Within 24 Hours

I returned all but two of those horror movie books. I’ve set down the book by Roger Corman but I’ll pick it up once I’m done with the Lloyd Kaufman book which really grabbed me and I’m absolutely loving. All the others were just some guy or girl making a list of movies and giving their opinion. Seriously, who wants to read that? I can sit around with my friends (if I had any) and do that. The Roger Corman didn’t grab me as quickly because there’s a bunch of bio in the beginning I really wasn’t that interested in (except – did you know he’s from Detroit?!) but the Kaufman book dives right into the how-to stuff. Very detailed, very made for the very poor and/or beginning filmmaker. I’ve read some really good books on the subject and this is easily the best. I thought it would be interesting and entertaining. I had no idea how informative and educational it would be. Here’s a list of my favorite “young filmmaker” books besides Make Your Own Damn Movie (buy all of them and you don’t need any others):

• Rebel Without A Crew by Robert Rodriguez
• Digital Filmmaking 101 by Dale Newton

I also remember enjoying What They Don’t Tell You In Film School by Camille Landau but I don’t include that in “required buying” for no other reason than I can’t remember anything specific I read in it. That’s not a criticism … I’ve read plenty of books on independent filmmaking that I’m not bother to list here at all. Newton’s book not only goes step by step (but not with all the examples, lessons, alternatives, etc. that Kaufman gives) but provides examples of budgets, contracts, and oodles of other things that you need and might have no idea that you need or where to get. It’s an invaluable companion to Kaufman’s book. Rebel Without A Crew is Rodriguez’ journal from the moment he decided to make a feature through pre-production on his next (first), “big studio” picture. That’s the sit-back-and-be-inspired book, the others are sit-back-and-learn books. Since everyone now has a DV cam, and you have a lot more competition than Rodriguez did … you REALLY need the instruction of the other two.