Customer Reviews

A Killer Life: How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an aspiring producer, I have long looked up to the indie queen Christine Vachon, and I was interested to read this book after having read her excellent SHOOTING TO KILL. I read that book when I was back in college, but this book is better. It's definitely more personal - in a way it reads like a memoir.

You feel like you are going through all the trials and tribulations with her. There's a lot of exciting stuff here - she battles the MPAA over Boys Don't Cry -- the bond company takes control of Far From Heaven-- she has interactions with big stars like Jude Law and Julia Roberts.

I have never been to Sundance, but Vachon's Sundance diary takes you through that festival with her.

All this makes for a book that's immensely readable; I couldn't put it down. I really liked the spotlights from other industry figures, agents, studio heads and directors like John Cameron Mitchell (who did my favorite film, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH!) If you are in the industry, want to learn about the industry or are just plain curious about how movies get made, go out and get this book now!

This book is riveting reading for the fan or the filmmaker. Vachon has a talent for balancing intensive amounts of details with storytelling skills. You really will want to know how a distribution is made before the first frame is filmed. Her personality -- tough, passionate, centered -- also makes the book a compelling read. Even when her foes are completes a-hats, Vachon does not descend into bitterness, but rather, makes another compelling lesson.

...which kind of gets me wondering--why the heck don't *even more* aspiring producers and D-boy and D-girl wannabes get their hands on this amazing compendium of production experiences, take them to heart, and learn themselves a whole lot about the global film game in the process. If you've got the answer to that question, let me know. I'm still scratching my noodle.

Okay, so you're going to totally dig this book. Christine Vachon and her Killer Films outfit in N-Y-C, using that well-known convention of theirs--break the bounds of traditional (read: boring) publishing with a rather unconventional approach to bookwriting. Prepare for a wild wooly ride of a read...Christine's deft collaborators (egs. directors, financiers, and studio consigliatores) have chimed in here in various sections, offering up sage advice on the pit- and prat-falls of the indie and studio sides of the filmmaking biz, and what it's generally like working with Christine and her able band of brothers and sisters. That, for this here reviewer, was a right privilege...live recordings of Christine's conversations with her colleagues wouldn't have been richer. And like I tell you in my title...you couldn't pay Vachon enough to give this course. For a couple of Lincolns, this was a gold mine.

By the way, I think I've tattooed my entire Netflix wish list with every single Killer title known to Movieland. As luck would have it, ONE HOUR PHOTO was one of the better films of 2002, and little did I know that Christine was even responsible for getting this one made. Small world, baby.

It's an unsung job, the producing game can sometimes be, but mark it--without Christine's valuable input at various stages of the process, many of these so-called little pictures mightn't have been made, languishing in that purgatory of "development hell" (or turnaround) like 98% of the projects out there are in (according to every single statistic known to the filmmaking poobahs). One of the most inspiring statements from the entire book which I triple underlined, dogeared, and highlighted in tri-colour was her frank admission that producers must maintain "eternal optimism." They are the ones who are enthusiastic at all times, oftentimes when there's no reason to be, and oftentimes when there's no production necessarily to speak of. The equivalent to selling short on the stock market. If your sources' predictions are bang on, chances are you're going to make a "buchta" of cash.

Such boundless enthusiasm the mark of a truly gifted deal-maker, and in the trenches which is the modern-day studio system (read: the business of making movies), and the relatively recent advent of the "mini-majors" (or classics divisions of the major Hollywood studios), this brand of relentlessness has become all the more critical. Remove one element from the positivity puzzle, strip away a single grain of that much-needed goodness which is a key ingredient of the all-encompassing feelgood--by definition, a must towards smooth functioning on the film set--and off your high film concept goes into the grey ether.

Just for the rekkid, listening to podcasts helps, kids! I'd heard about this title after listening to Claude Brodesser Ackner's THE BUSINESS on NPR (goo-search it). I was so intrigued by Christine's outspokenness, that I simply couldn't curb my enthusiasm to hop on over to my favourite online book purveyor and pick up the nearest copy of her A KILLER LIFE.

Where is that extra star when I need it? Five estrellas, kids. Count 'em. Cinco.

--ADM in Prague

A hard and fast look at what goes on and into making a film. The deals and horse-trading any producer has to do in order to get a film made, makerted and distributed.
I have a Master's degree in film and believe me, this book brings the life of a filmmaker in a clearer light than any course or book will.
Vachon is humorous, gritty and a quick read. As good as the films she makes (Swoon, Happiness, Boys Don't Cry) she is as good a writer. If you are interested in making films this and "Shooting to Kill" are two must reads.

If you are a close personal friend of mine, please don't buy this book. You will be getting one for Christmas.

As a moderately successful filmmaker and author myself, I don't know why it took so long to find this book. Having devoured it on a plane flight to India, I feel compelled to personally thank Christine Vachon for this wonderful insight.

Its hard to write a book when you're actually working, perhaps that is why books like Rodriquez's Rebel Without a Crew, Katz's Shot By Shot, Murch's In The Blink of an Eye and Mamet's Bambi vs. Godzilla have become such standout works. Love them or hate them, there is tremendous value from a book that comes from actual experience.

So thank you Christine for this very enjoyable and honest work. You've ripped the scab back and exposed the raw wound in which we work and live like no other book before or since.

This should be a text book/semester in any film school that wants to teach reality in the business. A bit too much detail at times, but overall a good look at how most movies are produced and how most never make it past the treacherous pre-production phase.

The Killer Life is outstanding, entertaining, and gripping as Christine Vachon, one the America's prime indendent filmmakers, tells you what's it like to develop, finance, produce, and market an indie film from the bloody trenches. She tells her story with great vigor, suspense and humor. I LOVED it as much as I learned from it. Thank you Ms. Vachon; I have been converted to being one of your greatest fans.

A rare view of the insiders world of independent film production. Although most indie filmmakers will never make it to this level of budget and fame in the industry, it is an incredible education to understand that world. Vachon is an engaging writer and I found this to be an enjoyable book, as well as informational.

The book is readable in as much as trash pop and pulp fiction is watchable and readable.No matter what is said,at the end of the day,this producer is yet another example of someone grandfathered into the industry ,with a production loan to get her started.A lump sum equvalent of about USD 100 000 today.There were a handful of active indie female producers operating in those times(most without that financial leg up.)Vachon is but one story.For that reason this is an ill researched book.

A few other women may not have stood on others toes as much as Vachon is capable of, nor claimed as much public or industry credit for themselves, but this book is but one story from the nineties,and it is in that context only it is best read.There were a small handful of extremely strident indie and studio women in Hollywood at the time,who broke significant paths for other women,not just themselves- in the choosing of projects they developed and the actions they took.The book is readable but indulgent insider name dropping. In one aspect a shallow take on a very political hollywood film business at the time.