How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000: And Not Go to Jail

This book is really great! I learned a lot, and at the same time wanted to keep reading more. The book is really funny, and made me laugh lots of times. Bret Stern is very clever at telling you things, and he makes it fun along the way. And you can understand all that he says! it dosen't just go over your head! I'm young, and just learning, and I highly recomend this book! its one of the best of its kind! From teaching you how to write in script format, to trying to get your film to a distributor, Bret Stern shows you all that!

The book opens with a classic 'real life' scene from Stern's life, written as a screenplay, and gets better from there. I highly recommend this book. The writing alone is well worth the purchase -- even if it weren't chock full of great info. "How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000 (And Not Go to Jail)" by Bret Stern was a great jaunt. This book is loaded with tips about what to do or not do, and how to do things cheaply and without permits -- and not go to jail. While the book may be a bit out of date in terms of 'the DV revolution', the tips are not. The guerilla shooting style presented in this book CLEARLY is among the best approaches to knocking out a movie on DV, perhaps even better than a film. The upside to shooting on DV vs film is cost, the downside is quality of image ... so subtract the cost of buying film ends and renting some film gear, and you STILL have costs for making a movie. So bottom line, Brent's book can still help broke movie-makers out AND have a chuckle at the same time. (threewaysmedia.com)

This book was wonderful! I purchased it at the same time as "What They Don't Teach You at Film School" by Camille Landau and Tiare White. I'd really recommend that you get both of them. This one has more information, and was more fun to read, but the other gives you a more serious approach to making a movie.If you only have money for one or the other, however, go with this one! There's some really great information in here. If you judge this book by its cover, then you'll probably make the mistake of thinking that it's for those kids next door who want to make a prequel to Clerks. It might work for them, but it also loads of valuable stuff that will make you sound a lot more experienced most people you know who think that they know what making movies is all about. Check out Bret's credentials on imdb.com, too.

Couldn't put the book down. It was funny from start to finish and I learned a lot about the business too.

Full of tasty nuggets of information that any self respecting indie filmmaker ought to have if they want to make it in this rough and tumble industry. This book tackles many of the lesser known obstacles faced by aspiring filmmakers. These obstacles are often overlooked by most of the other filmmaking books that I've read. If you like to learn, and you like to laugh, you'll like to pick up this book, even if, or especially if you're already in jail.