How to Make an Action Movie for $99 (Paperback)

by Andrew Mayne Harter (Author) "There's an old Steve Martin joke where he explains how to be a millionaire and never pay taxes..." (more)
Key Phrases: light kit, action movie, regular speed, Full Motion Blur, Joe Filmmaker, Fort Lauderdale (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A guide to writing, shooting, and editing a feature film in the digital age.

When independent filmmaker Andrew Harter decided to make a feature-length action movie, he didn't let the $99 budget get in the way.

The result: Full Motion Blur - quite possible the greatest (and only) action movie ever made for $99 (Official Selection of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.)

In this book, Andrew explains how to write a script around existing props and "borrowed" locations. How to get people to work for free and love it. Most importantly, he breaks down the technical details of filmmaking so you can start and see your project completed. It's guerilla filmmaking at it's most extreme.

About the Author
Andrew Mayne Harter is a magician and filmmaker. He's the author of half a dozen books on magic and a forthcoming guide on critical thinking. In addition to writing, Andrew has directed two independent features, several instructional videos and the underground magic video Shock FX.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Maynestream Publications (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971518319
• ISBN-13: 978-0971518315
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #832,277 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Magician-turned-Filmmaker tricked us!, July 28, 2005

By	J. Prugar "Stunod Pictures" (Bucks County, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been looking forward to reading this book ever since I heard about it 3 years ago. I finally got my hand on a copy, and boy was I disappointed!
It appears that this is a self-published title. The font is rather large, too large for a book. This title also has no ending, and the numerous spelling and grammatical errors I read made me cringe.
The book talks a lot about his film, Full Motion Blur. For those of us who haven't seen it (Which I'm guessing is most of the readers of the book), it'd be nice to tell us what it was about!! Maybe show us a screenplay or where we can find the film (there's no website or anything online on where to find it).
This book doesn't have much value to a filmmaker until the first 100 pages. the author keeps referring to Chimpanzees and Monkeys, which seems to be an inside joke I don't get. The footnotes are not only in bad taste, but completely pointless. I just kept shaking my head every time I read them (a warning for parents of kids: the book does have some not so subtle sexual inneundo in the book).
He also appears to be a bit self-absorbed and possess a large ego, which is unfortunately evident in the first 100 pages.
Once you get to the section about shooting the movie, he starts to give out information filmmakers can use. Despite being a 6 year veteran of filmmaking, I learned a bit about no budget filmmaking that I didn't find in other books. But the author seems to want us to do what he says, not what he does. He talks about showing, not telling the action, but all he does is tell us some techniques for low-budget filmmaking. How about some still photographs of what you've donem or computer program screenshots when you made the film?
For all the hype and promise this book held, it grossly underdelivers. [...]
Oh, and finally, the author warns of people who tend to criticize filmmakers' efforts are no more than frustrated filmmakers who never made their movie. So that I may put that to rest: I've been making films for six years: I've made 5 films, 9 commercials, and written 20 screenplays, all while holding down a fulltime job and raising a son.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars okay, December 10, 2005

By	Moyna - See all my reviews

This book is okay, but my main problem with is it that it does not appear the author has made a very good movie 'Full Motion Blur' on which he bases this book. This movie seemingly is the kind of stuff highschoolers (like me) make with lots of violence, no story, and poor editing.

His advice is to not use a tripod, but to move the camera a lot. This, he says, adds tension to the movie. Personally, I regret not buying Robert Rodruiguez's book 'Rebel Without a Crew,' because not only is the movie El Mariachi the greatest low budget movie of all time, but the filmmaking involved with making a movie for cheap is very useful.

This book is not total trash, there is a few pages towards the end which are useful, like stereotyping people and how to use them in movies, and doing special effects. Unfortunatly, for the most part, it's just stipid filler with no content about a nothing movie that no one besides the filmmaker himself has seen.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Valid but poor on content, February 12, 2005

By	E. Bacca "laphijia" (Padova, Padova Italy) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At less than 200 pages one can't expect this book to give you all the information you really need to shoot a movie. Even less considering the big font used. It looks like the author wanted to write a book to make some money so threw together some content and used a big font to fill 200 pages. This is confirmed by the fact that the author himself says that in the past he used to write books about magician tricks.

To be honest many of the things that this book says are true, but they are disorganized and not of any practical value. The $99 thing seems more like a cool slogan that gets repeated over and over, while he never actually explains where that money went.

This book is mostly a series of 10 point lists about various topics such as what equipment to buy (much more than $99), features of an action movie (Action is Action), etc.

The cover says, "a guide to writing shooting and editing a feature film," however there is a chapter about writing, about shooting it is at most approximative, and about editing nothing at all.

As I already mentioned many of the ideas in this book are valid and intelligent, however do not expect this book to teach you how to shoot a movie despite the HOW TO in the title.

Has anybody seen Full Motion Blur, the supposedly greatest action movie ever made for $99 that the author brags about every other page?