In The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to Independent Filmmaking , celebrated Slamdance Film Festival co-founder Dan Mirvish offers a rich exploration of the process and culture of making low-budget, independent films. Once labelled a "cheerful subversive" by The New York Times , Mirvish shares his unfiltered pragmatic approach to scriptwriting, casting, directing, producing, managing a crew, post-production, navigating the film festival circuit, distributing your film, dealing with piracy and building a career. Readers will learn how to game the Hollywood system to their advantage, get their films accepted by respected festivals without going broke, and utilize a broad range of media and tactics to promote and distribute their work. A companion website features behind-the-scenes interviews and footage from Dan’s films, and much more. Learn everything you need to know to make, promote, and distribute your independent films, with time-tested lessons and practical advice on scriptwriting, casting and directing A-list actors, financing, producing, managing a crew, editing in post, creating visual effects on a budget, and successuflly navigating the film festival circuit - Find out what it takes to become a true "cheerful subversive" and adopt new and innovative approaches to producing your films, discover hidden loopholes in the Hollywood system and festival scene, take advantage of a broad range of media formats to promote and distribute your indie films, and generally make bold moves in service of your creative work, all while staying flexible enough to pivot at a moment’s notice An extensive companion website features in-depth interviews with filmmakers, more than an hour of behind-the-scenes footage from Dan Mirvish’s films, festival resources, and much more "Learning how to produce ultra-low-budget feature films is a demanding and complicated task. Even earning a Bachelor’s degree in Film, from any of the nation’s best film schools, often fails to provide the intricate methodology of professional producing. Dan Mirvish remedies this inadequacy by providing all the information you need to know in this erudite, anecdotal and humorous book. Brevity is the essence of wit, and Mirvish imparts his philosophy with a poignancy that becomes part of your filmmaking DNA." ―Rob Goald, Senior Editor, Film Festival Today "What Mirvish has accomplished in this book, is to regale the reader with one man's journey in how to become a 'wildly successful' independant filmmaker. But, he doesn't hold his journey out as a map for everyone to follow; As he concludes in the book's epilogue, 'Find your own way...'" ―Michael Ogden, Journal of Media Education "Hands down the most fun book on filmmaking I’ve read. I wish this book existed when I first started making films." ―Caveh Zahedi, award-winning filmmaker, Assistant Professor in Screen Studies, The New School "My students would not only buy the book, but they’d hang onto it after the class was over." ―Lise Raven, Associate Professor, School of Communication & Media, Montclair State University "An extremely realistic (not to mention funny) look at how to make a truly memorable independent film...or at least have fun trying! Dan's insight into the independent film world is invaluable, mostly because he's made all the mistakes he wants you to avoid!" ―Stephen Dest, award-winning filmmaker; Professor of Film Studies, University of Connecticut "Dan Mirvish is Hollywood's Merry Prankster: a guerrilla filmmaking guru whose wisdom and insights are as valuable as they are entertaining." ―Kevin DiNovis, award-winning filmmaker; Writing faculty, New York Film Academy "Dan's book explains the current independent film industry from a producer-director's perspective in a thorough yet highly-accessible manner that is sorely lacking in most film industry books. The fact that the book is presented in a conversational and even irreverent manner which never sacrifices the book's strengths is a pleasant bonus for any reader." ―Robert L. Seigel, entertainment attorney "Dan cast Julia Stiles for a bag of peanuts! I also did not realize that the author is the co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival. Those two facts, each individually and by themselves, made whatever he had to say gospel. More importantly, he wrote about something that he actually did and not just heard about." ―Christopher C. Odom, Professor, Full Sail University "The biggest thing that Mirvish’s approach offers is the fact that he has already done all this. Unlike most authors of filmmaking books, Mirvish has made several feature films, he has been to dozens of festivals with his movies, he has negotiated countless deals with representatives and he has founded and run his own major film festival. I can’t think of any other writer of filmmaking books that has that pedigree. So he offers what the audience most craves: inside information. And he drops truth bombs constantly - filmmaking is really hard; doing things the