Inside The Filmbiz

Robert Bell, who's spent some 40 years in the film business and currently teaches at San Francisco State University, shares his insights into the "filmbiz" in this detailed hour-long guide to the development, financing, production management, distribution, and marketing of a motion picture. Using a casual lecture format in what is obviously a film lover's office, Professor Bell gets down to the nitty gritty in each of the various stages involved in making a film (standard clauses one is likely to find in actor's or director's contracts, what is meant by such terms as "negative pick-up" and "exhibitor's nut," and what types of insurance one is likely to require in feature film production, for example). Along the way, interesting anecdotes shed light on successes and failures in the film business (the story of the mismanagement of Robert Young's excellent The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, for instance). This is not an Entertainment Tonight kind of overview of the film business: it's about hard facts, dotted "i"s and crossed "t"s, and the underlying "realities" of that mystical and misunderstood "dream factory," the filmbiz. A unique program, Inside the Filmbiz is must viewing for anyone who has a desire to break into the motion picture industry. Highly recommended. (Available from: Robert Bell Films, Inc., 938 B St., San Rafael, CA 94901.)