Books: Some of My Favorites
I have a few suggestions in different categories for you to consider. I think the first thing to look at is developing a screenplay. That is too often overlooked, and I believe it’s an area in which we, as producers, need to get more educated. The first thing I did when I moved to Hollywood was enroll in workshops on screenplay development, and my favorite book at the time was Getting Your Script Through the Hollywood Maze: An Insider’s Guide (Acrobat Books) by Linda Stuart. I took her workshop at AFI (American Film Institute) at the time, and to this day, I think that book is essential for a producer’s library. I would add Michael Hauge’s Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds and Writing Screenplays that Sell (Michael Wiese Productions); the brilliant Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need and Save the Cat! Strikes Back (Michael Wiese Productions); and my mentor Pen Densham’s Riding the Alligator (Michael Wiese Productions). Obviously, keep yourself up to date and educated, but I think this selection will give you a great basis from which to begin.
For more great information on the world of film producing, check out Eve Light Honthaner’s The Complete Film Production Handbook (Focal Press). I am a big fan (and close friend) of Eve’s, and I also highly recommend her book Hollywood Drive: What It Takes to Break In, Hang In, and Make It in the Entertainment Industry (Focal Press).
If you’ve just finished reading my book, you’ll know that I talk a lot about the business of show business, and I think buying books that focus on that – like Eve’s first book – will be a great source of information, as are The Independent Film Producer’s Survival Guide: A Business and Legal Sourcebook (Schirmer Trade Books), by Gunnar Erickson, Harris Tulchin, and Mark Halloran, and The Movie Business: The Definitive Guide to the Legal and Financial Secrets of Getting Your Movie Made (Simon & Schuster), by Kelly Charles Crabb. I also feel that watching Dov S-S Simens’s 2-Day Film School DVD collection (www.dovsimensfilmschool.com) is a must for the new film producer. Dov was one of my first mentors when I moved here, and I am one of his biggest fans.
Let’s not forget the money. Show me the money! Unless you’re using your own credit cards, if you can’t raise the money, you’re not making a movie. So you really want to take a serious look at your own relationship with money. I am not kidding here. It you’ve got issues in this area, clean them up … now! A couple of books I recommend are Lynne Twist’s The Soul of Money (W.W. Norton & Company) and Ester and Jerry Hicks’s Money and the Law of Attraction (Hay House, Inc.). I have had people who want to take my workshop on Indie Film Producing and tell me that they can’t because they don’t have the money for the seminar. That always blows my mind. If you can’t raise the money for a seminar, how the heck can you raise $200,000!? We all need to master the art (yes, it’s an art) of enrollment. If you want people to play with you, then handle your own relationship to money and start to have fun with it. Lighten up about it, be generous, and people will want to play. That much I know for certain!
When it comes to raising money for your film, there are two other books that I suggest. One I read a few years ago, 43 Ways to Finance your Feature Film (Southern Illinois University Press), by John W. Cones, and more recently Bankroll: A New Approach to Financing Feature Films (Michael Wiese Productions), by Tom Malloy. I have to say that I really loved Tom’s book. It is inspiring as well as informative.
I also want to make a point here of mentioning a few of Mark Litwak’s books. One of the first things I did after launching Snowfall Films, Inc., is take his workshop on how to read contracts at UCLA. Some his books that you might want to add to your collection are: Risky Business: Financing and Distributing Independent Films, Dealmaking for the Film and Television Industry, and Contracts for the Film and Television Industry (Silman-James Press).
As you know by now, I feel very strongly about getting educated on film distribution, so I think picking up Stacey Parks’s book The Insider’s Guide to Independent Film Distribution (Focal Press) is a must. In addition, take a look at Jerome Courshon’s DVD collection The Secrets to Movie Distribution: Get Your Movie Distributed Now! (www.distribution.la)