Unit 4 - Pre-Production (Linked to Unit 10)

Assignment 1 - Learning Aim A

Introduction 

Pre-production, which mainly involves research and planning, is a vital ingredient of any successful media product. For example, the successful completion of a photographic fashion shoot for a magazine depends on locations, material and talent being available for the work to be undertaken. Successful location recording of video material depends on crew members and talent being in the right place at the right time. Good pre-production is vitally important where expenses are being incurred for people and materials and where budgets and deadlines are to be met. 

• The pre-production requirements:

• requirements of the product (FILM) 

The first requirement of any film would be the budget. You will need to have a detailed finance sheet that displays the cost of everything you would need to be able to film the movie. An example of this would be Steel Mill Pictures and their attempt to make The Cottage. When they first attempted to make it they were not able to due to too small of a budget. The small budget meant that they had to stop production of the film and try to work on another. They then created London To Brighton and earnt enough profit to then be able to make The Cottage. Another requirement when making a film would simply be the equipment. This would include different equipment such as cameras, tripods, sound equipment, wind filters if you were filming outside and crew with the correct skills to be able to correctly operate all of the equipment. However, when filming it is essential that you check the availability of everything in use. If you were to rent out a professional camera, you would have to make sure that you will be able to completely film your movie before having to return it. Or if you had to hire different people to operate the equipment for you, you would need to find out the hours that they work. The location that the movie is filmed in is also a requirement that needs to be thought about. The location should be affordable, accessible and should be open to filming at the times that you need it. The safety of the area is also incredibly important.

• sources of finance for the product (FILM)

The first example of sources of finance would be the microwave scheme. This is a scheme that is a low budget feature program based in europe and is responsible for some of the UK’s most exciting talent. It allows producers to make a film as long as it is made in 18 days and on a budget of £100,000. An example of this would be the film shifty. This is a film that was produced by Rory Aitken and Ben Pugh, distributed by metrodome distribution and was made using the microwave scheme. Shifty had an estimated budget of £244,579 including the money from the microwave scheme and metrodome spent about £50,000 on advertising and prints. Another example of sources of finance can be through crowdfunding websites such as kickstarter. Kickstarter is a fundraising website that allows people to donate money towards your project. You are able to reward people that donate money through different tiers ranging from £1 into the thousands. The different tiers would offer rewards such as updates about the project or an early version of the project depending on how much money you donate. Veronica Mars was able to raise $5.7 million though 91,585 backers in total and had a total budget of $6 million. Through kickstarter the film was able to become the fastest project to reach $2 million, is one of the websites highest funded projects and has the most backers of any project. However, movies such as Life In a Day don't make any money through crowdfunding and instead give people the opportunity to film their own videos and send them back. The film was produced by Scott Free Productions and distributed by National Geographic Films. Life In a Day was able to get 80,000 people to upload their own videos to youtube and were then able to compile them into one movie. All of the clips were filmed on July 24th 2010 and came from 192 different nations. Although the film was put onto youtube for free, it was able to make $607,169 through DVD sales and cinema screenings. However, the film was criticised due to its use of free labour and the fact that it made a profit yet the users who filmed the scenes received no compensation. A final example of sources of finance for movies could be the BFI (British Film Institute). They help to fund films by investing money made through lottery funds and will put that money towards helping the production of the film, development and distribution. They invest over £26 million of lottery funds per year to help out independent filmmakers. 

• logistical considerations (such as deadlines)

The first example of logistical considerations would be in the film Life In a Day. Due to what they were hoping to achieve whilst making the film, they were not sure what they should do. In an interview, Kevin Macdonald wrote about walking into a camera shop with $40,000 and buying 400 hd cameras. He later writes about his biggest regret being that he did not send out fewer cameras. If he had sent out around 50 cameras then he would have been able to send filmmakers with them to teach the people how to correctly use the cameras and to let them know what they wanted them to film/what type of videos. However, he did not send out a small amount and sent out the 400 that he had bought. This resulted in them receiving videos that they couldn’t use or “a stiff interviewee reciting what he thought we (or local figures of authority) wanted”. To solve this problem they should have fully planned out what they wanted to do. This could have involved a contingency plan which detailed any problems that could occur and how to solve them quickly and efficiently. Although creating a contingency plan would have helped, I think they would have had greater success if they had thought about their idea more and planned it in a better way. If they had did this then they would have known the right amount of cameras to buy, whether they should have sent out professionals with them to help out and tell the users what type of videos they wanted. Another example of logistical considerations would be the deadlines of the films. Although this includes the actual filming of the movie, it would also include editing it ready for release, costume design and script writing. This is incredibly important as certain tasks have different deadlines and all need to be completed at their deadline if the movie is to be finished and release on time. The final example would be movies stopping production due to a lack of funding or any of the reasons listed above not correctly meeting their deadlines. To make sure that the movie does not stop production due to a lack of budget, you would have to produce a detailed finance sheet that listed all of the costs and what your actual budget is. 

• resources and regulatory requirements

An example of regulatory requirements could be health and safety. A film set is a place of work, and like any other, it falls under the regulatory control of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). It is your responsibility to make sure that all people working on the set – cast and crew alike – abide by the rules designed to protect them. You will need to be aware of possible safety risks and make sure that everybody is properly trained to stay safe. This covers everything from bringing in professional stunt advisors to pointing out where the fire exits are. Giving due consideration to health and safety is essential to meeting the terms of production insurance. Another example would be contracts. No matter what arrangements that you have with your cast and crew, even if they are volunteers on a microbudget project, you will need to draw up contracts to make sure that everybody’s interests are protected. In the case of volunteers, these usually involve profit share agreements. If you are paying your team, then you will need to ensure that you can provide at least the minimum wage and meet your tax obligations as an employer. Contracts may also cover other issues such as shares in any profit from merchandising. If there are children under the age of 16 in your cast, then a parent or guardian will need to sign their contracts, and Child Performance Certificates will be needed. A third example would be copyright law. Copyright and intellectual property law can crop up in all sorts of places in a film production, from ensuring that the script that you’re working from is original (or, if not, that permissions have been obtained) to accessing music for your soundtrack, providing set photos to publicity outlets and protecting the rights of members of the public who may be visible in your footage. 

• the impact these factors have on each other.

• The established industry formats used within the pre-production processes

A screenplay is an example of industry formats used within the pre production processes. A screenplay is the written version of a movie, it’s not the final product, it is a series of plans that guide all the different departments as they produce the film. The three main components are: slug lines, action and dialogue. A slugline is a sort of code that conveys information to the crew. The INT stands for interior meaning its filmed indoors whereas EXT stands for exterior meaning its filmed outside. Then the next word is where the scene takes place and the final part is either day or night, telling us if its being shot during the day or during the night. The slugline has a large impact on production as it helps the location scout out as he knows what sort of location they are looking for and the production designer is also affected as they have to alter the location to make it fit in with the film world. The cinematographer decides how to light it however before any of this happens the line producer uses the location to figure out roughly how much the film will cost. After the slug lines comes action, these are usually short sentences that describe who is in the scene and what they are doing. As we watch the movie unfold over time the action will be written in present tense. It's also limited to what the audience can see and hear, for instance in a novel you can describe how the character is thinking and feeling but in a screenplay you'd have to write an action to show us how they feel. The final part is dialogue. Feature films usually have 90-100 pages and each page usually converts to one minute of action dialogue heavy pages will be shorter then action packed pages so if you have more dialogue heavy pages the film may end up being shorter than it was originally planned or action heavy films may end up longer.

• The functions of pre-production processes, reasons for undertaking them and impact they have

• The purposes of pre-production documentation

Pre production documents are important because it will allow the production company and distributors to decide whether the film is worth making. Without pre production documents, no one would know what went into making the film and whether or not it would be likely to succeed. The storyboard for the movie would also be considered pre production documentation. The storyboard would be made up of sketches that shows ideas for the film alongside the different shot types and camera angles. The storyboard is incredibly important because it is one of the main ways you would plan a film. Pre production documents will help to show any flaws with the movie and would allow changes to be made before it is finalised. The plan would also show whether it is actually possible to create the film or not.  

Conclusion

 In conclusion, pre - production is essential when it comes to creating not only movies, but any type of media project. Without it you wouldn’t be able to create the project you wanted to. 

Bibliography/Webography