The Pre-Production Process

Type of moving image production (media forms)

There are many different types of moving image production in the industry. I created a 90 second short film for a competition called DepicT! and I distributed it on the Internet on a site by the name of YouTube. As well as short films, there are other types of moving image productions; Films and Television are the main forms of moving images; you can also distribute these products on several different platforms; Radio, Television, Internet, Radio, Magazines, Cinema and many more.

Finance and sources of funding

Having an idea for a moving image production is all well and good, but it's no good if you cannot afford to produce it. There are several ways of gathering money to produce a film, some of them include;

Crowd Funding: Websites like Kickstarter are a fantastic way to gather money for your project. People submit ideas and project and if people enjoy the idea they can give money to the project leader and the project will succeed and be made. This is a fantastic way to make money and a project and if i had to make money for a small budget film, I would probably use this method.


Private Investors: A Private Investor is someone who gives money to a company to start up and will get a percentage when the company makes money. Megan Ellison is a prime example of a Private Investor; She has been the executive producer for 5 films. Private Investors is another fantastic way to get money to make a product, but you have to be extremely confident with the idea and assure the investor that it will succeed and make money, otherwise they will not invest.

Competitions: The DepicT! competition offers up to £3000 for the winner. This is a fantastic way to make money from low budget films, but it all depends if you win; some of the entries are definitely hard to go up against.


Requirements: The list of things that would be needed to make a film can be huge, some of the main things needed are; Props and Costumes, Equipment, Talent, Location, Clearances and Insurance. All of these things are needed to ensure that the production goes smoothly and to plan. Props and Costumes can be fairly cheap depending on the product, something like a space costume will be expensive.

Equipment is on the more expensive side of the list, but the prices can vary depending on the piece you need; for instance, a high end camera will cost anywhere between £200 - £10000, but you don't need to be a millionaire to make a film. As far as talent goes, you can probably get away with buying them all lunch or a round of drinks or something in a small production, but in a bigger team, you would need to pay them properly; working with your friends is a lot cheaper than working with hired talent and crew.

For my DepicT! entry, I only needed; 2 Cameras, Wand, Various Books, Glasses, a Hat, a Coat and some 3D Glasses. Nothing else was required for this shoot and all of these things could be borrowed.

Personnel

A low budget short film, like my own, does not need many contributors as far as crew and talent. The props and costume department for a low budget short will be slim to none, most of the crew will double or even triple up on their duties and they will do multiple jobs so that the talent can be used effectively. In my short, we had a cinematographer who also helped with the props and costume of the piece; I found this to work well as all the crew all chipped in, and the shoot went smoothly and successfully.

A television program requires a lot more makeup for various other things, the Make-up department, props and costumes, camera operators, special effects operators and many more. The credits for a TV program will be a hell of a lot longer than the credits to any low budget short film, but both get the job done well. If i were to ever make a television program, I would try and keep it a low budget television program, similar to Ross Noble: Freewheeling. 

Gavin Free of RoosterTeeth Productions

A Hollywood feature film would require 10 times the amount of makeup than a television program as there are a lot more factors to account for. There are specialist jobs within other crew jobs, for example, Gavin Free operates a High Speed Camera and has worked on many famous films and television programs; Although his part is very small and he only records up to 5 shots per film, he still gets in the credits, as without him, the film would not work. 

In my group, I was appointed the job of cinematographer alongside Lauren; this meant i had to operate a camera for some of the shots and in doing so, i gained experience and learnt what not to do with a camera.

Lauren was appointed director and she also contributed to the the props and costumes department with Mark. Lauren was able to bring in a prop wand and allowed us to film with it, she was also one of the people that swiftly dressed Rhys (Friend of the Subject).

Mark was the lead of the prop department and done a very good job with the 'Dummies Book' he also chose the outfit for Rhys and assisted me in editing the final piece.

All of out team had little to no experience in the production industry but we have all learnt a great deal from our time with it.

Time

We had 3 weeks in total to Shoot, Edit and Release our short film and I would say that we managed our time very well and met all of our deadlines. In the first week, we shot the piece and that took use 2 days to get it all finished, this allowed for an extra 3 days of editing. The second week consisted of solid editing and recording audio for the piece which took longer than expected. The third week was spent making the piece perfect and adding in any effects that were needed, Mark was also helping a lot with the editing.

It is integral that you meet deadlines set in the industry because if you don't, companies can take back grants that they have allowed you to use and you will lose a spectacular amount of money. As well as loosing your job, you will get a bed reputation for not meeting deadlines; this will make it harder to fund projects in the future. Luckily, my group and I met all of our deadlines.

Equipment/Facilities

In a professional moving image production, you would need to either Rent or Buy equipment that you don't already have.

Locations

In any media production, even the most basic paperwork needs to be filled out correctly; I was introduced to a Location Recce and Release form, to my surprise was simpler than I thought it would be. A location recce is where your crew scouts your chosen location to see if is suitable for filming and if there is enough space. A location release allows the crew to film at a location and should be filled out with the correct information; all of these documents are legal documents, so if any controversy occurs you will always have legal paperwork to back up your story with.

My production only needed one Recce and Release as we filmed in one location and we were tucked away in the corner of that location.

For Wizardry for Dummies We needed a library, since we had one on the site of the college we decided to film there as it would be easier than dragging crew and equipment to a location off site. We picked a library purely based around the main character, a nerdy 'out of the box' individual who enjoyed the things he read about and lived in his own little world.

Being in a fairly safe and secure location, we didn't face any safety issues but the common ones were assessed and placed on a Risk Assessment sheet. Tripping over cables and falling camera equipment was the main worry, but luckily no problems occurred.

Materials

Other than the basic materials needed in a moving image production, there are some things that the common person might not think are included in this category; Soundtrack, it needs to be composed and fit for the specific movie and work well; Sound effects, another very important piece in any moving image production; Props, lists need to be made alongside Costumes to ensure that talent isn't running around in bin bags, shooting each other with swords. 

Legal Issues

The saying "You wouldn't steal a car" applies very well to this section; materials that you might use and music that is used in your piece all needs to be accounted for and cleared by the original owner, otherwise they could claim copyright and get a but tonne of money from you all because you didn't let them know.

Copyright protects the original owner from theft, the same way that papers to a car or house declares a person the owner. The owner of the assets can decide what people are allowed to do with them and even make money from selling their assets. You can claim small things like, dragon with a cat on it's face, as it is specific and cannot be confused with anything else; whereas, you cannot claim grass in your moving image production because you are shutting down everybody else from using 'grass' in their productions. As you can tell, it can get pretty confusing.

I ran into some potential legal trouble over my DepicT! entry. My entry was based on the famous, Harry Potter, and someone was trying to perform spells from the production. The spells do not belong to me, therefore i would need to get clearance to be able to use them or the rightful owners could claim money from me.

Clearance is the official authorisation for something to be used or take place. Eg, If I ask to use the spell 'Wingardium Leviosa' from Harry Potter, I would need clearance from the original owners.

Public Liability Insurance covers members of the public or people not included in your moving image production from harm or upset. If you are filming outside, you are required to notify the local police about the location of your shoot and the times in which you will be shooting; this ensures that if any members of the public are upset, you are able to show them that you have permission to film. Similarly, if you are running around with guns you would need to make it painfully obvious that they are not real and that you are filming, you would normally do this by wearing bright crew shirts.

Completion guarantee/insurance; if you do not meet deadlines in the industry, you will have problems; companies will reclaim money and probably never give you any more.

Regulation

OFCOM is a regulatory body, this means it will protect people using TV and Radio sectors, fixed line telecoms and many more. OFCOM operates under the Communications Act 2003, this tells people exactly what it will do and it cannot do no more or less.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) puts age stamps on moving image productions and other media, similar to PEGI. It allows the general public to purchase films in confidence without being exposed to sensitive content.

Trade Unions and Trade Associations

A Trade Union is an organised association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests. A Trade Union will fight for their employees and try to make their job the best it can be.

PACT is the UK trade association representing and promoting the commercial interests of independent feature film, television, digital, children's and animation media companies. PACT is a trade association, an organisation that is founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry, this one being Television.

BECTU s a the UK's media and entertainment trade union; sectors covered include broadcasting, film, independent production, theatre and the arts, leisure and digital media. BECTU is a Trade Union and provides a wide range of services to its circa 25,000 members.