Book Review: Indie Film Producing: The Craft of Low Budget Filmmaking
Written by: FFT Webmaster | July 8th, 2014
Indie Film Producing: The Craft of Low Budget Filmmaking
By Suzanne Lyons
Focal Press
Boston
2012
Learning how to produce ultra-low-budget feature films is a demanding and complicated task. Even earning a bachelor’s degree in Film, from many of the nation’s best film schools, often fails to provide the intricate methodology of professional producing. Suzanne Collins remedies this inadequacy by providing all the information you need to know in this step- by- step guide.
Lyons takes a horror film she has produced titled “Séance” and provides an intricate timeline starting as she options the screenplay and ending with delivery of the final product. She knows her stuff and she has a gift for explaining it with aplomb and sincerity. Take, for example, her discussion of the business plan, forming an LLC and finding investors. It is precise and has a degree of humanity which allows the artist to stretch his or her boundaries to absorb this monetary point-of-view in the process of producing.
The book provides even more intimate experience such as interviews with global producers. They provide brilliant advice about films they have produced using social media, film festivals, apps and real world perspective.
Finally, what’s most important is how this book provides encouragement and guidance through a land-mine of problems that may rear their ugly head in the difficult tasks that one encounters in making this second most expensive art form on the planet.