The pre-production process
Requirements for a moving image production
Types of moving image production (media forms)
For our task we had to create a 90 second short film for the online competition Depict. Once we made our short film we uploaded it to YouTube and we also had the option to upload it onto the Depict website. There are other types of moving image media products. These include feature length films, animations, T.V series/ soaps, adverts, music videos, indents for T.V. channels and online videos. There are a lot of different ways in which these moving image media products can be distributed. These are DVDs, blue rays, cinemas, various online websites (YouTube, Netflix), on-demand and public screens.
Finance and source of funding
Various sources of funding exist for films, television and other moving image productions. You can ask money from a lot of different places including private investors like Megan Ellison who is a film producer, the website Kick-starters, studios like the Marvel studio, self funding (using money that you already own), banks, winning competitions like depict, selling rights, merchandise and getting sponsors.
Requirements
After you have required the funding for you film you need to spend that money on what is needed to make your film. This includes locations (paying a rent to the owners so you can film on their land), accommodation/transport, equipment (camera, tripod, green screen, editing software, etc..), the talent who will appear in your film, crew (who is going to help you make your film, caterers, editors, camera operators, costume and props department, lawyers/legal team), props/costumes and ads. Ads are important because your film will not be successful and not sell very well when nobody knows about it. For our short film we had to find locations, luckily we didn't need to pay anyone for the places we need because they were all public places. We were given a £5 budget, Our group didn't spend any of it because the props we needed (white masks) were already at college. We didn't need to buy equipment because college already have camera, tripods, microphones and editing software. All we had to do was hire the equipment out for the lesson then returning it after we had finished. This means that we would not need anything more than £5.Personnel
Different media types require different personnel and different levels of experience. For example an animation film would require more animators and artists rather and less actors.
The typical team for a moving image production in a low budget short film is very few people. This would include a director, an editor, a few actors, props/costume department. These people wouldn't be well known and cheap because a low budget film wouldn't have much money. A maximum budget for a low budget film would be $2.1 million. An example of this would be Paranormal Activity. This is because it's budget was $15,000. This means that the cast and crew were unknown and quite cheap. Because the film was shot in the same place they saved money by not flying the cast/ crew all over the world and just stayed in the same spot.
A television show would need a big cast and crew because it is a recurring thing. Usually one episode is made a week, especially for a soap, so there would need to be a big team working all the time creating the episodes for the series. This means that the team would need to be big enough that it can maintain production levels. An example of this would be EastEnders. Eastenders is shown 4 times a week which is 2 hours a week. This means a team of script writers would be needed to produce enough material.
For a Hollywood feature film the crew and cast would be well known and be good at their job. As the film would be Hollywood backed it means it would have a lot of money behind it so it could afford these experienced people. The average cost for a Hollywood feature film is $139,084,697. An example of this would be The Dark Knight. Their budget was $185,000,000. They employed experienced actors like Micheal Caine and experienced directors like Christopher Nolan.
As this was not our first film in this class we already knew what we could do and what we were better at. We each took it in turns to do a bit of everything but as I had already acted in the previous short film I wanted to act again. Will was the camera man and Vicky came up with the storyboard. We all did the editing because we all wanted to expand our skills on Premier Pro.
Their are a lot of Lpeople who work on a film. Not only the people who are on screen and casually making the film. But a lot of other people work on the films this includes costume department, lawyers, mountainous like people who make the sets, advertisement people, people who look after the child actors. researchers who research the past to get accurate films. An example of a costume designer is a Milena Canonero, she worked on films like Grand Budapest Hotel and Snow White And The Huntsman. An example of a catering service that work with film studios is Bon Appetit. Halliford Studios Construction is an example of a company that make and design movie sets. To get your film known so it can make a profit you need adverts. An example of a company that makes adverts are Designate. Wiggin lawyers are a professional team of lawyers designated to gaining copyright, insurance and contracts.
The typical team for a moving image production in a low budget short film is very few people. This would include a director, an editor, a few actors, props/costume department. These people wouldn't be well known and cheap because a low budget film wouldn't have much money. A maximum budget for a low budget film would be $2.1 million. An example of this would be Paranormal Activity. This is because it's budget was $15,000. This means that the cast and crew were unknown and quite cheap. Because the film was shot in the same place they saved money by not flying the cast/ crew all over the world and just stayed in the same spot.
As this was not our first film in this class we already knew what we could do and what we were better at. We each took it in turns to do a bit of everything but as I had already acted in the previous short film I wanted to act again. Will was the camera man and Vicky came up with the storyboard. We all did the editing because we all wanted to expand our skills on Premier Pro.
Their are a lot of Lpeople who work on a film. Not only the people who are on screen and casually making the film. But a lot of other people work on the films this includes costume department, lawyers, mountainous like people who make the sets, advertisement people, people who look after the child actors. researchers who research the past to get accurate films. An example of a costume designer is a Milena Canonero, she worked on films like Grand Budapest Hotel and Snow White And The Huntsman. An example of a catering service that work with film studios is Bon Appetit. Halliford Studios Construction is an example of a company that make and design movie sets. To get your film known so it can make a profit you need adverts. An example of a company that makes adverts are Designate. Wiggin lawyers are a professional team of lawyers designated to gaining copyright, insurance and contracts.
Time
We were given a week to plan, a week to film and a week to edit. For the filming week we made a plan to film each storyboard page a day. We were a little ahead by the first day so we had more time to film everything to a higher standard. Our filming days were the 5th to the 10th of October.
If you don't meet deadlines in the media business then you waste a lot of money. This is because if you have hired out a certain filming location and the script isn't ready or the actor hasn't learnt their lines in time then you have to pay for an extra day on location. We met all of our deadlines. It was raining on one of the days that we needed to film outside so we filmed on one of our editing days instead. This didn't matter because we weren't paying for any locations or equipment.
Equipment/facilities
To hire equipment to make a moving image media project you can go on The Camera Hire Company website and hire a camera. You click on the camera you want to it gives you a quote for how much it would be to hire it out for a month. For example to hire a Sony PMW-200 camera for a month would be £1103. There is a shop called Jessops which is on the Great Yarmouth high street, it sells cameras that can be used to make a film.
For our Depict short film we had a lot of different kinds a equipment available to us in the AV room. All we had to do was use our college ID cards to keep a record on who has taken out what equipment.
Locations
Location recces are to find possible locations to film. They are there to fill in when the location is free, its availability and it's private land or not. Location releases are permission forms signed by people who own the land that you want to film on. You have to complete one for each location you film on. If anything is damaged or changed for the worse in any way then the film crew/cast will be held responsible.
We filmed most of our short film in the college. We used the room the classroom W16 and the field opposite college. We picked W16 because that is the class room we already use. We needed two tables, one behind the other, so we can see Vicky spike my character then I go off out the room on a trip. The other location we used was the field opposite. We knew about a wooded area at the top of the field which was perfect for the drug deal.
We faced a few issues with filming. For example we were going to do a scene where I was being chased and found a door which isn't there and crawl towards the door. We couldn't find a door that fitted the scene. This meant that we couldn't do the whole scene. We had to change the whole scene and ended up being attacked in the disabled toilets. When we were in the forest area there was tripping hazards and places were we could harm ourselves. To over come these we assessed the area before filming and moved dangers and cleared the ground. To get to the forest area we had to cross a fairly busy road at the front of college. To make sure on-one was hurt we crossed the road in the proper place and double checked for speeding cars.
There are a lot of different materials needed to make a moving image. Things like scores and sound effects adds a dramatic feel to the film. Props and costumes make the film come to life. Props and costumes can be expensive especially if there's a lot of cast that all need costumes. Another expensive thing you've got to thing about is copyright. To make a film you first have to make sure it isn't like any other film already made. This is quite hard because there are a lot of films out there. If your caught using copyright material then you will be fined a lot of money. You can hire lawyers to find people who have used your work without permission so you can sue them.Copyright laws prevented us from using most sound effects and music for our short Depict film. We had to use websites like "free sound" and "incompetech". We couldn't just take anything, we had to read into the copyright laws before using other websites.
- Clearance means that everything in your film had been checked and none of it has been copied from other media productions.
- Public Liability Insurance is when you have insurance for if someone on set gets injured.
- Completion guarantee/insurance is when your investors have paid you money and wants a complete film so they have the power to stop paying money out if something went wrong.
OFCOM's function is to watch over the wireless TV and mobile lines to keep communication up and
working. BBC is different to OFCOM because the BBC shows programmes as well as protection the communication lines. The BBFC classifies different TV shows with age restriction and decides when to show them.
Trade unions are set up to help works gain fair pay and pensions. They are important because they help workers get fair rights. PACT represent film works within the media business. BECTU is the UK's media and entertainment trade union. They work out pay for their clients, create training programmes for young and old film workers. A trade association is funded by businesses to operate in a specific industry. They work with a lot of different businesses at the same to get businesses to work together to help them.
We filmed most of our short film in the college. We used the room the classroom W16 and the field opposite college. We picked W16 because that is the class room we already use. We needed two tables, one behind the other, so we can see Vicky spike my character then I go off out the room on a trip. The other location we used was the field opposite. We knew about a wooded area at the top of the field which was perfect for the drug deal.
We faced a few issues with filming. For example we were going to do a scene where I was being chased and found a door which isn't there and crawl towards the door. We couldn't find a door that fitted the scene. This meant that we couldn't do the whole scene. We had to change the whole scene and ended up being attacked in the disabled toilets. When we were in the forest area there was tripping hazards and places were we could harm ourselves. To over come these we assessed the area before filming and moved dangers and cleared the ground. To get to the forest area we had to cross a fairly busy road at the front of college. To make sure on-one was hurt we crossed the road in the proper place and double checked for speeding cars.
There are a lot of different materials needed to make a moving image. Things like scores and sound effects adds a dramatic feel to the film. Props and costumes make the film come to life. Props and costumes can be expensive especially if there's a lot of cast that all need costumes. Another expensive thing you've got to thing about is copyright. To make a film you first have to make sure it isn't like any other film already made. This is quite hard because there are a lot of films out there. If your caught using copyright material then you will be fined a lot of money. You can hire lawyers to find people who have used your work without permission so you can sue them.Copyright laws prevented us from using most sound effects and music for our short Depict film. We had to use websites like "free sound" and "incompetech". We couldn't just take anything, we had to read into the copyright laws before using other websites.
- Clearance means that everything in your film had been checked and none of it has been copied from other media productions.
- Public Liability Insurance is when you have insurance for if someone on set gets injured.
- Completion guarantee/insurance is when your investors have paid you money and wants a complete film so they have the power to stop paying money out if something went wrong.
OFCOM's function is to watch over the wireless TV and mobile lines to keep communication up and
working. BBC is different to OFCOM because the BBC shows programmes as well as protection the communication lines. The BBFC classifies different TV shows with age restriction and decides when to show them.
Trade unions are set up to help works gain fair pay and pensions. They are important because they help workers get fair rights. PACT represent film works within the media business. BECTU is the UK's media and entertainment trade union. They work out pay for their clients, create training programmes for young and old film workers. A trade association is funded by businesses to operate in a specific industry. They work with a lot of different businesses at the same to get businesses to work together to help them.
You have made a very good start here and this is a very encouraging first formal written assignment. You have explained requirements and sources of requirements for production in some detail and you have provided examples throughout.
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