Pre-Production Process

The Pre-Production Process:

Requirements for a moving image production.

Type of production:

The type of production that we produced was a 90 second short film for Depict, we chose to focus on two genres which was comedy and racing. The way we distributed our film was through YouTube, there are many of other ways you can distribute a film through the professional industry. Professional films can be distributed through the box office and from this there can be a large profit. Some production company's release films straight to DVD, they can then avoid the theatrical window and save money on promoting the film. These are normally short films or spinoffs to popular movies like Frozen Fever. The problem with this is that people are less likely to buy the DVD because they don't know what to expect. Another way of distributing films is through online video sharing websites, this is usually for short films.

Types of media products are T.V shows which are distributed by broadcasting channels and the channels get funding from advertising products for different companies. Different types of media products can vary from long films that are over 3 hours long to short films that are 30 seconds long. Professionally made films go through film distributors like Warner Bros or Paramount. The film distributors release trailers for the film to get the audience intrigued into the film and then they release the film for a short while, when the time is up they take the film out of the cinema and release it to DVD. Short independent films usually won't go to the cinema but instead they go onto video sharing site like Depict or Vimeo. In one case they can go to the cinemas, the B.F.I is a charity that runs independent cinemas where you can show your short film to an audience. Another example of media productions are music videos, they are distributed on video sharing sites like YouTube and they can get funding from different sponsors. The sponsors pay to put their product into the music video in order to promote their product.

Finance and sources of funding:

For our media production, we didn't need any funding as it was a short film and all of the props were donated by us or our teacher. All of the cast and crew in our short film were not paid and so we didn't have to pay for them. Films normally have a budget, especially big films with lots of cast and crew. Most film productions have to pay for the equipment, the set, licenses etc. The people who create short films need to get funding from somewhere and most people use crowd-funding from websites such as Kickstarter. Crowd-funding is where you propose an idea to a group of people and they decide whether or not it is worth investing in. The people who invest in the productions will normally ask for a small amount/percentage of the profit. Product placement can also be a big thing to receive funding. Like music videos, films can place products into them in order to receive a small amount of money. The James Bond movies are a good example of this because they use fancy cars and the creators of the cars, pay the production company to feature their cars in the film. Many films have Sony products featured in them.

Requirements:

Majority of moving image productions require equipment and other things that need to be paid for, these can include: Video cameras, special effects, props and costumes, lighting, sounds and music etc. For our short film, we didn't need to pay for anything as all other our equipments was borrowed and the props were made out of old cardboard boxes. We were also allowed to use the college as our location and that was free to use.

Personnel:

Different types of productions require different amounts of personnel. Short films have a small amount of personnel because you wouldn't need lots of people and it would probably a low budget film so you wouldn't be able to afford lots of personnel anyway. Many of the cast and crew on low budgets films would multi-task, you would have someone doing the hair, make-up and costumes whereas in a film where they have lots of money there would be individual people doing each of those things. They could even have more than one person doing those jobs. Film productions with lots of money are more likely to have more personnel because they can afford to pay for it.

A usual crew for a high budget film would consist of:

·        Casting director

·        Director

·        Location manager

·        Costume designer

·        Make-up artist

·        Hair artist

·        Production designer

·        Set designer

·        Writer

·        Head writer

·        Screenwriter

·        Story editor

·        Producer

·        Executive Producer

When creating the actual product:

·        Boom operator

·        Floor manager

·        Stage manager

·        Camera operator

·        Cinematographer

·        Videographer

·        Control room team

·        Runner

·        Production manager

·        Production assistant

·        Stunt coordinator

Post-production

·        Editor

·        Composer

·        Post-production runner

·        Publicist

·        Sound editor

·        Title sequence designer

·        Special effects coordinator

(The list of the roles was taken from Wikipedia.)

For T.V shows and music videos, the list is pretty much the same but music videos there aren't as many people behind the productions but there are still lots of people behind it. This is the same for T.V shows as there are lots of people needed for the productions but the list differs from the one for films.

For our group we allocated different roles to everyone. I was doing most of the filming as I had more experience than the others, Ren and Paul were in charge of the story boards as they can draw pretty well. I was also in charge of doing the editing with the help of Ren while the boys did the finishing touches to the paperwork.

Time:

Most film productions have deadlines that they have to meet, these deadlines are given so that the film can be distributed on time. In the film industry, deadlines are important and if they aren't met then people can lose their jobs as there is a chance that money could be lost.

We were lucky for our production because of our time management we were able to finish the filming and editing early. From this we were able to tweak everything that we could have improved on.

Equipment/Facilities:

Equipment and props are normally rented or made. This was the same for our piece, we rented the equipment from our college and the props were either created from cardboard boxes from our teacher or they were brought in by us.

Locations:

Location reeces are used to scout out a place to film, they can eliminate any danger when you are filming. The location releases give you permission to film in that area and it also covers the land owners for any damages.

We chose to film in two different locations for our production. The reception and W16 in East Norfolk Sixth Form College. This was because W16 had a blank screen we could use for the interview scene and the reception because the space was big enough for them to race and for us to film alongside of them. We had trouble when we were filming in the reception because there were lots of students walking about. We decided to film closer to the main people in order to block out most of the students. We also decided to use a lot of different editing so you can't focus on the students as much as you would if it was normal.

Legal issues:

When you film in areas where lots of people have access too, you have lots of legal issues to consider. You could be filming an action scene where you have to use a gun, even if it is fake, you would have to alert the police and the people in the surrounding areas to what is going on. That is where the location reeces and release forms come in.

Public Liability Insurance covers any costs and legal claims for any injuries or property damage when you're using the equipment.

Copyright is also a big part of the legal issues as you need permission to use certain music, products etc. You can pay for the rights to music so you can then use it in your production. For our production we used a song which was copyright free, the song came from an artist called Circus P.

Trade unions and trade associations:

A trade union is a group of workers who form together to achieve the same common goal. This goal is normally something along the lines of helping to protect the integrity of a trade or helping to improve safety standards. Some examples of trade unions are:

·        Artists' Union England

·        National Society for Education in Art & Design

·        Employees United

·        FDA

·        Writers Guild of Great Britain