as creating a poster, trailer, and press materials, setting up a website or page on your website for the film, making arrangements with a website, and more. The book is part of a series of short books, in which each book features tips and techniques for becoming more successful in the film industry.

10 Legal Basics for Producing a Feature Film or Documentary describes the major legal documentaries you need to produce a feature-length film or documentary. It covers the basics of getting a fictitious name, filing for a copyright, obtaining E&O and other types of insurance, creating release forms for actors, interviewees, crew members, and other film participants, and much more.

Whether it is a director insisting on a final cut, a star demanding a bigger motor home, a producer holding the line on a budget, or a grip with a gripe, it seems that the world of moviemaking is nothing but Sturm und Drang. Shoot Out presents a raucous look at how movies get made and the players involved, from writers, producers, directors, and stars to agents and marketers. For film buffs, aspiring filmmakers, students, and anyone else intrigued by the inner workings of Hollywood, this is the quintessential take on the how, who, what, and why of the film business.

Harry Cohn was the cofounder and president of Columbia Pictures, which he ran from the 1930s through the 1950s. Cohn—who abhorred personal publicity—left no writings, made no speeches, and rarely submitted to interviews. Despite this, acclaimed biographer Bob Thomas brilliantly illuminates the life of the powerful but elusive studio head in King Cohn: The Life and Times of Hollywood Mogul Harry Cohn. Thomas details the studio head's rise from a New York City song-plugger to a Poverty Row impresario, highlighting his reign as one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

More than 85 years after his untimely death at just age 37, Irving Thalberg remains a legendary Hollywood figure. Called the “Boy Wonder of Hollywood,” Thalberg quickly climbed the ranks at MGM studios to become one of the most powerful and high-profile producers of the time, elevating filmmaking to an art form. In this definitive biography, Bob Thomas brings Thalberg's legend to life, recounting how the producer's remarkable talent for developing stars and scripts led to the creation of beloved movies such as Ben-Hur, Romeo and Juliet, and Camille.

In Vitagraph, Andrew A. Erish provides a comprehensive examination and reassessment of the company most responsible for defining and popularizing the American movie. This history challenges long-accepted Hollywood mythology that simply isn't true: that Paramount and Fox invented the feature film, that Universal created the star system, and that these companies, along with MGM and Warner Bros., developed motion pictures into a multimillion-dollar business.