Ascher S. - The Filmmakers Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age

A PLUME BOOK

THE FILMMAKERS HANDBOOK

STEVEN ASCHER is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose films include Troublesome Creek, So Much So Fast, and Raising Renee (trilogy codirected with his wife, Jeanne Jordan). He has taught filmmaking at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in workshops around the world. His awards include the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, the Prix Italia, a George Foster Peabody Award, and an Emmy Award, and he was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award. His website is www.WestCityFilms.com.

EDWARD PINCUS s pioneering work in personal documentary led to Diaries (197176). He codirected Black Natchez, One Step Away, Panola, Portrait of a McCarthy Supporter, and The Axe in the Attic. He founded the Film Section at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later taught filmmaking at Harvard. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Endowment for the Arts grants. He is author of the widely used Guide to Filmmaking and grows cut flowers commercially in northern New England.

Pincus and Ascher also codirected Life and Other Anxieties.

THE
FILMMAKERS
HANDBOOK

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE
FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

FOURTH EDITION

Steven Ascher & Edward Pincus

Drawings by Carol Keller and Robert Brun
Original Photographs by Ted Spagna
and Stephen McCarthy

Completely Revised and Updated by Steven Ascher
With Contributions by David Leitner

A PLUME BOOK

PLUME

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, June 1984

First printing (second edition), March 1999

First printing (third edition), August 2007

First printing (fourth edition), December 2012

Copyright Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, 1984, 1999

Copyright Steven Ascher, 2007, 2012

Drawings and photographs copyright Steven Ascher, 1999, 2007, 2012

Drawings copyright Carol Keller, 1999

Drawings copyright Robert Brun, 1999

Photographs copyright Ted Spagna, 1983

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

CIP data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-101-61380-1

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For Jordan

For Jane

I f you look at how storytelling in movies changes over time, you can see moments when new technology has made new kinds of narratives possible. Sometimes its a seismic shift. The introduction of sound in the 1920s transformed scriptwriting, film acting, and editing. Or it may be more gradual, but just as dramatic, like the way digital has led to documentary and fiction films that would have been technically or financially impossible before.

As a filmmaker, you find that changes come so fast these days that its really daunting to try to tell stories while having to learn and master so much about your craft. This book, which is for beginners and for working professionals, can help you. Inevitably, some parts wont be as current as the latest information on the Web, but the book offers something most websites cant: a view of the entire filmmaking process from beginning to end. It will give you the foundation and language to understand new developments as they come along.

The Filmmakers Handbook started out almost thirty years ago, and through the editions its become a stockpot of ingredients added and removed. In 1984 Ed and I wrote the first edition about working with celluloid film. After that, Ed bowed out of working on the book and in 1999 I wrote an expanded second edition to include analog video; in 2007 I did another major expansion to introduce digital, doubling the size of the original book. David Leitnera talented filmmaker and explorer of technologycontributed his expertise to that third edition and to this fourth edition. As of this edition, Ive had to jettison a lot of material about once-proud film, which is painful. But digital is the future and the book is already a doorstop (or the e-book equivalent).

The world of moviemaking is really made up of many separate but related worlds. Ive tried to address the needs of fiction and documentary filmmakers, who may be creating work on their own or as part of a large organization, to be shown in any number of ways, for profit or not.

In a sense, all moviemakers start out as independents. More often than not, beginners must become versed in all aspects of productionshooting, sound recording, editing, raising money, distributionsimply because theres no one else to perform these tasks. Learning all the facets of filmmaking has advantages no matter what your future career is in movies. In fact, with shrinking budgets and the growing power of technology, professional moviemakers are often expected to have a range of skills that go well beyond traditional job categories. This book is written with the assumption that you may be performing all the tasks of making a movie, or that youll at least want to understand them. And of course, its a reference: so read what concerns you and skip the sections that dont.