PREFACE

The first edition of this book laid out the production process, who does what on low- to high-budget films. When it came to working on this revision, I realized a lot has changed. Sure, most of the process itself is still the same, but the parameters have changed, the industry climate has changed, and, because of digital technology, the process has changed. Paperwork can be distributed more quickly through cell phones and email. Special effects can be created in monitors on set, instead of in post-production. People still do what they do, but it is how they do it that has changed.

What’s more, budget levels have changed somewhat. Low-budget is still low budget. The student level is still a little or no budget at tall. Professional low budget can still be as low as $50,000 but can go up to $200,000. In certain markets less than $10 million is considered low budget. Medium budget has grown too anywhere above $10–$50 or $60 million. High budget has hit record highs, landing at greater than $200 million. These ultra-high budgets are usually the special-effects films. These are big action movies that require a lot of digital work to make men in iron suites fly or to create an entire new planet with a race of blue people.

The important point still is that whatever the budget level, while some of the people and process can be the same, the number of people involved and the procedures for completing a project are different. One or two people in a low-budget project may handle a department that would take an entire team of twenty people in a medium-budget project. It is even more essential to know going into a production how the process will work, and how it will work can be determined by the budget level. The golden rule is still do it yourself—until you can afford to hire someone else to do it.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

This second edition starts with a new chapter on different media. Students are not only graduating to work in one field anymore. The new chapter expands their knowledge to cover production in the field, live events, mobile content, and animation. The broader range of coverage in this new edition will provide students with a more marketable set of skills and experiences, necessary for an ever-expanding and converging industry. In addition, as distribution avenues grow, this edition covers how to keep up with the latest trends in Internet distribution and the effect of the digital revolution on traditional distribution. Finally, as the process of production may somewhat stay the same, digital formats and tools have changed the way some of the process is done. Finally, this new edition was updated and expanded to cover the process for different media, all with the goal to make students’ production knowledge broader and current, and therefo re make them the production forms. These forms have been updated to reflect digital production needs and can be found online for easy access. The new pdfs can also be filled out electronically (instead of printing them out first). Finally, this new edition was updated and expanded to cover the process for different media, all with the goal to make students’ production knowledge broader and current, and therefore make them more marketable.

This new edition still approaches the process from the angle that the budget level can affect how you make your movie. What is also central to know about this new edition is that just as the industry climate has changed, so the scope of the book had to as well. Anyone starting out in filmmaking will find themselves not just making films, that is, if they want to make a living. There are more forms of media now than ever before. You can find yourself working in documentary one day and feature film the next. Content for the Internet has become a huge part of the filmmaker’s resume. Almost everyone needs content for their Websites, and contrary to what some believe, they do not want cheap material. They want professional quality production and will pay handsomely (in most cases) for it. Any aspiring director or producer would do well to plug into this market. There is also producing live events, an area which has been around forever but is now open to the filmmaker as more people want their events filmed. The process here is a little different and requires shooting in the field, more time constraints and pre-planning. Documentary and animation are also more profitable and worthy of tapping into.

The structure of this edition remains pretty true to the first edition. Each chapter (with the exception of Chapter 1) examines each department on a production and covers what you can expect at the different budget levels. This is still best described as a reference book that shows you how to put a production together, but this time expands to cover the script process on the front end and distribution at the end.

Give Your Students Choices

In addition to the traditional printed text, The Complete Guide to Film and Video Production, 2/e is available in the following format to give you and your students more choices—and more ways to save.

The CourseSmart eTextbook offers the same content as the printed text in a convenient online format—with highlighting, online search, and printing capabilities. www.coursesmart.com CourseSmart eTextbook: ISBN: 0205209858, $22.50