Cross-posted from Sentient Cinema
It’s very hard to get a grasp on all the things that one needs to do for a production. Luckily, there are some great resources out there. I thought it’d be helpful to others to put together a short list of all the books and sites that have been useful for me, especially in these beginning stages. This first part will detail what I’ve used to learn about the wonderful, crazed life of film production. My next will be on resources that have helped me as a writer.
The Independent Film Producer’s Survival Guide - This book is great for getting into nitty-gritty legal detail. For a book written by lawyers, it is highly accessible and takes you not only through the essentials of dealmaking and setting up your production but also discusses marketing, online distribution, and various other matters of interest geared specifically to indepedent filmmakers.
The Complete Film Production Handbook - Whereas the previous book is heavy on the legal side, this one covers the essentials of actual production. It’s a great reference with easy to copy example forms and is a wonderful compliment to the Survival Guide.
Fans, Friends, and Followers - Scott Kirsner (of Cinematech – http://cinematech.blogspot.com/)’s great book. He interviews artists that have tweaked the system of marketing themselves and their products. My first time through, I took two pages of notes – not only from the book but of new marketing ideas that seemed to explode in my head, triggered by the insights Kirsner and his interviewees provide. There’s millions of voices out there struggling to be heard and these creatives created singular ones for themselves to noticed above the masses. Though slim, the book forces you to ask yourself “How will you be heard?”
Scenechronize - I read about this in one of the books above and tried it out. It’s free, web-based production software that, so far, has been amazingly easy to use and understand. We have created strip boards and breakdowns from it without trouble and hope to take advantage of its other features when we get closer to production.
Hope for Film -
http://blogs.indiewire.com/tedhope/
- Ted Hope’s blog, now hosted at Indiewire, has been a great inspiration since I began reading it. He really is on the forefront of challenging the film community to higher standards and utilizing the myriad opportunities we all have these days to go out and tell our stories.
Filmmaker Magazine -
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/
- I’ve also gotten a lot of good advice and examples from articles these folks post on their blog. Well worth subscribing to their feed.
Auteur’s Notebook -
http://mubi.com/notebook/
- Not a fan of the name but the blog is a great way to keep on what is happening in film worldwide as well as letting you know what new films mubi is hosting for free from festivals everywhere.
Self-Reliant Film -
http://www.selfreliantfilm.com/
- Updated infrequently but always informative and inspiring.
Promotion:
Of course, we’re using our handy-dandy blog to help inform and motivate others but we have other ways to that you can follow along with our progress:
Sentient Cinema’s Facebook Page.
And Sentient Cinema has its very own Twitter account as well:
That’s all for now. Until next time…
-JM
