Making a Winning Short: How to Write, Direct, Edit, and Produce a Short Film

Edmond Levy in one book has given me a basic outline of what I would need to construct a film from start to finish.The beginning touches on screenwriting techniques, then moves into some pre-production necessities. From there he briefly touches on production and then a short chapter on post-production (editing) and distribution. This is a survey book and is in no means somthing to take as the "end all say all." But if you are curious or have some very general questions about the topic, then this is the book for you.

This book does an excellent job on the basics: how to write a treatment, develop a script thru the process of story outline and character profiles, the use of storyboards, the basics of directing and editing and on and on. It's all basic, yes, but a good starting point for the beginning filmmaker. The emphasis is the short, independent filmmaker where most of us started and most future great filmmakers will also. I use it for a course I teach for the American Film Institute called Movie Camp and in the basic moviemaking course I teach at Montgomery College. The students seem to find it very valuable.