“Buck has consistently been a top-notch producer. His book is a fine learning tool for all those interested in producing.”
— Richard Donner, Director, Superman, Lethal Weapon

“… full of ‘how to,’ it can’t help but fill a void if not become some sort of standard by which a new generation of producers can learn.”
—Mike Marvin, Writer/Director, The Wraith

“… you deserve the accolades of your producer colleagues for taking the time and energy to spell out the broad spectrum of the producer function… a boon, not only for those who may aspire to follow in your footsteps, but for the overall education of the uninformed.”
— Charles B. FitzSimons, Executive Director, Producers Guild of America

One of Hollywood’s highly respected producers offers a tour de force guide to the often neglected areas of movie production—the creative concerns, not the fund-raising aspects outlined in numerous other publications.

Houghton’s guidelines on choosing stories and rendering stories into screenplays are invaluable, as are his insights into the whole of the moviemaking process—preproduction, production, and postproduction. Here are the nuts-and-bolts issues that must be understood by all filmmakers and so often evade newcomers to the business. Reading this book should be the first step that any prospective producer takes.

Buck Houghton was most readily known as the producer of the first one hundred-plus episodes of The Twilight Zone. His career included work as a story editor for David O. Selznick and MGM Studios, production work on feature projects at RKO Studios, innumerable television series production including Yancy Derringer, Hawaii Five-O, and High Chaparral, and feature film production for Zoetrope Studios and New Century.