How not to write a how not to book

How not to make a short film by Roberta Munroe

Munroe's book is at its best when it lives up to its title and talks about how NOT to make a short film. I especially liked the chapters on short film plots we've seen a million times and the list of 50 short film cliches (who knew that opening with a Japanese tea ceremony was a cliche?). The material on what festival programmers are looking for (and not looking for) is also valuable.

However, most of the book is actually devoted to "how TO" make a short film citing the author's experience making two short films. Don't expect anything out of the ordinary here. There's some good information spliced into sections on directing, producing, budgeting and marketing. But Munroe's approach to filmmaking is strictly top-down, old-school, hire the best crew you can stuff with a heavy emphasis on production value. Here, Munroe doesn't have much new to offer. This title is a worthwhile read if you can accept it for what it is--a couple of great chapters and a catchy title padded with vanilla material on professionalism and following the traditional filmmaking process.

Update March 2009

I've been reading the recently-released "How NOT to make a short film." Written by a former Sundance shorts programmer, the book is at its best when it discusses short film cliches. The cliches are the same things I complain about and generally stem from confusing impressiveness with authority (e.g., use of crane shots) and basing one's understanding of the world on film rather than life (e.g., two people sitting in a car talking about nothing). There are also a few cliches I never heard of (opening with a shot of a Japanese tea ceremony).

Reading the book got me thinking about noise film so I watched it again. It's pretty good I think but there are three remaining problems. First, the HDV footage doesn't have much character. It's great at picking up all the important subtleties I shot but it has an overall brittle quality that I don't like. Second, the transition between the microfiche sequence and the red room is weak. I just threw in some codex footage there. It should really be a high-speed deluge of research images. Finally, at the end of the red room sequence needs to be more developed. It needs more of a climax.

The last two problems are not too hard to fix. I've been thinking about solving the first problem. I found a place (link) that does DV -> Super 8 or 16mm conversion so I'm thinking of trying that. It's not going to make the video look film-like, but it might give the footage an interesting character.