Pocket Legal
The Pocket Lawyer for Filmmakers is extremely expensive for
a paperback and weighs more than it looks like it should. Why? Because it
provides a readable map through the world of legalese and contract negotiations
for any filmmaker interested in doing pretty much all his or her own producing legwork.
This alone makes it a worthwhile read for do-it-yourself auteurs, but it's the
book's comprehensive nature that really lifts it above some of the fluffier
works on the subject -- and let's face it, the film section at Borders is
growing by the hour.
Attorney Thomas A. Crowell takes the would-be producer (or
producer-writer-director) through each process necessary for lawful filmmaking,
from copyrighting material and starting a production company to postproduction
and distribution. He makes a point of leaving out contract forms, explaining
that because each project tends to have its own quirks, the specifics of any
contract will be easier to parse when you've read the chapter that covers it.
It's an interesting argument, but the chapters put the exhaust back into
exhaustive: It can be hard to read a whole section in one sitting without
feeling your brain lock up like an overworked transmission.
Still, the information is there, in the simple language of a
math textbook. And while reading the book may feel like doing word problem
after word problem, there's no denying you're smarter on Page 318 than you were
on Page 1. It helps that Crowell seems to enjoy writing and knows that his
subject is a little boring. Dumb as they are, names like Electric Space Pickle
Productions actually provide some much-needed relief.
Every now and then Crowell forgets to explain something
(what's a
-- Sam Thielman
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