Tapping experts in an industry experiencing major disruptions, The Movie Business Book is the authoritative, comprehensive sourcebook, covering online micro-budget movies to theatrical tentpoles. This book pulls back the veil of secrecy on producing, marketing, and distributing films, including business models, dealmaking, release windows, revenue streams, studio accounting, DIY online self-distribution and more. First-hand insider accounts serve as primary references involving negotiations, management decisions, workflow, intuition and instinct. The Movie Business Book is an essential guide for those launching or advancing careers in the global media marketplace.

Whether one is pursuing the dream of acting, directing, or writing, or is interested in a career as a studio executive, agent, cinematographer, makeup artist, stuntman, or camera operator, Resnik and Trost present realistic assessments of career opportunities, offer savvy insights into how to play the Hollywood game, and explore in detail the legal ins and outs of the business.

A straightforward business and legal guide for novice movie producers covers a wide range of topics, including intellectual property laws, financing, and production challenges, in a guide that also provides in-depth coverage of understanding and negotiating a movie contract.

This book is about how to work with people in the film industry, about who they are, what they do, and what they need. Most importantly for you, it is also about how to become one of them. Make Your Movie is a straightforward and comprehensive must-read for any aspiring filmmaker with an ounce or two of determination. With a down-to-earth, tell it like it is approach, the author offers insight through relatable, real-world experience and one-on-one interviews with working professionals who are already at the top of their game. Having an insider's understanding of the entire filmmaking process from start to finish, fundraising to distribution, is imperative and will allow you to anticipate and navigate avoidable setbacks. This clear and concise guide candidly describes what you need to know about both, the business and the politics of the industry to get your movie made.

The veteran producer and author of the bestseller Hello, He Lied takes a witty and critical look at the new Hollywood. Over the past decade, producer Lynda Obst gradually realized she was working in a Hollywood that was undergoing a drastic transformation. The industry where everything had once been familiar to her was suddenly disturbingly strange. Combining her own industry experience and interviews with the brightest minds in the business, Obst explains what has stalled the vast moviemaking machine. The calamitous DVD collapse helped usher in what she calls the New Abnormal (because Hollywood was never normal to begin with), where studios are now heavily dependent on foreign markets for profit, a situation which directly impacts the kind of entertainment we get to see. Can comedy survive if they don’t get our jokes in Seoul or allow them in China? Why are studios making fewer movies than ever—and why are they bigger, more expensive and nearly always sequels or recycled ideas? Obst writes with affection, regret, humor and hope, and her behind-the-scenes vantage point allows her to explore what has changed in Hollywood like no one else has. This candid, insightful account explains what has happened to the movie business and explores whether it’ll ever return to making the movies we love—the classics that make us laugh or cry, or that we just can’t stop talking about.

Behind the glitter of Hollywood lies a high-powered, multibillion-dollar business whose workings are known only to industry insiders.InThe Movie Business Book,forty of Hollywood's most celebrated producers, directors, screenwriters, agents, lawyers, marketers, distributors, exhibitors, and deal makers reveal the secrets of their trade in personal accounts that are both highly informative and wonderfully entertaining.This new edition -- fully revised and updated for the movie industry of the '90s -- includes such unique perspectives as David Puttnam on producers, Sydney Pollack on directors, Henry Jaglom on independent filmmaking, Mike Medavoy on studio management, Richard Childs on home video, Martin Polon on new technology, and thirty-four more.

Why does a director choose a particular script? What must they do in order to keep actors fresh and truthful through take after take of a single scene? How do you stage a shootout—involving more than one hundred extras and three colliding taxis—in the heart of New York’s diamond district? What does it take to keep the studio honchos happy? From the first rehearsal to the final screening, Making Movies is a master’s take, delivered with clarity, candor, and a wealth of anecdote. For in this book, Sidney Lumet, one of our most consistently acclaimed directors, gives us both a professional memoir and a definitive guide to the art, craft, and business of the motion picture. Drawing on forty years of experience on movies that range from Long Day’s Journey into Night to Network and The Verdict—and with such stars as Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino—Lumet explains how painstaking labor and inspired split-second decisions can result in two hours of screen magic.