For low-budget filmmakers, nothing is quite so terrifying as the elements of legal concerns that must be considered before the film can actually be made—at least if you want to have the ability to distribute it in any way. While Paul Battista’s well-composed and necessary book won’t alleviate all your fears, it does a good job of waking you up and helping you to think of things in a realistic manner, rather than in an idealistic manner that will sabotage your filmmaking efforts.
While this book is specifically designed for producers, it fully realizes that, all too often, low-budget directors will find themselves as their own producers. If that’s you, then you need to pick up this book. If you already have a good producer, you should definitely get them a copy!
While Paul Battista is an entertainment lawyer, he’s a little bit of a different beast because he’s also a filmmaker that has written, produced and directed 2002’s Crooks, which was released by Warner Home Video. As such, the filmmaker inside him allows him to speak more naturally to other filmmakers and does a good job of keeping the lawyer tendencies toward “legalese” in check—most of the time.
For 90% of this book, Battista does a really great job with making really complicated concepts understandable. From why a casting director is important to what you need to realize about different types of distribution, the author really helps keep you in the midst of this book.
With that said, the other 10% has places where the lawyer side overruled the filmmaker side. This occurred most notably when he’s discussing fundraising and what exceptions can be made so that you don’t have to file as a securities seller or broker with the SEC. The problem in these situations was that he started with a legalese overview definition and then explained these concepts with even denser legalese. For future additions, it would be great if these sections were given a true layman’s definition up front, and then could have a more detailed explanation after them. I was able to understand the majority of these sections, but many readers would glaze over and speed along. (Technically, many of these exceptions can be skimmed past, as most of them don’t actually relate to low-budget filmmaking. Still it would be good to make them less complex. Additionally, it would probably be best to put these definitions into an appendix at the back.)
Similar issues occurred during descriptions of different companies that you might form, with the majority of these being unneeded for the low-budget filmmaker. Fortunately, Battista pretty much says this up front and devotes an entire chapter to LLCs, which really are important to filmmakers. As with the securities exceptions, I think that the company formations not specifically related to low-budget filmmaking might have been better moved to an appendix in the rear.
This book really is packed with a lot of information. While it at first it feels a little overwhelming, before long, you start to really see the advantage of being aware of the different issues ahead of time. For instance, thinking about self-distribution before your make your film and the costs that are associated with that can help you decide to consider raising your marketing/distribution budget at the same time as your main production budget. (For folks being critiqued here at MFM, we don’t consider money you spend on marketing, distribution, or festivals to be part of your production budget, because it has no bearing on the quality of your film.) Additionally, his description of why you should approach foreign investors in the script phase, even though they will almost never distribute truly low-budget fare, is genius. (Essentially, if you press them, it forces the foreign distributor to tell you about how the worldwide market would perceive your film before you shoot it. With a couple of corroborating comments, you can tailor your film to either reinforce that perception or alter the script to change it before production.)
In addition to the other elements of this book, Battista talks about some of the ramifications of finding investors of different stripes. However, despite the look at other types of fundraising, there was one that wasn’t covered that I think should have been: crowdfunding. Crowd investing is illegal under the Securities’ Act that Battista talks about (even if it was technically used on Darren Aronofsky’s Pi), but crowdfunding gains money from crowd donations, which, to my understanding, is legal so long as no promises of a return on investment are made. Since crowdfunding has been proving successful as a way to raise an entire budget for the lower-end films Battista talks about (those made for $100,000 or less) this is one area where it would be good if future versions of this book commented.
With the exception of the 10% of the book that got overly legalistic, my interest level stayed high throughout this entire read. It can be read straight through, or you can skip around a bit as you think of new things you’d like more information about. (Even when I skipped around a bit, I found that I was drawn to read all the connective sections so that I didn’t miss any of the helpful information.)
There’s no question this is a reusable book, as you’re not going to be able to retain all of the information in this book on a single read through. With that said, it’s a book that you would be well advised to read while you’re in pre-production on your film, because there are a number of things you should really be considering from the outset.
Very rarely will you find a book that deals with producing and legal concerns that actually has a real emphasis on truly low-budget films like those which most of our readers engage in. Even though the bottom level Battista officially deals with is a little higher than our top end, it’s definitely the closest you’re going to find in print and its price point is excellent for all the detail that’s packed into this book. Self-published under “Lucrifacio Books,” you won’t be able to pick this up on CreateSpace or Amazon.com, but exclusively through Battista’s website. While this may mean that there are no special Amazon discounts, the price point is so reasonable and the information so helpful that you’ll have no problem buying it directly from his site!
While there are a few times the book might make you feel intimidated to consider a film without having a lawyer in tow, by and large Battista does a good job of explaining the real world mechanics of producing, the laws that can effect you as a filmmaker, and the importance of pre-planning. Additionally, he gives you a good idea of where you can cut costs and where you really need to try to hold out for key personnel. I highly recommend this to the low-budget filmmaker who’s just starting out (or to any low-budget filmmaker who simply hasn’t gotten all these things figured out on their own, for that matter).
