Product Description

This work documents the experiences of Joe Queenan, who decided to try to make a film and master the arts of writing, directing, scoring, casting and marketing, all by himself. He explains how he tried to do all this by putting his expenses on his credit card.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #702200 in Books
• Published on: 1996-07-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
Despite the lame, misleading title, a wry, even occasionally useful, real-life satire on low-low-budget moviemaking. With Robert Rodriguez's alleged $7,000 budget for El Mariachi in mind, film critic Queenan (If You're Talking To Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble, 1994, etc.) often joked about making a movie for $6,998. But this goof turned serious when, in one three-week burst of semicreativity, Queenan actually cranked out a 90-page script, a satire of the recovery movement titled Twelve Steps to Death. Directing classes soon followed, and Queenan wore out his VCR looking for good scenes to steal from other films. Using only utterly nonprofessional actors (his Tarrytown neighbors), semiprofessional technicians, and dubious rented equipment, Queenan set off on a nine-day film shoot. Despite his amateurism and a host of disasters, he kept a fairly firm grip on the production in every area except the budget. By the time the film premiered as the only entry at the self-sponsored Tarrytown International Film Festival, Queenan had spent nearly $60,000. Winning the festival's coveted award, Le Chevalier Sans Tete en Or (The Golden Headless Horseman), was thin compensation. Still undistributed, the film has yet to earn back even a penny of its cost. While Queenan, a poor man's P.J. O'Rourke, has a well-turned sense of humor, both this book and the movie it is built around (the full-length script is included) fall substantially short of Hollywood's three-laughs-to-a-page standard. But Queenan is to be commended for showing the lighter side of such expensive pratfalls and for airily distilling so much practical how-not-to advice. Along with Final Cut and The Devil's Candy, one of cinema's great cautionary tales. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

How to make a $7,000 movie in one step. Step One: Don't.
At the end of his book "Rebel Without a Crew", Robert Rodriguez exhorts readers to follow his example, and make their own low-budget films- for $7,000 dollars. Joe Queenan, noted movie critic, takes his offer at face value- and from then on, everything goes horribly wrong. If you've ever wanted to make a low-budget film, don't ever read this book- Queenan takes every last bit of mystery and wonder from the film-making process, and destroys it with a big hammer. Everything about the film goes wrong- the script is bad, one of the lead actors (Queenan's son) walks off in tears, and everybody wants to kill the cameraman. The budget soon spirals beyond $7,000, and as the shoot conditions get worse and worse, Queenan gets funnier and funnier. At times he is so funny that you feel guilty at laughing so much at such obvious misfortune- but the man's biting sarcasm and wit are infectious. A truly excellent book- maybe even enough to make you feel sorry for films like "Batman and Robin", or "The Avangers". Or maybe not.