Requirements for a moving image production

The pre-production process

Requirements for a moving image production

Types of moving image production

For our first assignment we have done a 90 second short film for the Depict online competition. Depict challenges film makers to get a narrative across in only 90 seconds. We did this in our three-man groups, our group decided upon a Mockumentary entitled “My life is Death” which is about a day in the life of Death. However he was just a regular guy working his day job. However many other types of moving image media exist, such as:

·       Serial TV programmes (Soaps)

·       Feature length films (Pirates of the Caribbean)

·       Vlogs(Video logs)

·       Webbisodes(Online series e.g VGHS)

·       Music Videos(MTV)

·       Adverts(Played on most channels between programmes)

·       GIF. Files

·       Idents(Often shown before programmes)

Feature Length Films

As well as big Hollywood blockbusters such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003) which had a budget of $140 million. There are also Low budget films that can sometimes achieve just as much success. The most famous of these is “Clerks”(1994) A black & white American comedy which was directed by Kevin Smith who also features in the film as Silent Bob. The film was shot for only $27,000 in the Video Store and Convenience store that Kevin Smith worked on prior to his Director Career taking off. Upon its release “Clerks” grossed over $3 million, which then launched Smiths director career.    

Serial TV programmes

As well as episodic or one-off programmes a lot of channels have serial programmes. The best example of these are the Soaps (“Coronation Street” for example). A lot of Soaps and serial TV programmes take episodic form, and are on a specific time and have a continuing story arc throughout the show’s run time. However there is no limit to the number of episodes in a season. For example if you were to look on a TV guide (Sky, TiVo, and Freeview) and highlight something such as the BBC series “Merlin”, you would see a description of the episode but you would also see two numbers somewhere such as 3/6 that shows how many episodes are in the series and what number that particular episode is. Soaps on the other hand would have a description of the episode, but not the numbers telling how many there are in a series. Because Serial TV programmes don’t have series, they have the same structure and episodic presentation, but aren’t limited to a certain number of episodes per series. Serials also have continuing story arcs, that, in some cases can span the entirety of the shows run time. While, at first glance Serials and episodic programmes seem the same they in fact aren’t.

Webbisodes

Webbisodes are one of the newest forms of moving image media. They began back in 2012, with some recognition, but really took off when a Youtuber by the name of Freddie Wong began making “Video Game High School” which is often abbreviated “VGHS”. When it first began, the actors and actresses were largely undiscovered and the show had a budget of $600K which was raised using crowd funding on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.  VGHS first aired on May 17^th 2012.

Adverts

Adverts come in many forms, the most common ones are played on TV between programmes. However some channels like the BBC have chosen not to have adverts, these are the channels that get the money from TV licenses. Of Course Company’s pay for their adverts to be aired at a certain time, they also pay if they want someone famous to endorse their product. For example one of Wrigley’s more recent adverts has Antonio Banderas in (click here to see it). For some companies they’re adverts are as recognisable as the brand themselves, a good example of this is the most recent John Lewis Christmas advert with “Monty the penguin”. As with every year John Lewis bring out a Christmas advert that is specifically designed to melt people’s heart and get them to buy from John Lewis. The advert & associated campaign cost the store £7M to produce. The Mini- Blockbuster follows young Sam and his sidekick Monty the Penguin. While the advert is only 2 minutes (a sickly sweet two minutes at that) the store has created an entire storyline for Sam & Monty, with TV personality and well known X-Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary narrating the duo’s adventures. The store is hoping to cash in on Sam & Monty with a range of Toys, Onesies, pyjamas & even a book or two based on the advert. John Lewis is hoping this year they will have the same success with Sam & Monty as they did with the Bear & the Hare last year. And of course there are those that want to adopt their own “Monty the penguin” recent reports suggest that WWF have had their phones ringing non-stop and their website has been jammed ever since the advert first aired. Their website now has a picture of a penguin and adoption advert on the front of their website. However some adverts are not to family friendly and have to be on after the watershed, such as the graphic “Richard” seatbelt advert which graphically depicts the effects on an unprotected human body during a 30mph crash. Post watershed adverts are often scary or deliberately shocking to get their message across.

Distribution methods

Moving image media also needs to be distributed in some way shape or form. There are many different types of distribution methods such as;

·       YouTube(Launch Trailers)

·       Cinema Release

·       OOH(Out of house such as Buses & so on)

·       Giant TV’s(Like the One in Norwich)

YouTube

YouTube is used by over 1 Billion users worldwide, with an astonishing 100 hours of video being uploaded every minute! Everything that’s ever been put to video can be found on YouTube, so it makes sense that YouTube is used to distribute a lot of moving image media. For example the Webbisode “Video Game High School” started on YouTube and continues to thrive on the site. With over 6 billion hours of video being watched each month a lot of big Hollywood productions have started releasing teaser trailers and such on YouTube to attract a bigger audience. One such film is “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”.

Cinema Release

A cinema release is what it says on the tin. It’s when the full length, final cut film gets released into Cinemas. The highest grossing Cinema release was James Cameron’s “Avatar” which grossed over $2.8 Billion. 

Finance & Sources of funding

There are many ways of getting funding for a film. Some are more frequent than others, such as;

·       Bank Loans

·       Crowd funding(Kickstarter/ indiegogo)

·       Self-financing

·       Private capital/investment(Megan Ellison)

·       BFI Film Fund

·       Various Government grants

·       Selling right and marketing details

Crowd Funding

I didn’t do bank loans as I thought they were fairly self-explanatory and wouldn’t have made for an interesting paragraph. Crowd funding or Crowd sourcing is often done by smaller developers or developers making their debut. Crowd funding is done through sites such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. One such f

ilm that’s being crowd funded is “Hardcore” Which is the world first POV action films and a very cool idea. So far they are halfway to their $250,000 goal. However films like “Hardcore” and small indie developers that’s are just getting started that use crowd funding. Actors/Directors such as Zach Braff have used Crowd funding for their own side projects, such as “Wish you were here”. Some people think that people like Zach Braff shouldn’t be allowed to use sites like Kickstarter because they may already have enough money or they can ask someone else, whereas smaller, undiscovered directors might suffer due to their project being overshadowed by bigger, or just more famous projects.

Private capital/investment

As well as Bank Loans & Crowd funding, film makers can also look for private investment from “Money people” one such person is Megan Ellison, the very wealthy daughter of Larry Ellison, the chairman or Oracle Corporation which is a multi-million dollar computer company. Megan Ellison has so much money she doesn’t know what to do with it all(lucky for some) so she has started to invest very heavily in the film industry, financing films such as “Killing them softly” and

“Lawless”.

Various Government Grants

There are various government grants that film makers can apply for, such as the “BFI Film Fund”. The BFI or British Film Institute is a charity that shares out a large pot of money for film projects, whether it’s to help small, indie films get off the ground, or subsidies a slightly larger film, they have £26million in Lottery funds to share out, however by 2017 their budget is set to rise to £30million. The BFI was founded in 1933 and has since been investing almost £26million a year into UK based independent films. The BFI is the main body that deals with film funding, while there are others, non are as recognised as the BFI.

Requirements

When making a film a lot of things are required such as;

·       Talent

·       Equipment

·       Crew

·       Advert

·       Deals(distribution and such like)

·       Locations

·       Subsidiary’s

·       Props

·       Transport

·       Make up

·       Costumes

·       Accommodation

·       Copyright permissions

·       Facility houses(Editing software on pc’s etc)

·       Paperwork

Above is just a few of the requirements that are needed to make moving image media, whether it be TV or film. If a particular production is being shot in multiple locations then the whole team will need transport, accommodation, etc. Also if it’s a low budget film and the team doesn’t have computers with the necessary editing software than they may have to hire a facility house which is basically what it says on the tin. It’s place that production crews can go to make sure that they can edit and it’s often a cheaper alternative that buying all the software and computers needed to edit the production from home or from the office. However they will then also need to travel to and from that specific location, which will then put up the cost of traveling, however over all it would be cheaper and more cost effective to hire a facility house rather than worry about buying all the software and computers needed to do the editing.

Depict

For our depict project we also had certain requirements that we needed in order to bring our production to life, of course most of that was supplied by

College, such as the;

·       Camera

·       Tripod

·       SD card

·       Locations

·       Editing software and computers

However the props and costume were done obtained by us, as we needed to get a grim reaper costume and scythe which Stuart managed to get hold of. If we were filming outside we would have needed to make sure that we had gotten permission from both the College(specifically our teachers) and the Police, but because the only out of college filming we did was at Stuarts house, we didn’t need to e-mail the Police, although I think Stuart got permission to take the camera home.

Personnel

In every production personnel is needed to keep everything running, but the amount of personnel needed depends on the size of the production. For example a low budget short film will have a different, size cast and crew to a TV programme which will have a different size cast and crew to a big Hollywood blockbuster.

Low budget short

The crew of a low budget short would one of the smallest, primarily as they have a low budget so they would have to be very careful on how many people they brought on as it could end up cost far too much! The key crew members for a low budget short would be;

·       Director

·       Producer

·       Talent

·       Camera operator(s)

·       Editor(s)

While that doesn’t seem like much, there would be more, less important people, however they would often just float around helping whenever, wherever they are needed, but the most important people are those I have listed above.

TV Programme

The crew of a TV programme, would be quite substantial, definitely bigger than a low budget short, but smaller than a big Hollywood blockbuster. The cast of a TV programme wouldn’t change too much, especially on Serial programmes like Soaps and such like. The key personnel on a TV programme would be;

·       Director

·       Talent

·       Producer

·       Editor(s)

·       Camera operator(s)

·       Costume Designer

·       Set designer

·       Location Manager

·       Make-up artist

·       Writer

·       Screen Writer

·       Casting director

Those listed above are some of the most important people that are involved in the creation of TV programme.

Hollywood Feature Film

A Hollywood feature film would have a very big cast and crew. Unlike a short film everyone would have their defined roles and responsibilities, one person wouldn’t be in charge or three different things for example. The key cast and crew on a feature film would be;

·       Director

·       Editior(s)

·       Talent

·       Producer

·       Writer

·       Screenwriter

·       Set designer

·       Costume designer

·       Casting director

·       Location manager

·       Production manager

·       Publicist

·       Sound Editor

·       Title sequence designer

The list above gives you a small idea of how many people it would take to make a feature film, they are just the important ones, PA’s, Runners and various other jobs certainly add to the crew size.

When we were doing our Depict project, we each had a few roles, Stuart looked after the prop and costume side of things(he was the only one wear a costume and using a prop) I operated the camera and gathered some paper work, which I then made sure was on a shared document so that we could all put it on our blogs and Lois handled the majority of the paperwork. As for the editing we attempted to share it out as equally as possibly, when one of our group was away (which wasn’t very much thankfully) we got them editing as much as possible when they got back, so that we all had a fair crack at it. I don’t think any of us had very much experience, I think Stuart probably had the most then me & Lois were about the same. We all sort of fell into our roles naturally, we spoke about when we very first started filming and we just stuck to them (as you might expect).

Other contributors- Personnel

As well as having the cast and crew there is also a lot of other people that contribute to creation of a media text, such as;

·       Experts

·       Interviewees

·       Extras

·       Presenters

·       First aider

·       Accountants

·       Studio Audience(primarily for TV)

Those are just a few of the people that would contribute in some way or another to the creation of a media text. For example, the news wouldn’t be a very good programme with the presenter or news reader telling you what’s happening around the world and linking to the various correspondents. Similarly, a show like Piers Morgan’s life stories wouldn’t be very good without its interviewees. While First Aiders are never really seen or heard from by the public, behind the scenes they are vital to making sure no injuries occur, and if they do the first aider can deal with it to stop it getting worse and holding up the production which then costs more money.

Time

The time frame for our Depict project was two weeks, the first week was filming and the second week was editing. We used our time well and effectively, we got all our shots and were able to start editing slightly before which meant we were able to finish our overall project earlier. As a result of this we did try to tidy up and polish our production as much as possible. We met all or deadlines and finished quite comfortably within that time.

In the professional media industry everything is done to a very tight schedule, because everything costs money, and the production only has a limited

supply, so deadlines are set to insure that the production doesn’t over run and cost too much money. However if these deadlines are not met then that will cause delays, sometimes things will have to be postponed which unfortunately will then cost a lot of money. For example if a Crane is hired for 3 days, but it ends up being needed for a week then that will cost far more than just three days, that also means that the production will have fallen behind schedule. Entire films have been cancelled because they ran to over budget that then can also kill the career of the director because they will be seen as too unreliable. Some notable films that went over budget are; “Avatar” “Alexander” “The Lone Ranger” & “Titanic” Titanic cost $200 million dollars to make. So the film about the ship cost more to make than the actual ship! Also Titanic stole the title of most expensive film from “Waterworld”.

Our group met our class-set deadlines, in fact we finished quite comfortably before the deadline, so we double checked everything, polished up our final piece and made sure everything was in order and on our blogs.

Equipment

In the professional media industry equipment is obtain through facility houses usually, which offer a rates card to the production. A rates card is simply a card with the rates of all the different pieces of equipment on it. One such facility house is “The Hall”. There are a number of media related services that The Hall offers, these are;

·       Film Crews & Kit filming in HD or SD

·       A sound proof 30m2 TV studio with blue & green screen

·       Avid Symphony Nitris DX editing suite will full broadcast video and audio monitoring equipment

·       Three HD/SD Avid media composer editing suites

·       A HD/SD final cut pro editing suite

·       Protools HD audio suite with V/O booth

·       Harding FPA testing

·       Format conversion suite

·       DVD/Blu-Ray authoring

I couldn’t find any prices listed on their website, so it maybe that a client would have to contact them about prices.

During our Depict production we had various equipment available to us, such as;

·       Camera

·       Tripod

·       Dolly (or something very similar)

·       Studio

·       Various locations within college(offices etc)

Above is just a small list of some of the equipment available to us. Unlike in the professional media industry we didn’t have to go to a facility house, but rather Dave Higgins in the AV(audio/visual) Room. So I suppose it was sort of like a production house, except it’s just a room & it doesn’t cost.

Location

Before filming starts Location Recces are done and Location Releases must be signed. A Recce is a few, or maybe just one crew member(s) go and observe a location, to see if they would like to use it for filming and what preparations would need be made. We did a few Recces for our Depict production as we needed to find a room we could use for a few of our shots, we ended up using one of the small offices, which was fairly easy to Recce, the only other place we used was the college Lobby, but that didn’t need to be Recced. During the Recces we did for our Depict production we had to count the plug sockets in the rooms we wanted to use and make sure there were no safety hazards.

Location Release

A location Release is what often comes after a Recce, it’s a form that outlines the terms of the production team using a certain location, often keeping it clean and returning it to the way it was when they arrived is on there somewhere. A location release must be signed by all the parties involved, and is often presented during arrival.

When we were doing our Depict production we chose certain locations because they were easy to get to and fit the narrative, the first place we used was one small office usually occupied by member of staff called Anita. This was easy to use and it fit our narrative quite well, as for a couple of scenes we wanted our protagonist to be in an office environment. The second place we used was the college lobby, for pretty much the same reason, it was easy to access and fit the narrative well.

As most of our film was inside the weather was not too much of an issue for us, regardless, we also planned that if it was raining, the one shot we needed outside could be shot just inside the lobby. Another, and perhaps more substantial issue we faced was absences. If one of us was absent that could have messed up our schedule, but luckily none of us were off. However we made sure that we filmed all the shots in which we needed specific people to be there to make it work, first. During the production there is an interview scene, however I wasn’t filming that, because I was absent that day, however we managed to sort it out by Lois filming it and the cameraman remaining silent. Lack of equipment or lack of location were two more issues we could have faced, but by choosing to use college equipment and shooting in college we negated that risk to almost nil.

Materials

Below is a list of the various materials that may be needed for a production. Such as;

·       Food

·       Costumes

·       Petrol

·       Railcard

·       Script

·       Props

·       Documentation

·       Equipment

·       Achieves

Above is a small list of some of the things that may be needed for a production.

Financial issues

Things like;

·       Cast

·       Crew

·       Equipment

·       Insurance

·       Copyright

·       Overall cost

Can all be labelled as financial considerations or issues. Luckily we had very few if no financial issues what so ever.

Legal issues

·       Rights

·       Releases

·       Copyright(in all its many forms)

·       Product placement

·       Photos

Those are some of the legal issues when making a film, although that doesn’t seem like much, copyright comes in many forms, so I have just put copyright on there as a whole and also the various rights and releases can take time and money to acquire.

Copyright

Copyright is when a person, band, company or someone else has their media text (music, TV shows, logo etc.) patented and copyrighted. This then means that anyone who wants to use that media text must pay the owner a certain amount of money. Copyright can be the cause of many films and such not being made as it

can cause such a huge issue. However copyright is not eternal, it only lasts 70 years, albeit that is a long time. Copyright protection is automatically given when someone creates;

·       original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography

·       original non-literary written work, eg software, web content and databases

·       sound and music recordings

·       film and television recordings

·       broadcasts

·       the layout of published editions of written, dramatic and musical works

Copyright acts like a barrier, to stop people from;

·       copying your work

·       distributing copies of it, whether free of charge or for sale

·       renting or lending copies of your work

·       performing, showing or playing your work in public

·       making an adaptation of your work

·       putting it on the internet

Luckily for us copyright didn’t affect our production as everything in it was copyright free.

Clearance is when a certain person, company etc is given permission to use something by someone else. E.g. If I wanted to use one of Ed Sheerans songs in a film I was making, I’d have to get clearance from him first.

Public Liability Insurance is when a production is insured up to a certain amount for damages etc. For example “I am Legend” Had public liability insurance totalling $5million, but this was due to the fact that they were shutting down parts of New York City and were using Military personnel and vehicles during some of their scenes.

A completion guarantee is when the investors are given a guarantee that the film will be finished. An example of this would be if the film doesn’t get finished the production the investors will get their capital returned to them with interest.

Regulation

OFCOM

Ofcom is the communications regulator for the UK they regulate everything from

Phone lines to TV. They were formed and operate under the communications act of 2003. Ofcom is a government funded and set up regulator, thus they are accountable to parliament. Below is a list of all of Ofcom’s main legal duties;

·       the UK has a wide range of electronic communications services, including high-speed services such as broadband;

·       a wide range of high-quality television and radio programmes are provided, appealing to a range of tastes and interests;

·       television and radio services are provided by a range of different organisations;

·       people who watch television and listen to the radio are protected from harmful or offensive material;

·       people are protected from being treated unfairly in television and radio programmes, and from having their privacy invaded;

·       a universal postal service is provided in the UK - this means a six days a week, universally priced delivery and collection service across the country

·       Moderate the radio spectrum (the airwaves used by everyone from taxi firms and boat owners, to mobile-phone companies and broadcasters) is used in the most effective way.

BBC Trust

The BBC trust is the regulator of the BBC. It consists of 12 trustees and the chairman Rona Fairhead. The BBC trust is different to the executive board as all the trustees are appointed by the Queen. The BBC trust is different from Ofcom in a few ways, the first one being that only it regulates the BBC, secondly the trustees are appointed by the Queen and finally, the BBC trust answers to the general public and some BBC bigwigs, whereas Ofcom answers only to the government.

BBFC

The BBFC are the British Board of Film Classification and they regulate all British Films. The BBFC is entirely independent and all its money comes from the fees it charges for it services. It has one President and two Vice Presidents (click here to view their profiles on the BBFC website).

The BBFC film regulations are;

·       U- Suitable for everyone

·       PG- Parental guidance

·       12A- Cinema release suitable for 12 year olds if accompanied by an Adult.

·       12- Video release suitable for 12 year olds

·       15- Suitable for 15 year olds

·       18- Suitable for 18 year olds

·       R18- Adults only working for licenced premises

Ofcom have a lot of regulations the sections are;

·       Protecting Minors

·       Harm and Offence

·       Crime

·       Religion

·       Accuracy and Due impartiality undue prominence of views and opinions

·       Elections and referendums

·       Fairness

·       Privacy

·       Commercial referencing in TV

·       Commercial referencing in Radio

There’s lots of regulations, however none would have affect our depict production because we didn’t tackle anything on the regulations list. It wasn’t scary, so if the BBFC rated it, it would be either U or PG and as for Ofcom’s regulations, we didn’t do anything that would damage minors, we didn’t cause anyone harm or offence, no crime or religion was portrayed etc. All in all our Depict production wouldn’t have been affected by the regulations.

Trade Unions & Trade Associations

Trade Union

A Trade Union is an organization of works that belong to a trade, group of trades, or profession. They exist to protect the workers’ rights and further their interests. Often workers will join a trade union for that exact reason, to protect their rights and interests, however another reason they may join a union is to achieve a common goal, such as protecting the integrity or other aspects of their trade. Some examples of trade unions are;

·       NUT(Teachers union)

·       BALPA(Airline Pilots union)

·       CATU(Ceramic & Allied trades union)

·       ATL(Education union)

·       ASLEF(Train drivers union)

·       BECTU(Media and Entertainment union)

PACT

PACT are a Trade Association that looks after independent film. According to their website, PACT focus’ their efforts on four main areas, these are;

·       Policy

·       Diversity

·       Legal & Business affairs

·       International Exploration

PACT work both domestically and internationally helping to mould the best regulatory and legislative environment for independent film makers and their work. They provide a lot of advice and support for the legal & business side of things, on their website they also say they campaign strongly for producers’ rights. One of PACT’s goals is to influence the wider industry to commit to diversity, both on and off screen.

BECTU

BECTU is a Media and entertainment union broadcasting, theatre and arts, independent production, film and digital media. BECTU offers a wide range of services to its 25,000 members, these include:

·       Negotiating pay, conditions and contracts with employers

·       Personal advice and representation for individual members

·       Advice and representation on health and safety

·       Benefits and services for BECTU members

·       Training support and courses

·       Networking events and career development opportunities

·       Union journal, Stage Screen and Radio, published six times a year.

·       Website designed to improve access to the union's advice and support.

Trade Associations

A trade association, sometimes called a sector association or industry trade groups will participate in public relations activities for their specific industry, such as

·       Advertising

·       Political Donations

·       Education

·       Lobbying

·       Publishing

But its main purpose is Standardization, the collaboration between companies. Other services are offered such as;

·       Conferences

·       Networking

·       Charitable events

Trade associations are often made up from employers organizations, this then has an impact on their role in social dialogue. A few examples of Trade associations other than BACTU are;

·       BBA(Bankers association)

·       ATAC(Asbestos testing and consulting association)

·       ADBA(Aerobic digestion and biogas association)

·       BESA(Building and Engineering services association)

·       NFDC(Nation federation of demolition contractors)