DV Rebels Guide

Right now this book is blowing my mind. It has been consuming my every moment of free time. I can’t tell you how much I wish that it had existed back when we were doing post-production on Sex Machine. I’m only about halfway finished with it — and that doesn’t even count the bonus chapters on the DVD — so I don’t feel ready to right an actual review, but I will say this: If you make independent movies, you NEED this book.

The focus of DV Rebels Guide is on making kick-ass guerilla-style action movies, but that description only scratches the surface. If you want to make any genre of movie using a low-to-no budget production style, this book will help you make the movie look bigger and better. Writer Stu Maschwitz used to work for ILM before co-founding The Orphanage (creators of Magic Bullet and special effects for all sorts of films). When not busy with paying gigs, Maschwitz has been directing his own ambitious short films and conducting lots of experiments that push the envelope of no-budget filmmaking.

Maschwitz assumes you know the basics of production and post-production so DV Rebels Guide isn’t really a book for beginners. Instead he delves deep into how to inject lots of production value into your project without spending a lot of money. Some of these techniques involves stunts, miniatures, greenscreen and muzzle flashes, but others are about how to shoot footage with pro-sumer cameras that gives audiences the feel of a big-budget “real” movie. Maschwitz isn’t afraid to get tech-y and if you’re an After Effects user there is plenty to geek out on including a detailed guide to color correcting and mastering your film.

I haven’t been this excited about making movies since I first read Rebel Without A Crew. This could be dangerous.

For more information, check out the official site or author Stu Maschwitz’s blog.