Requirements for production

Project Report

Types of production

It is hard to place a name of the type of media that we produced as there are so many and our task only said to make a 90 second click for the Depict! competition. So I think that is what we have made. A 90 second short film for the Depict! Competition.
 The winners would earn themselves £1500 and UK distribution of the short film.


There are so many different types of media and this one is just a subsection of a wide variety of them.
Some of the main ones include

•   Television - all sorts of media streams can be brought through the television as there isn't really any limitations as you can put moving images on the screen that can advertise, entertain or even inform with the click of a button.

•   Internet - Anything you want to find on the Internet you will and can find. From games, to news, to XXX material. All from the click of a button, the Internet can be the best and worst form of media as ANYONE can put something on their.

•   Film - Because (legally) you have pay to buy a film or go into a cinema, film can be some of the most exciting form on the media. Millions if not billions are made by it but only one in four actually make a profit

Finance and Sources of Funding

Films can cost a horrible amount to make. For example, Pirates of the Caribbean; At Worlds End cost a scary 300 million US dollars. Now i very much doubt anyone would pay that out from their own pocket. This means that they had to get their funds from else where, but where you may ask? Well, here are some of the way that films can get their funds;

•   Government Grants - The BFI (British Film Institute) "Encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Film_Institute)

•   Private Investors - One of the hardest types of film financing pieces to obtain is private investor funds. These are funds invested by an individual who is looking to possibly add more risk to his investment portfolio, or a high net-worth individual with a keen interest in films. Boston Financial Trust, Corp. has become a catalyst for many of those types of investors and has access to some of the strongest film financiers in the Northeast. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_finance) 

•   Advertising/Product Placement - Product placement is where a company pays a producer to advertise their product in a film. The James Bond films are a great example of this because they have everything from Rolex Watches to their newest product placement where it sees Bond ordering a Heinikin beer instead of the normal Martini.

Requirements for a film production

There are lots of requirements to make a film, we will take a look at some of the  things a high budget if not Hollywood film would need!

·          Starting with the bare basics, you need equipment. The easiest way to get equipment is to hire them from places like this http://www.filmscapemedia.com/. This will get you things like cameras or there are sites like this, http://www.wiredbroadcast.com for audio recording equipment.

·         You will then need a crew to use all the equipment. http://www.bluefintv.com This site gives you loads of different people and even recommends people for you. Low budget films might only need a small crew and even then use friends close to them  as hiring these people are very expensive.

·         You will need to pay for expenditures. This can include anything from food, hotels, travel, anything extra that you may need for your crew, demands from demanding cast members like pool tables and foosball tables.

·         Casts can be extremely expensive if your using a A list cast. For example, the film “ Love Actually”’ had a budget of £30,000,000 and most of it was spent of their amazing cast of people like Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant and so many more brilliant British actors

·         Locations can be very expensive to higher out. Weather your filming in the desert to a exotic beach or if you’re in a studio recreating the white house, it is all going to cost a fair penny

·         Not every film company has a Private editing studio so they have to hire out and they cost a lot of money. You would pay for the studio itself, the people to run the equipment and the editing software itself

Requirements for our Production!

Lucky for us, we were in no need to hire out super expensive equipment, state of the art recording studios or an amazing crew and cast because we had everything we needed at our fingertips. We did have a £5 budget but that wasn’t needed as the college was able to provide everything we needed for us. We were able to borrow all the equipment we needed (including a dolly and a device that holds the camera and head height view.) We had all our software ready for us on the Macs at the college. Garage band was extremely useful as we had Lewis who has musical experience anyway. He created a really good piece of music from that software saving us paying for music.  As for talent, we had two people who were willing to help with the production. Unfortunately, they were unavailable to make the deadlines so we made a tactful decision to star in it out self. Lastly, all the locations were in and around the college so we didn’t have to take costs to travel anywhere!

Time

Firstly, I have to admit, we almost didn’t meet the deadlines in class because of the talent. At first, none of us REALLY wanted to be filmed and be in the production ourselves. So I enlisted a couple of actors to be in the production which we thought was the best idea. The shoot we did with them went to plan went okay but wasn’t perfect. Some of the shots we needed to re shoot and we couldn’t do it when we wanted because weren’t always available. This put us at risk of missing deadlines. So we bucked up and Lewis and I stared in the production. This turned out better than expected. We managed to shoot 2 scenes in one session when we only planned one. We learnt a valuable lesson on to use what you have available to you and get things done on time than going the extra mile and loosing time.  As Ronald Claiborne puts it, “Meeting deadlines saves money, cuts costs, and saves time.  The importance of meeting deadlines has far-reaching consequences in organisations.  Business leaders must calculate the effect of not meeting deadlines on the profitability of a business.” This couldn’t be more true in film production as the longer you keep your crew, cast, props ext. the more you have to pay them and the more money you spend.

 

Personnel

Having a smaller group defiantly worked better for us. As a group of three, it was easy to make decisions and disagreements could be sorted quickly and without hassle. Preforming in the piece made the while proses so much easier because I already knew what we wanted the shot to look like and we didn’t have to tell anyone else what to do. We could just say what shot we were doing and shoot it. It must have saved us a couple of days shooting.   

Prop wise there wasn’t that much to worry about. For the Suit character (Lewis), all we needed was a jacket, mobile phone and suitable clothing. The Tramp character (Alex), we needed a thick coat, tin can, thick coat and a sleeping bag. All these things we could provide for ourselves or the college would be able to give a hand. A nice can on tomato soup soon became an important prop for no money at all!

Personal for a film doesn't come in bunches! Most are freelance and you will have to go and find the right person for you. For example, http://www.tovs.co.uk is a place where freelance crews can post there CV and bio.

They also show what they have done before. So if your looking for someone who is going to crew your camera in a film, you wouldn't use someone who on there bio says that they have always done sport filming!

 

Facilities

All equipment (Camera, dolly, shoulder pod) we were able to hire out from the college with no costs which was extremely helpful. The same goes for all the post production and editing software (Garage band, Premier pro) as that was all given to us with the Macs from our college.

The studios main purpose is usually editing and it will have all the software and equipment you need for the pre-production work. Specialist filming can also be done in a studio, for example a green screen studio would sometimes be needed to film. 

A facility house can once again also be used for filming but has a greater purpose of providing props and equipment for a production

Outsourcing - Obtain (goods or a service) from an outside supplier, esp. in place of an internal source.

We actually had a amazing outsource which was our college, giving us all the equipment/ locations/ software we needed.

 Locations

To start, A Location Recce is a pre filming visit to check out the location. The people that go will check the acoustics, lighting, camera space. They will check everything to make sure that the Location is good before they go off and hire it!





 A Release form is a legal document that says you were able to film in this location. It has to be drafted and sent to the land owner before you can film anything there. If this procedure is not done, you will not be able to sell your product to distributors

With our locations, Lewis and I went out into Gorleston to try and find a place for the Homeless man to be. We found the perfect spot near the river. After deciding to cut our original actors, we also decided to change our location as well. Instead we filmed just outside the college so it was easy to get to and quicker to. We learnt that you don't need to travel far to get a half decent location.

With our office since, we had to get a Location release for one of the offices so we could use it. It wasn't much trouble although we did have a limited amount of time we could use the office for which put us under a slight bit oh pressure.

Contributors

There are so many people that can contribute to a film. You have your camera crew, sound crew, set crew, make up artists, stunt men! The list is endless! You need people who are specialists in cirtain topic and people to help them and people to help the people help them!

But how do you know if they are any good?

They will keep something called a contributors Biography. This is pretty much a CV of all the work they have ever done in the industry. Film makers that are hiring will take a look at it to see what jobs they have done in the past and if they were sucsessful, how long they have worked for and to decide if they are worth hiring

My personal Bio contains working on a spotlight and helping backstage on the set of Cinderella by the Lowestoft players!

Legal issues

Getting the right legal clearance means you have all the right paper work for filming, for example, you need to have documents for cast, crew and locations. Clearances MUST be had otherwise you will not be able to broadcast the film to the public.

If clearances are not met, then you are not allowed to use them in a film! For example, if you have a shot of a beautiful scene of farm land WITHOUT the farmer’s permission, then you will not be able to use it no matter how lovely it is! You could breach copyright laws meaning law suits against you! This would set back filming and damage your budget!

We didn’t have any copyright issues as we used a original script which we came up with ourselves and nothing was used that we couldn’t! We got all of our paper work for our location release Ext.

Regulation

A regulatory agency (also regulatory authority, regulatory body or regulator) is a public authority or government agency responsible for exercising autonomous authority over some area of human activity in a regulatory or supervisory capacity. An independent regulatory agency is a regulatory agency that is independent from other branches or arms of the government. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_agency)

Here are just a few of them

·         The Press Complaints Commission (PPC) – This is the independent body which administers the system of self-regulation for the press. It deals with complaints to editors to journalists or newspapers! If you make a complaint, your best bet it will come here!

·         Advertising Standards Association (ASA ) – This is similar to the PPC as it once again files complaints and deals with them as efficiently as possible . It also thoroughly looks through the media and makes sure there is no misleading information!

A Trade accociation is usually a non profit organisation founded by businesses that are in the same profession. There main focus is colaberation between companies but they also deal in advertising and publishing! the http://www.ukscreenassociation.co.uk/ is one of these accociations!

here are some associations and what they do!

• ELSPA - Founded as the europial leasure software publishers association  in 1989, ELSPA's goal was to establish a specific and collective identity for the interactive leisure software industry across the European community.
• TIGA - Is the non-profit trade association representing the UK's games industry. They associate independent games developers, in-house publisher-owned developers, outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities.
• BECTU- They are the independent trade union for those working in broadcasting, film, theatre, entertainment, leisure, interactive media and allied areas.
• PACT - This is the UK trade association representing and promoting the commercial interests of independent feature film, television, digital, children's and animation media companies. 

This could all relate to our Depict! Videos as any complaints made by a person watching it would be sent directly to one of these companies who would then look at it further and may even take the i piece of media down!