The Filmmaker’s
Book oF The DeaD
Popcorn Artwork by Dave Lange, Darkmatter Studios
The Filmmaker’s
Book oF The DeaD
Danny Draven
H O W TO M A K E YO U R OW N
HEART-RACING HORROR MOVIE
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON
NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO
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Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience
broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical
treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating
and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using

PART ONE • THE HORROR GENRE
Chapter 1 ThE MEChANiCS OF MONSTERS 3
PART TWO • PREPRODUCTION
Chapter 2 GETTiNG STARTED 27
Chapter 3 CASTiNG A hORROR FiLM 53
Chapter 4 ThE hORROR FiLM CREW 73
Chapter 5 PREPRODuCTiON TiPS & TRiCKS 85
PART THREE • PRODUCTION
Chapter 6 PRODuCiNG A hORROR FiLM 99
Chapter 7 DiRECTiNG A hORROR FiLM 115
Chapter 8 CiNEMATOGRAPhy OF A hORROR FiLM 133
Chapter 9 WAR STORiES & ADviCE FROM ThE TRENChES 141
PART FOUR • POSTPRODUCTION
Chapter 10 EDiTiNG hORROR FiLMS 157
Chapter 11 ThE SOuND OF hORROR FiLMS 171
Chapter 12 ThE MuSiC OF hORROR FiLMS 183
Chapter 13 CGi 199
Chapter 14 ThE PiTFALLS OF POSTPRODuCTiON 209
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART five • DISTRIBUTION and MARKETING
Chapter 15 DISTRIBUTION FOR HORROR FILMS 223
Chapter 16 GENERAL DELIVERY REQUIREMENTS 251
Chapter 17 HORROR FILM FESTIVALS 265
Chapter 18 SELF-PROMOTION & MARKETING 277
Chapter 19 THE FUTURE OF HORROR 289
INDEX 295
Website contents for draven’s filmmaker’s
book of the dead
Website Extras
Chapter 2 Website Extras:

Blood Dolls
Castle Freak
Cryptz
Darkwalker
Dead Hate the Living
Demonic Toys
Evil Bong
Ghost Month
Ghost Month: Origins
Gingerdead Man
Hell Asylum
Lurking Fear
Puppetmaster
Horror Movie Trailers:
BioSlime
Cryptz
Dangerous Worry Dolls
Darkwalker
Deathbed
Demonic Toys
ixTABLE OF CONTENTS
Dollman
Ghost Month
Gingerdead Man 2
Hell Asylum
Intruder
Invisible
Lurking Fear
Oblivion
Pit and the Pendulum

honest and send you a report with some pennies. You were part of an
expensive food chain and there were few shortcuts. Today, you can shoot
your show on your camcorder in HD, edit and post it on your computer,
spit out DVDs, create your own packaging, and start selling your lm on
the Internet. You may not make a dime, but you can do it all yourself!
And if you actually have some talent, then you have a real chance of being
discovered, and off you go! That brings me back to Danny Draven. Danny
can do it all and he is super talented! He can craft a lm for very few
dollars and make it look like the budget was 10 times what was actually
spent. It’s not because he is extremely technically procient (which he
is)—it’s because the love for his craft shines through and he is truly gifted.
This book is a terric practical guide to lmmaking from someone who
doesn’t just write about it, but lives it every day.
CHARLES BAND
Full Moon President
May 19, 2009
Hollywood, California
xii FOREWORD
“
Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden audito-
rium of his skull.
”
—ROD SERLING
A VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO
MIKE & MARLENE BROWN
Elinor Actipis
Jane Dashevsky
Amanda Guest
Melinda Rankin
Jeanne Hansen

Gigi Fast Elk Bannister
Mbencekno, Inc.
Fangoria Magazine
Michael Gingold
Tony Timpone
Debbie Rochon
James Wan
Patricia Dziekan
Michael King
Mac Ahlberg
John Strysik
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Andrea Beesley-Brown
Ryan Brookhart
J. R. Bookwalter, Tempe Entertainment
Del & Sue Howison
Dark Delicasies, Burbank, California (www.darkdel.com)
Jon Sagud, RED Digital Cinema
North American Motion Pictures
Brett Lauter, Pan Global Entertainment
Arriflex
Sound Indeas, Inc., Elliott Zimmerman
Regent Releasing, Jonathon Aubry
xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ryan Mantione, Full Moon Features
Draven Lovell
Marc Pilvinsky
Todd Debreceni
Producers Guild of America
Nancy Naglin, Videoscope Magazine

xvACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Cover Artwork, Design, and Section Illustrations
Dave Lange
Darkmatter Studios
www.darkmatterstudios.com
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON DANNY
DRAVEN AND HIS FILMS GO TO:
www.dannydraven.com
www.myspace.com/dannydraven
xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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The horror
GeNre
ParT oNe
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ChaPTer 1
The meChaNiCs oF
moNsTers
“
To make Michael Myers frightening, I had him walk like a man,
not a monster.
”
—JOHN CARPENTER
A beam of light illuminates a dark hallway leading to a door. Something
scratches at uneven intervals as Amy wipes the sweat from her brow. Beams
of light on the oor become broken as a shape moves on the other side.
Amy musters her courage and calls out, “Jamie, is that you?” The scratch-
ing stops for a moment as if something were listening and then continues.
“Come on…quit messing around. I mean it.” She creeps along the wall

monster is your antagonist and drives your narrative. You must infuse it
with characteristics and behaviors that help tell the tale, but at the same
time make it compelling, sinister, and sometimes empathetic. Like the
protagonist, it must also want something, whether it is blood, brains, sex,
body parts, DNA, a human form, or just power over another. Establishing
what a monster wants or needs for survival will help you dene who and
what it is. Avoid clichés and making knockoffs of other successful lms;
you will lose.
The following are the most common types of monsters, along with
valuable examples that have inspired me to make horror lms.
GhosTs & The sUPerNaTUral
One of life’s certainties is your demise. Whether you die of old age,
are murdered, or die of a disease, you can’t live forever—at least in the
nonction world. After the grim reaper claims your soul, your lifeless body
may be cremated, rot in a cofn, be diced up by medical students, or be
eaten by a maniac. One day your body—no matter how much surgery and
aerobics—will return to the earth as dust. It’s unsettling to be reminded of
our mortality, but in horror lms that is our job. The storyteller’s vision of
what a ghost looks like, or what may be waiting for us in the spirit world,
5THE MECHANICS OF MONSTERS
gives us some hope of an afterlife, whether it is good or bad. In a horror
lm, it is most likely going to be bad.
I’ve always felt that less is more with the traditional ghost stories.
Alfred Hitchcock once said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the
anticipation of it.” This is great advice on all levels of lmmaking, but it’s
especially helpful when you’re working on a limited budget. One of the
great success stories of independent horror lms is THE BLAIR WITCH
PROJECT (1999). This is a movie that showed practically nothing, yet
it scared the hell out of you by tricking you into believing it was all real
documentary footage. The lm was made for a mere $22,000, it was shot

THE EXORCIST (1973) is the scariest movie
made on the subject of demonic possession. It
has had the most psychological impact on its
audience since its release in 1973, and it also
created the most controversy. People fainted and
went into hysterics at the theaters, actress Linda
Blair had death threats from religious zealots, and
Christian evangelist Billy Graham even claimed
an actual demon was living in the celluloid of the
lm reels. “I have no doubt that THE EXORCIST
moved people very profoundly,” says director
William Friedkin. “There is always an attempt to
try and label and defuse the impact of something
that moves us deeply. Very few people really want to accept the stuff that is
going on there as a kind of unknowable phenomenon. It’s easier to call it
a horror lm.” Even after all the controversy, the lm remains a classic. It
spawned several sequels and won two Academy Awards in 1973.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
THE EXORCIST (1973), DEMONS (1985), NEEDFUL THINGS (1993), THE DEVIL’S
ADVOCATE (1997), THE NINTH GATE (1999), SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY
COMES (1983), THE OMEN (1976), ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968), HELLRAISER
(1987), TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT (1995), THE SENTINEL (1977),
LORD OF ILLUSIONS (1995).
alieN liFe-Forms
Aliens in horror lms provide a great opportunity to use your imagination
to the fullest. Imagining what a creature from another world might be like
is the most stimulating part of the lmmaking process, and the possibili-
ties are endless. Just remember that an alien in a horror lm is not neces-
sarily the same as an alien in a sci- lm; there is a difference.
A-list Hollywood heavyweight Peter Jackson, who gave us the LORD