Yes You Can (2023) by Courtney Daniels

Courtney Daniels wrote and directed What Other Couples Do (2013), Bedroom Story (2020), and It’s Not You, It’s LA (2023).

In this book she takes the reader through the process of making a micro-budget, feature-length movie on your own.

She seems to regard this as something you can do to benefit your career between “real” gigs, but there’s nothing to say you can’t turn the appetizer into an entrée.

Buy it at Indigo or Amazon.

Adventures in the Screen Trade (1984) by William Goldman

William Goldman wrote such movies as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Princess Bride (1987), and Misery (1990).

He was a novelist who also wrote screenplays, rather than a screenwright. He coined the famous description of Hollywood insiders, “Nobody knows anything.”

This book’s Hollywood gossip affirms the Minor Mogul’s desire to remain small and independent, but many of the lessons and analyses (of screenwriting and of movie-making) apply not just to Hollywood but to screenwriting at any level.

Buy it at Indigo or Amazon.

Making Movies (2023) by Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet directed such movies as Fail Safe (1964), Network (1976), and The Verdict (1982). He was praised for both his deep technical knowledge and his facility with actors.

This book is a complete film school between two covers. If you want to know how movies are made, you can do no better than this.

Buy it at Indigo or Amazon.