Reed Martin - The Reel Truth: Everything You Didnt Know You Need to Know About Making an Independent Film

Praise for
THE REEL TRUTH

This book is indispensable.

Tom Bernard, copresident, Sony Pictures Classics

The path to the premiere and beyond of any feature film is a minefield. With The Reel Truth, Reed Martin has given new filmmakers the battalion of bomb detectors necessary for survival.

Ted Hope, producer of The Ice Storm

The perilous and shifting independent-film business is notoriously difficult to pin down, but Reed Martin has done just thathes created a brilliant how-to manual for tackling and mastering the industry. Comprehensive and entertaining, The Reel Truth is jam-packed with the experiences of some of the industrys most active filmmakers, whose successes, failures, and insights form an essential document for anyone attempting to break in.

Anthony Bregman, producer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Theres an entire genre of books that exist to tell people how to make movieshow to make cheap movies, how to make horror movies, how to make independent movies, how to direct, how to write, how to storyboard, how to use a camera. And many of the books are either dry instructional reads or hopelessly out-of-date. Reed Martin has created a smart, engaging read that is also one of the most comprehensive and cutting-edge looks at the changing face of independent-film production and distribution today. So many potential filmmakers have found themselves stymied by simple, basic things: how to make a living off of filmmaking, how to approach the process, how to protect themselves legally and artistically. The Reel Truth not only offers current and crucial in formation, it does so in a way that suggests a realistic approach to the idea of a life in filmmaking while still managing to encourage. Tricky stuff, and well doneI learned volumes from this book.

You can throw out that whole shelf of books about how to make movies, because from now on, this is the one book I would call essential for anyone who really wants to make a career out of filmmaking.

Drew McWeeny, aka Moriarty, Aint It Cool News

Reed Martins The Reel Truth is a must-have manual of knowledge and entertainment for beginning and experienced filmmakers. The stories within are hilarious, sad, and familiar. The chapter on postproduction catastrophes when nearing your finish line is worth the price of admission alone. To not have this information as a filmmaker is like scuba diving by yourself, skydiving without packing your own parachute, or practicing unsafe sexwhy risk it?

Chris Eyre, director of Smoke Signals

REED MARTIN
THE REEL TRUTH

Reed Martin has taught a course on film marketing, distribution, and exhibition at NYUs Stern School of Business since 2003, and he taught at Columbia Business School from 2001 to 2003. He recently worked as a research associate and casewriter in the Global Research Group at Harvard Business School. Martin is a graduate of the management trainee program at 20th Century Fox Film International in Los Angeles, and he received an MBA from Columbia and a second masters in business reporting from Columbias Graduate School of Journalism. His two favorite films are You Can Count on Me and The Bourne Identity.

REED MARTIN

For my parents and
my extended family of
aspiring filmmakers

Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright 2009 by Reed Martin
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Printed in the United States of America
First edition, 2009

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, Reed, 1969
The reel truth : everything you didnt know you need to know about
making an independent film / Reed Martin. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-571-21103-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-571-21103-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Motion picturesProduction and direction. 2. Independent
filmmakers. I. Title.
PN1995.9.P7M34 2008
791.430233dc22

2008041266

www.fsgbooks.com

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Do you dream of someday making an independent film? Can you picture your low-budget masterpiece debuting at Sundance next year? Can you see the poster for your indie feature under the lights of New Yorks Angelika Theater or L.A.s Laemmles Sunset 5? There has never been a better time to dream and achieve each of these goals if you know what to do and what pitfalls to look out for.

Today anyone hoping to make a terrific-looking narrative feature or full-length documentary can shoot in filmlike 24p digital video, assemble everything on a decent laptop using intuitive and affordable editing software, put a trailer up on YouTube and Facebook, and distribute the finished product on professionally replicated DVDs for only a dollar per disc. There are more avenues for getting independently financed shorts and feature films seen than ever before, allowing aspiring filmmakers who may or may not have gone to leading film schools to showcase their talents.

Developments that promised to revolutionize film production and democratize the industry have arrived, and all the tools anyone would ever need are available, affordable, and within reach. The technology needed to make independent films will only get cheaper and better, and the reasons to go through traditional middlemen will increasingly fall away, allowing filmmakers to self-publish and be totally independent from anywhere. In this environment, all that is needed is a passion for storytelling, a reservoir of perseverance, and a modicum of talent. Gone are the days when aspiring filmmakers had to spend thousands of dollars to have dozens of fragile MiniDV tapes digitized in real time before they could be edited on a slow-as-molasses computer. Today, many HD cameras record directly to memory cards or high-capacity hard drives, allowing each days footage to be quickly imported into Avid or Final Cut Pro 6 as easily as copying a Word file from a pocket USB drive. Indeed, filmmakers can now make their editing selects immediately and start assembling a project in their living rooms in full, uncompressed HD, without having to wait for a lab to process their digital footage or their reels of 16mm or 35mm film.

On the theatrical front, new specialized distributors are expected to eventually take the place of those that folded in 2008. The Internet continues to provide avenues to get shorts and features in front of those eager to experience new voices, innovative stories, and fresh perspectives. There are several sites that showcase feature films online and new software applications such as Adobes Media Player that aggregate content for mass consumption.

On the marketing side, new software widgets can be used to help aspiring directors and producers reach out to people who might invest in their projects and build a fan base by aggregating groups of consumers who appreciate a certain topic, all without hiring an ad agency or PR firm. For those pursuing festival acceptanceand after all, who isnt?companies such as Withoutabox and its new competing service, B-Side, allow filmmakers to save time by paying a flat fee to have their films submitted to hundreds of festivals.