The Pre-Production Process

Requirements for moving Image Production

We made a 90 second moving image production short film for an Internet competition called DepicT! We also distributed the 90 second short film to YouTube so other people on the Internet can watch and give feedback about it. There many other types of moving image media products such as short films, feature films such as fact and fiction. Television can also show films, TV shows and adverts. As well as Animations, music videos and streams for example Love Film and Netflix. There are also many distribution methods for example Television like free view and Sky, DVDs/Blue-ray, cinema, TV adverts, trailers and radio. 

 Here is an example of a distribution advert: 

          

Finance and sources of funding

There are lots of different sources of funding a film, television and other types of moving image productions. For example if you are trying to create a big Hollywood blockbuster film that needs to be funded you can do this by getting a large Hollywood production company to fund it, such as Warner Bros, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and many others to fund your film product. 

You can also collaborate with a film producer/private investor such as Megan Ellison to help finance your film. Megan Ellison is an American film producer and founder of Annapurna Pictures and started in the film industry in 2006. She helped finance a film that was reported to have a budget of $2 million and has provided finance for many more films for example Lawless and Catch .44.

Furthermore you can get lottery funding from the British Film Institute (BFI). The BFI was founded in 1933 and exist to promote film and moving image culture in the UK. They award lottery funding to film production, distribution, education, audience development and market intelligence and research.

If you are producing a low budget film and want to get your film funded you can do something called crowd funding. Crowd funding is a collective effort of the public who pool their money usually on the Internet to help and support a project such as start-up company funding, motion picture promotion, charities and other variety of activities to reach their target goal.


The benefits of crowd funding is that it can raise a producers profile and reputation. It is also good marketing and can give the producers feedback if the campaign was unsuccessful and if it succeeds the producers know there is an audience and market for the project.

 Risks of crowd funding would be if you don't meet campaign goals and negatively impact your reputation and without a regulatory framework the public may think it's a scam and causes a barrier to public engagement. Crowd funding is a good place to start out for any film maker to get going if they have a good idea.

Here are a few examples: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/ and http://www.kickstarter.com/

Requirements

Important requirements needed for any production would be personnel first of all, for example you would need actors to star in your film. If you're creating a Hollywood film you would hire professional actors, however if you're creating a low budget film you would most probably have your friends/family starring in the film or find an actor in your local area. Catering to feed the crew after long hours of working, cameramen to control the cameras and do all the camerawork. 

You will also need equipment such as tripods, camera, crane, tracks, etc, to make your film look smoother with professional camera shots. As well as the props and costumes needed for your film to help set the scene. You can hire your props and costume or hire costume designers and artists in your crew to create them. You might also require a composer to make your soundtrack or use already existing sounds/music However you need to watch out for any copyrights when using props, costumes and soundtracks which aren't yours and must get permission first before using them. 

Furthermore you will require a location to work on the post production of your project and work out the different locations you're going to shoot your film at. You may need to get clearance to use a certain locations from the owner of the land.

For our DepicT! 90 second short film we had to obtain camera equipment like video cameras and tripods, props and costumes to create the characters and what we wanted in the scenes and location, deciding where the best locations are to shoot.

Personnel

When creating a media production you will need to think about what crew (the production team) you need to work on your film and what talent (actors). The crew and talent you need varies on the budget and type of moving image production you are creating.

If you are producing a low budget short, you will have a small team compared to a Hollywood feature film because you are on a tighter budget. For a low budget short you could have personnel covering more than one role, for example you could have a cameraman also be an actor in your film. Your crew and actors could be your friends and family and may not get paid for it and have more than one director. 

However if you are producing a television programme you will need a much bigger team working in different places, more actors, catering to feed the crew and talent, could have more than one director on the project and a will have a bigger budget.

A Hollywood feature film would have a huge budget with a huge team of crew and talent with lots of departments such as make up department, costume designers, script-writers, editors, cameramen, artists, famous actors/directors etc and have a much bigger revenue. They may also have people which aren't in the crew like research personnel, private investors and composers.

Here is a very long list of all people who worked on Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/fullcredits#cast

Time

Our time-frame for the DepicT! short film was 3 weeks. 1 week to plan the project, 1 week to shoot it and 1 week to edit and add any finishing touches. However half term was in between filming which caused some problems such as forgetting where we started and what we're up to. For our project we did meet the deadline but had trouble with timing due to actors not being available at the time.

For every media production there needs to be a deadline. If you do not meet your set deadlines in the professional media industry it will give you a bad reputation and lose of audience because the public expected your media to be released on a certain time. Media companies might not fund you either if you don't meet deadlines. It can also be very expensive because personnel may only be available at the set deadline and might have to leave if it runs over time because they have other work to do elsewhere, leading you to hire more personnel making it more expensive. You can also get fined from going over deadlines causing you to lose out on money. 

Equipment/Facilities

When creating a moving image production there is many things you need before you can actually start filming. The most important equipment you need to film is obviously a camera, without a camera you can't film anything. Other camera equipment you will need are grips, jibs, skateboard dollies and tracks to get all different camera techniques.

You can hire all this equipment from a media equipment hire company. Such as http://www.mediadoghire.com/. You can buy a range of different equipment from lighting panels, sound devices, tripods, cameras and lenses. The cheapest camera to hire on Mediadoghire will cost you £29 for a GoPro Minicam and £45 for a Cinema Pocket. The most expensive camera you can buy on this site is £400 for a Red Epic-X which is initially aimed at cinema style shooting and shoots at a resolution serverl times higher than high definition, making the camera more suitable for theatrical releases. This camera would usually be used by professionel film productions that will be release on the big screen.

You  may also need sound recording equipment, sound studios and green screen studios to record sound and shoot/create effects for your film project. You can hire a green screen studio at http://www.mwsmedia.co.uk/studio-hire.html. For half a day it cost £75 and for a full day it will cost you £120.You will need editing stations and computers with wireless connection with the right professional editing software like Adobe After Effects to edit your together the film.

The equipment we used for our DepicT! short film was a HD camera and a tripod which was provided to us from the college and a disco light which a classmate provided to us. We also used the Macs in the post production stage to complete the editing on the software Adobe Premier Pro. As well as this we needed sounds and dialogue to do this we used a microphone in the music studio to create the dialogue for our characters. 

Locations

For our DepicT! short film project we filmed all our shots on college grounds in the media class room and outside in a gutter. We knew before we started filming we were going to film it all at college, so we walked around college already having an idea where we wanted to shoot and how we wanted the shots from our storyboards which we done in the pre-production stage. After looking around we decided to shoot some of the shots outside in a gutter because we needed a dirty, alley way looking location. The rest of the short film was shot inside in the class room because we needed a dark room. 

Depending on the film you're creating you will most likely film in different locations and will need a release to use the location from the owner on the land to use it. A location release means getting legal permission from the land owner.

An alternative to this is going to location recces. A recce is scouting a location to work out if it's suitable for shooting for your film project. A recce also includes access to facilities and equipment. This is done in the pre-filming stage.

When choosing a location there are many things you need to take into account such as what risks you may face at the location and how to overcome them. Before you can film at your chosen location all the crew must be aware of the risks and fill out a risk assessment. You must also make sure you can get permission to use the location. 

Materials

When making a moving media production you will need materials to make it. Some materials you may need for production are costumes, props, soundtracks and sounds effects. The producers could hire personnel to create your own costume, props and soundtracks then you won't have to worry about copyright, though it could be costly creating your own.  However there are certain materials that need financial consideration, if the materials aren't yours and belong to someone else you will need to get legal permission to use it. This could be written or verbal. If you do use materials in your film which you did not get legal permission for you could get fined, this is called copyright.

For example Comic book artist for Marvel, Jack Kirby. His family tried to claim rights for the material of the Marvel comic book characters, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Thor and the X-men. "The 2nd U.S. Court of Appeal upheld a lower court's decision that declared Kirby had given up any copyright claims he could have had for the characters he had co-created between 1958 and 1962."This decision has come to a real blow to creators trying to reap ownership in their past character creations. The co-creator of Ghost Rider, Gary Frederich, is also trying to do this and will be going to court against Marvel this December.

http://comicsalliance.com/jack-kirbys-family-loses-appeal-for-marvel-copyrights/

Legal Issues

When creating a film there are many legal issues you need to think about. You must always make sure you get permission when using something you didn't create in your film, for example costume, props, soundtracks, sound effects, images and videos, etc. Almost every film making will come across the issue of copyright. To get permission to use something which isn't yours you will need to contact the owner of the material, written or verbal. When creating our short film we didn't have any problems with copyright.

Clearance is when you get authorization for something to take and use and making sure you have permission. For example if you find a soundtrack which doesn't belong to you but you want to use it in your film you must contact the owner and get clearance for it.

Another legal issue is public liability Insurance, everyone involved in the film will need to be insured. This is money to pay for damage to others, if someone gets injured or even killed while working on the film will need compensation. For example while working on the expendables in 2010, Sylvester Stallone injured his neck while filming a fight scene and required a metal plate inserted into his neck during surgery.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1240799/Sylvester-Stallone-breaks-neck-filming-veteran-action-heroes-movie.html

A completion guarantee is a form of insurance, this is to guarantee that the producer will complete and release the film on the set deadline. If you do not meet the deadline the producer will not get any money and be at risk.

Regulation

Ofcom (Office of communication) is a communications regulator, which regulates the television, radio, telecoms, mobiles and postal services. Ofcom main duty is to make sure people who watch the television and listen to the radio in the UK are protected from scams and offensive materials and protected from being treated unfairly and having their privacy invaded in TV and radio.Ofcom is funded by fees industry for regulating broadcasting and communication networks. Some examples of what Ofcom do is to ensure that the UK has a wide range of electronic communication service, including high-speed services such as broadband, as well as high quality television and radio programmes and that a universal postal service is provided in the UK.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/what-is-ofcom/

BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is an independent, non-governmental body which classify cinema films and was set up in 1912. The BBFC is responsible for national classification and censorship of films in the UK. BBFC classify DVDs, videos and some video games. The classifications on a product tells the public who it is suitable for and over a certain age to the product. Some examples of the classifications are 'U' this stand for Universal which means the product is suitable for people of all ages. A 'U' rated film will have no reference to drugs, bad language, with mild violence. A 'U' film generally contains positive messages. However an '18' rated film are not suitable for children and can only be watched and bought adults 18 and over. An '18' rated film basically has no limits, no theme is prohibited. It can contain strong issues such as very strong violence, strong language, sexual activity and strong horror.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification

Moving image products that get distributed on the internet are much more difficult to regulate because anybody anywhere can upload a video to the internet and is done from all over the world, making it extremely hard to police any applicable law. So really when it comes to the Internet there isn't any legal regulations at all. However responsible sites have systems which tell administrators about any inappropriate content. For example YouTube doesn't allow pornography, violence or illegal acts to get uploaded. The video would get blocked soon after it was uploaded. As well as the European Union are in the process of updating laws for audio visual broadcasts which will contain safeguards in areas of the Internet, protecting children from sex, violence and limiting advertising. Though the UK government are debating about regulating online videos because they didn't want to restrain new media industries, for example it would give a European website with regulations a  huge disadvantage compared to a US website where there are no regulations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6166814.stm

Trade unions and trade associations

A trade union is an organized association of workers in a trade or profession which fights for the workers right and interests, speaking on behalf of their members and aim to protect their members. This includes making sure that workplaces are safe for people's health and that there is no risk through their jobs. As well as providing members with information about work related problems. Trade union also means legal protection by employing lawyers to make sure companies and organizations treat their staff accordance to to the law. Trade union also helps workers by aiming to improve pay and work conditions.

PACT (Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television). PACT is a UK trade association which represent and promote commercial interests of independent feature films, television and animation media companies. PACT offer support to their members in terms of legal and business affairs advice and members who are looking to sell or find finance for their content at key markets. PACT may represent content producers but do not work with the production of content, they leave this to their members to see which companies may be interested in working with you. PACT has a strong track record for success in defending independent producers rights. They successfully made a case to government that producers should own their own Intellectual property, this had a huge impact.

http://www.pact.co.uk/home/,

BECTU (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematography and Theatre Union) BECTU is a trade union in the UK, who works in broadcasting, film, theatre and arts, entertainment, leisure and digital media. They provide a wide range of services, including negotiating pay, conditions and contracts with employers, advice and representation for individual members and on health and safety and training support. The union represent staff, contract and freelance workers in the UK. The key aim of the union is to protect jobs, increase memberships, win new recognition agreements and improve pay and conditions of services.      

A trade association is an organization founded and funded by businesses in a specific industry. It is a group of people that meet who are in the same trade or   type of business as you, organized to promote your common interests. This can help you professionally. 

http://www.bectu.org.uk/home

http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/2/d/UCU_factsheet1_unions.pdf