In this book, Charles Merzbacher offers a concise, definitive guide to the essential skills, techniques and logistics of producing short films, focusing on the practical knowledge needed for line producing and overseeing smaller-scale productions. Drawing on insights from real-life production scenarios, veteran filmmaker and instructor Charles Merzbacher takes producers through every stage of the production process, from fundraising, preproduction and planning to the producer’s role in postproduction and distribution. Key topics include: Finding a worthy project; Schedules and budgets; Managing the casting process; Recruiting and managing crew; Location scouting; Legal and safety issues; Running a production; Negotiating music rights; And much more! An accompanying website—available at theshortseries.com—offers document templates for contracts, call sheets, budgets and other production forms, as well as sample production documents and short video guides featuring top industry professionals.

Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video is the definitive book on the subject for beginning filmmakers and students. The book clearly illustrates all of the steps involved in preproduction, production, postproduction, and distribution. Its unique two-fold approach looks at filmmaking from the perspectives of both producer and director, and explains how their separate energies must combine to create a successful short film or video, from script to final product. This guide offers extensive examples from award-winning shorts and includes insightful quotes from the filmmakers themselves describing the problems they encountered and how they solved them. The companion website contains useful forms and information on grants and financing sources, distributors, film and video festivals, film schools, internet sources for short works, and professional associations.

Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video is the definitive book on the subject for beginning filmmakers and students. The book clearly illustrates all of the steps involved in preproduction, production, postproduction, and distribution. Its unique two-fold approach looks at filmmaking from the perspectives of both producer and director, and explains how their separate energies must combine to create a successful short film or video, from script to final product. This guide offers extensive examples from award-winning shorts and includes insightful quotes from the filmmakers themselves describing the problems they encountered and how they solved them. The companion website contains useful forms and information on grants and financing sources, distributors, film and video festivals, film schools, internet sources for short works, and professional associations.

It's a comprehensive step-by-step overview of how to complete a low-budget short film and get it shown. It discusses how to write a short script, prepare it for production with a scene breakdown or storyboard, direct the film or work with a director, audition and cast the actors, participate in the shoot, work with an editor, and promote your film.

Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video is the definitive book on the subject for beginning filmmakers and students. The book clearly illustrates all of the steps involved in preproduction, production, postproduction, and distribution. Its unique two-fold approach looks at filmmaking from the perspectives of both producer and director, and explains how their separate energies must combine to create a successful short film or video, from script to final product. This guide offers extensive examples from award-winning shorts and includes insightful quotes from the filmmakers themselves describing the problems they encountered and how they solved them. The companion website contains useful forms and information on grants and financing sources, distributors, film and video festivals, film schools, internet sources for short works, and professional associations.

Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video, Fifth Edition is the definitive book on the subject for the serious film student or beginning filmmaker. Its unique two-fold approach looks at filmmaking from the perspectives of both the producer and director, and clearly explains how their separate roles must work together to create a successful short film or video. Through extensive examples from award-winning shorts and insightful interviews, you will learn about common challenges the filmmakers encountered during each step of filmmaking process—from preproduction to production, postproduction, and distribution—and the techniques they used to overcome them. In celebrating this book’s twentieth anniversary, this edition has been updated to include: Two all-new, in-depth cases studies of esteemed short films—Memory Lane and the Academy Award-winning God of Love A revised chapter progression that reinforces the significance of the actor - director relationship Interviews with the filmmakers integrated alongside the text, as well as new images and behind-the-scenes coverage of production processes Revamped sections on current financing strategies, postproduction workflows, and the wide variety of distribution platforms now available to filmmakers A "Where are They Now" appendix featuring updates on the original filmmakers covered in the first edition An expanded companion website (www.focalpress.com/cw/rea) containing useful forms and information on distributors, grants and financing sources, film and video festivals, film schools, internet sources for short works, and professional associations

Write to Shoot teaches budding screenwriters and screenwriting filmmakers how to write a short script with production in mind. Beker instructs them how to showcase their strengths, tailor projects to shoestring budgets, resources, and practical production parameters without sacrificing the quality and punch of their screenplays, whether they're creating a sizzle short for an unproduced feature script, an independent creative work, or a soapbox to promote a cause. Write to Shoot: Writing Short Films for Production is a must-have guide for anyone who wants to be sure there will be no surprises on set that come from a script that's not ready for production.

Making movies is the most exciting way to earn a living and it is not surprising that media and film studies remain the most popular courses at colleges across the western world. A short film provides an opportunity for elliptical, poetic, condensed story telling. Shorts can take risks rarely seen in features. It is the arena where a strong voice or individual vision is possible; an invitation for experimentation and originality. Making Short Films, 3rd edition is entirely revised and restructured, providing a much more complete and detailed guide to filmmaking, with more information on new technology, illustrations and ideas for best practice.

Story analysts, also known as script analysts or readers, are the gatekeepers at production companies and agencies. Working behind the scenes, they make or break writers' entrée into the company for which they read. A typical scenario: “I'm sorry, but the reader passed on your script” – which means you have gotten a big, fat NO. You get only one shot at that particular company. What happened? Getting Past Me tells the writer exactly what happened and how to ensure it will not happen again. Most writers have no idea of what goes through story analysts' mind as they look at a screenplay, manuscript, magazine article, treatment, or any other project. The book explains how story analysts think and what you as a writer can do, letting you in on readers' trade secrets and giving you invaluable, key information that will ensure your work is reviewed favorably and fairly. Story analyst and industry insider Mindi White goes beyond such basic subjects as character development and pacing and point of view, to focus on a POV the writer cannot get anywhere else: what influences a reader's take on submitted material. Fast-paced, acerbic, and extremely informative, making the valuable lessons easy and fun to absorb, Getting Past Me offers insider tips, trade secrets, and real-life examples that are consistently illuminating and often surprising.

Whether you are embarking on your first YouTube project or planning a more ambitious, collaborative film, Making Short Films give you the answers for everything you need to know. This new edition of what has become a bible for filmmakers internationally is completely rewritten, expanded and redesigned and now features a web-page with supporting information and access to the key films discussed inside. Just as the original, descriptions and explanations of the whole process to making a film is given as well as insider tips from producers and film makers. All the history of short-film-making, all the criteria about putting together a script, how to direct, securing funding and getting your short shown are packed into this must have for filmmakers of all types.