May 212013
The Complete Film Production Handbook
This book is for working film/TV professionals and students alike. If you’re a line producer, production manager, production supervisor, assistant director or production coordinator–the book has everything you’ll need (including all the forms, contracts, releases and checklists) to set up and run a production–from finding a production office to turning over delivery elements. Even if you know what you’re doing, you will be thrilled to find everything you need in one place. If you’re not alread
List Price: $ 59.95
Price: $ 46.23
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Extremely Important and Essential. THE COMPLETE FILM PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 4TH ED.: A Critical Review.,
For the better part of 15 long years, I have been looking for a singular film industry book that I could use to help create a budget for a business plan. There are many, many books on the techniques of filmmaking, theatrical, animation and documentary filmmaking. (As a matter of fact, Focal Press produces, in my opinion, the best titles in the industry.)
There are also industry-related books on marketing and financing. But, with the exception of Attorney Mark Litwak’s publications, there hasn’t been a book that provides all of the necessities to actually breakdown a script to dollars and cents, nor is there a book that helps you to allocate resources for specific and specialized areas within the production. And, provide the forms necessary to contract out certain services. But, within the pages of this book, it is all here, including original copies of SAG forms.
This book, THE COMPLETE FILM PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 4TH ED., is so much more than that. It is a 500+ page resource book/manual/insider info that is an expansive and an exhaustive handbook that has literally hundreds of various forms, outlines, releases and confidentially -agreement forms that are used in every major production in the United States.
Chapter Highlights:
+ Ch. 1. The Production Team and Who Does What.
+ Ch. 3. Basic Accounting
+ Ch. 4. From Script to Schedule
+ Ch. 5. Incentives (tax-related discounts)
+ Ch. 6. Pre-Production
+ Ch. 7. Insurance Requirements
+ Ch. 9. Building Strong Industry Relations/ Making Good Deals/ Navigating the Politics
+ Ch. 11. Unions and Guilds
+ Ch. 15. Clearances and Releases
+ Ch. 16. A Guide to Music Clearances
+ Ch. 18- Ch. 21 Locations/ Travel & Housing
+ Ch. 24. Television
+ Ch. 25- 26. Independent Filmmaking
+ Ch. 28 Commercial Production (Bidding on projects)
+ Ch. 29- 30. Wrap and Post Production
+ Ch. 32 Industry Survival Tips
THE COMPLETE FILM PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 4TH ED, is an indispensable tool for anyone interested or working in the entertainment industry. This is a well-researched, well-written and fully documented publication. It is a repository of forms, rules and inspirational insights that is, in my humble opinion, undeniably essential. This book comes with my highest recommendation.
THIS IS A MUST-OWN BOOK. 5 gargantuan stars.
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|A comprehensive compendium of very useful and up to date film production information…,
“The Complete Film Production Handbook” covers all the basics of film production and distribution. It explains in succinct detail the various stages of organizing logistics, pre-production, actors, sets, effects, insurance, hiring trades and crew, making talent contracts, understanding union rules and pay grades, understanding the array and nature of current distribution and revenue streams, script breakdown, scheduling, equipment rentals, location problems and rules, budgeting, costs and so forth.
The technology of film making has seen tremendous change in recent years — film to digital, home video theaters, 3D, digital visual effects and vastly upgraded sound are the most obvious. The distribution of films has also become vastly more complex, with almost limitless venues for showing, consuming and purchasing filmed content.
However, the core process of organizing and completing a film production has changed little over the years, so much so that someone who had beamed down from, say MGM in 1939, could readily understand what was going on today and get right to work. Nevertheless, books aimed at educating beginners, students and would be producers or directors on how to organize and make a film abound, and have been a staple of film education for decades.
Film production is one of those things that, once learned, seems obvious and repetitive to experienced Hollywood professionals. But, much like an aspiring cook needs lessons on basic techniques, so as to make countless recipes using the same trick or combination over and over, a aspiring film producer needs to know how all the parts fit together and are executed. In this way the “The Complete Film Production Handbook” is an excellent choice.
Old hands may skim the book and say: “But what about…” and “They didn’t mention…” and “how could they suggest this and that is so simple when it’s not…” and so forth. But you have to start somewhere, and “The Complete Film Production Handbook” is an excellent guide and reference.
“The Complete Film Production Handbook” is a comprehensive compendium of very useful and up to date film production information. RECOMMENDED.
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|Do not buy Kindle version of this book,
I am rating this version (Kindle) one star, though the book does not deserve such a low rating. This is one of the worst eBook implementations I have seen.
- There is no table of contents
- The forms, on Kindle for Mac, are nearly illegible, and on Kindle of iPad/iPhone clumsy and cumbersome to the point of near-uselessness
How can a technical manual of 544 pages not include a Table of Contents in its eBook? It makes it nearly impossible to navigate, especially when wanting to refer to or brush up on specific areas of production.
The author provides dozens of templates for basing production documents on which can save many people lots of time and expense, but all this work is for naught if we can’t read them (or it’s very difficult to). Kindle for Mac does not even allow clicking on these forms to expand them. A number of them are literally illegible, even on a 23″ monitor. I attempted to use the Zoom function in Kindle for Mac, but it is not enabled for this eBook.
Whoever oversaw this eBook implementation clearly did not care for their readers enough to put themselves in their shoes. Buyer beware.
Purchase the paperback version and this may actually be a useful, helpful resource for you.
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