In Making a Winning Short, author Edmond Levy uses the example of his Oscar-nominated short film, JONATHAN’S TURN, to teach his readers the process of – you guessed it – making a winning short, from concept to screenwriting to producing to editing. Now, from my experience of reading books on film, I have realized that there are three kinds of authors. The first is the professional who, in the later years of his life, is passing down the wisdom he has learned throughout a long and prosperous career. These are the Clive Barkers, the Sidney Lumets, the William Goldmans. Second are people who don’t pretend to be professionals, but instead have dedicated their lives to either the teaching or appreciation film (an equally respectable profession), such as Christopher Vogler, Roger Ebert, and Robert McKee. Finally, there are the pseudo-professional, those who sort of made it in the movie industry and are now writing because they have a lot of time on their hands. As I mentioned in my review of Story, Skip Press, the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Screenwriting, strongly came off as this type. Edmund Levy, on the other hand, seems to be a rare combination of all three. He could be considered a professional, as he has been nominated for several Oscars, but then again they were for short narratives, which could qualify him as a pseudo-professional. He is also a teacher at Columbia University, so he seems to be aware of the fact that he’s never going to join the ranks of Kubrick and Scorsese. Overall, this makes his book occasionally insightful but occasionally inconsistent with the writings of more respectable teachers, the most noticeable of which is his poor formatting.

The most important thing Levy teaches us is that making a winning short can be a fantastic way to get into the business – after all, that’s how Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and dozens of other greats started out. This may seem like simple advice, but it’s still very important to keep in mind. He also introduces the concept of character profiling, which is another useful technique. Unfortunately, he seems to dumb it down a bit – “best thing that could happen to this character (which could turn out to be the worst)” – which seems out of place coming from a professor from Columbia. Probably the greatest thing Levy does is refer his readers to grade-A shorts to watch. I would love to see THE DOVE, a satire of the films of Ingmar Bergman. He also lists U. S. and international film festivals where you can submit your work.

But, I would recommend skipping over the chapters on screenwriting. Since this is not the topic of the book, Levy only skims over the basics, and, like I mentioned before, he gets several things wrong. For example, he does not use Courier font, which, in the words of Terry Rossio (columnist and co-screenwriter on SHREK and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN) is, “The mark of a rank amateur.”

But, overall, I would still recommend Making a Winning Short. After all, it’s probably the only book out there on the subject (there is one more, but it only covers writing the short). I’m glad I read it, and there is some information in it that I will apply to future shorts, but I probably could have survived without it.

Recommended: Yes