Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts

Teenagers can ""stop dreaming and start creating"" with this guide to making their first film. The authors, who teach filmmaking at an Austin, Tex., high school, suggest starting with a short-a five-minute film. They recommend that teens have a script before they begin, and be ready to take on many responsibilities: writer, producer, director and editor. Shooting should take place over the course of a long weekend, and filmmakers must set a deadline to have the film finished (aided by picking a festival or contest that has a submission deadline four to six weeks after they wrap). Lanier and Nichols urge budding moviemakers to use a digital camera and editing software, yet they caution readers not to blow all their savings. Spend money on equipment, they say, but scrounge for everything else. Throughout, they try to be chatty, with lines like ""See you at Sundance."" Chapters explain how to pick a subject (with exercises for doing so), write a script, pick the location for all the films' shots and deal with worst-case scenarios, such as no-shows, stormy weather and technical glitches. Lanier and Nichols's helpful crash course ensures that readers' first efforts don't resemble amateurish home videos.