Pre-production

Review pre-production of a digital media product

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Introduction:

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Within this report I will evaluate the level of success coming from our film opening’s pre production process. To ensure we completed all of the necessary requirements to meet our project vision, we needed to produce some of the following ; rationale, proposal, risk assessment, contingency plan and storyboard. Alongside these, there were more aspects we had to complete however these were some of the most crucial ones. Some of these elements had significant impacts on the time that we then had available however some of them allowed us to make the relevant choices to make sure our film opening was successful. We initially held some team meetings which were used to brainstorm our ideas and put forth any genres we preferred or thought would work best.  We realised that from the use of our previous research, we had the knowledge to make responsible decisions and found that the majority of medical thrillers were aimed at a bigger audience to entice more viewers which is why we chose to have our targeted audience of 15-30 years olds. 

 

Onset of the project:

 

During our meetings, we divided up the tasks and discussed which tasks we had a preference on and which we felt certain members of the group would strongly suit. I was given the role of creating the storyboard. This was a mutual decision made by our group members as they thought from my artistic background would help provide the group with a neat looking storyboard which would then outline the onset of our production. Another group member Carly focused on the makeup visual effects aspect as she is talented in that area which is why we seized that opportunity.and  It was difficult for me to construct the storyboard as others had not yet completed the shot list which is the aspect I would use to construct my storyboard. This shows there was a clear lack of communication within the group as that individual may have benefited with the help of another individual to help structure their thoughts or get the task done quicker. During this time, I helped another member of the group with her role in making the shooting schedule in which we found an accurate way of displaying all of our availability to film. As a team we made a group chat as we thought this would be an easy way of communicating together and keeping everyone on board so everyone knew what was going on at all times whether they were scheduled to shoot or not. These meetings were extremely useful and helped us organise our time efficiently however it would have helped if we had made this a more frequent occurrence as this may have helped us have more productive sessions. I think in an act of improvement there could have been better verbal communication amongst us as there was a slight lack of understanding from different viewpoints meaning members of the group were expecting slightly different outcomes. We should have mutually discussed more decisions in the group in person to make sure that everyone understood where everyone's position was and the expected outcome. 

 

Research process:

 

Throughout our research we researched several different sub genres of thriller and explored all the ways in which they sometimes unconventionally subvert those categories for example the slasher genre which was established in the 20th century. From studying all the different genres we quickly realised that it was in our best interest to produce a medical based thriller as we would have the advantage of the science labs and equipment which would make our opening look more realistic. This meant that we had less restrictions on filming times and could have an easily accessible filming location and no need for hiring private spaces which helped our low budget situation. After the budget plan was completed by one of our group members, Jai, it was clear that we would be avoiding lots of costs of production from using the science laps to our advantage due to low budget limitations. Advantageously, we had one of our group members with special effects skills which she was happy to apply to our project which in a bigger production would averagely cost around £75,000. This would have been an unrealistic amount available to us for our low-budget production and therefore is lucky that we had it accessible to us for free and therefore gave us a more realistic final product. After speaking to Mr Hodgson and discussing our ideas with him, he seemed to be very on board in lending us any equipment or probes we needed including his room space and lab coat. This task gave us a good understanding of what a bigger production company's production would cost and how we were in an advantageous position. Using the locations and resources we had, we tried to make our story line work alongside this as well as we could. Due to the lack of professional resources, we did have to improvise in some situations such as using a plastic syringe with a sewing needle in which would move up as we placed it on our actor Matty’s hand to elude audience members to think it was piercing his skin. This highlights the importance of each individual's participation within the group and completing their assigned role. I think that the reason the research and work from those tasks came out so successful is because of the way in which we structured our decisions as we made sure everyone was comfortable taking their specific role on and if not then we organised that those tasks would be shared with others. Without the teamwork of our group we would have not been able to create such successful pre production and therefore helped our overall project come together. I think we could have benefited from a bigger level of communication in our group as there were times we were late on completing those tasks and did not communicate this. If everyone who was struggling to meet the deadline came forward, we could have tried to support them in any way that was necessary. 

 

Personnel management:

 

From the 9 individuals within our group, we decided on job roles for each individual that were either relevant to them or that they selected themselves and were confident they could complete. 

 

These were the assigned roles:

Laila: Storyboard

Jacob: Risk assessment and contingency plan

Annie: shooting schedule

Jack: Shot list and equipment plans

Carly: costume and makeup plans

Fran: Font and logo choices 

Matty: Location recce

Jai: Music links 

 

Within our group we had both me and Matty as actors, me being a scientist testing an unknown serum and Matty being the test patient. We ensured that the rest of the group took turns filming and being project manager so that the rest of the group we also contributed. When I was not needed as an actor for establishing shots for example, I took on the role of the director so that the rest of the group had a chance to work in other areas. The filming schedule was created evenly sharing out the shooting sessions and who was set to attend. As we did not always need the full 9 of each session we would schedule individuals to film while others would start editing as there would be too much overcrowding at the shoot as well as over staffing who may end up being stood around wasting time they could be putting elsewhere. WE did however have everyone at the first initial shoot just so everyone got the idea of where the project was heading and if everyone understood what was needed of them as well as giving us a rough idea of how our final product would turn out.I ensured that I was available for all of the necessary shoots for which I was needed. Some of these shots were specific to filming our second actors face for our sweating scene which unfortunately did not work out as well as they had hoped so we researched into the direct sweating places. This was due to a lack of organisation as this research should have been done before the shoot instead of trying it on your own on impulse. I then took my own initiative and applied the new knowledge to our next session which I made sure was handled efficiently and so that it looked realistically. The group nominated me as the main character as they thought I would be a reliable and easily accessible member of the group. There were several occasions in which members of the group did not attend the session in which they were set to be involved in which meant that we had less help to complete everything needed for that specific shoot and the footage that should have been captured. This generally slowed down the overall course of our project as we had to make up for time we spent shooting but however not capture what was required. It was clear that over the process of both pre-production and production, there was a consistent lack of communication which significantly impacted our projects time availability and therefore resulted in an absence of any peer evaluation with one another to give any recommendations for improvements or help if needed. This impacted the quality of the tasks which we completed as they were not to the best standard they could have been. Therefore with better communication and teamwork, next time we could boost our work quality and overall success of our project. 

 

Resource management:

 

I would say overall with the low budget we had available to us, we managed to source effective resources which worked well in addition to the plan of our project. For example we had the science block and science equipment to hand after organising  with the science team what we were given authorisation to use. With the help of the prop list and equipment plan we could determine what we needed to get permission for and what we could actually accomplish on our own from our resources. We were able to access beakers and Bunsen burners which helped make our final outcome more realistic. We did however have to source our own form of substance we were going to use as they had no food colouring and therefore organised that one of our group members; Jai, would drive to the shops and get some as he was the only one with an available form of travel. This was actually a last minute decision and was not thoroughly thought through before the shoot which meant we did have to use that time to source this which meant we had less time to use for the actual production of the shots we were planning to capture. A problem that did start to arise is that the rooms were often locked that we had planned to film in which meant we had to spare time to find the teachers who could then come and unlock the door however they were not always available on site to do this which meant we had to wait longer to organise someone to assist us. As all of our lessons unfortunately clashed with the lessons of those teachers rooms we could film in, this meant that our lesson time was used mostly for editing or filming minor scenes which you did not need at those certain locations. This resulted in us using  a lot of our break and lunch times to complete the majority of scenes we needed. The fact that we were only able to access the premier pro software on the computers in our media class, meant that we were limited to the time that that classroom was not occupied alongside when we had free time from our other subjects. If we had had a bigger budget it would have been helpful to organise a way in which we could access the footage on premiere pro from home so we could spend more of our own time editing in our own time when we have more blocks of time to do it for example on the weekend. 

 

Time management:

 

The success of our group's time management was both significantly effective and poor during other circumstances. This was because of a lack of organisation alongside the absence of group members which greatly affected what we were able to film as it did occur that the actor we had planned to film in that session was unavailable without being informed in advance which meant we were prepared for something we were unable to complete. Annie was our team's shooting schedule producer and created a successful plan which helped us organise our time when we could however there were a few elements on it that had not been thought through and meant that we had to adjust it to avoid any further delay in filming time. This was to do with the availability of the rooms we needed for shooting as the schedule was more focused when our group members were free and not considering when the actual locations we needed were free. This did slow down production time as we had to keep checking if the rooms had anyone in or whether there were people using it. Some individuals were not meeting the deadlines we had planned and meant that they were being rushed to get done and may not have been to the level of quality that they could have been had they taken more time to complete them.There were several moments where there was a clear lack of time management which could easily be recognised as we would then come back with either not enough footage or an error in filming due to rushing as we run out of time which we recognised and made sure that later shoots had a project manager taking control of the situation and had a plan of exactly what needed to be completed in that time. If we were to suggest any improvements to the way we used our time, I would suggest that next time we reinforce the importance of better communication skills as those who may have been struggling or slightly lacking in good work ethic and motivation could have been helped by other individuals to both help them complete the task and look over one another to suggest any improvements to improve the quality of those peoples work. This meant we did have to extend the shooting days and compensate for the shoots we had initially planned for were either not completed to the right standard or did not happen at all. 

 

Professional practice:

 

I reckon that my performance throughout this project was very successful however could have been improved at certain times. I think if I would have contributed more to the organisation of the different roles given out to our group members and in making sure everyone was happy that they knew what they were doing and that they were on track to completing these tasks for the deadline. This would have helped our group as we generally did not supervise one another or give any feedback to one another and if this had been completed, I think there would be a significant difference shown through our final product. I believe this was a very good learning experience for our whole group as although we had researched the whole process of pre production, we did not fully understand the amount of work which was needed to go into the actual pre production tasks until we were doing them ourselves. Although lots of our filming sessions did not go to plan or simply were not organised well especially at the start, we gained lots of key experience every time. As well as this it really helped us establish the importance of organisation before a shoot takes place as it means that everything is ready to go instead of having to still sort things when we should be filming in that time. Two individuals in our group had a continuous leave of absence and found that they were barely in which resulted in our other group members having to take on these tasks alongside their own to ensure they get completed otherwise we would not be able to complete the project. On one occasion, we had planned for Carly to do the special effects makeup on Matty however, he got stuck in traffic and could not attend the full duration of the session and there was not enough time to get the makeup and filming done. To complete the makeup, requires a lot of time because it takes around 40-60 minutes to apply and then its got to set for a bit and therefore could only have been completed with careful pre organisation and consideration. All of our group agreed we should have used artificial lighting after we looked at our final product as we could have made it look more professional and lit like a real scientists lab would. We were initially planning on applying a slight blue tint as a filter to the footage but we ended up running out of time due to all the delays in filming we had to make. From our research, we realised how crucial it was that while picking our music, they were copyright free as this is a massive element bigger production companies have to consider as it is very expensive to feature a copyright song.  It was helpful to have our few screenings in which we got some key feedback which is crucial as often when involved in a production, having an outsider's opinion helps clarify or point things out you may not have noticed as a group yourself.

 

Risk management:

 

The risk assessment and contingency plan are one of the most crucial aspects of pre-production as this underlines everyone's safety within the group and those around them. Although they were completed to a good degree, there were some elements that were not considered and arose during production which therefore meant they became issues we weren't prepared for and just ended up delaying the project. The most common issue that arose was the absence of team members who in some cases were a necessity to that filming session. This occurred on the first day of filming when our male actor Matty did not attend the filming session he was scheduled for. This then meant we had to result in filming scenes we had not planned or prepared for which unfortunately  caused us to lose track of the time we had planned for. If we had included this within our risk assessment, we would have waited a lot less time and been able to complete the project to a better quality. What would have been helpful is if we had planned for a replacement actor for the first day in which one of our other group members would have taken on the role and been the main actor instead. This is referred to as an understudy and would have been an efficient strategy to use to ensure good time management is in place. This was however, not thought of to be placed in the risk assessment and therefore meant we had to improvise and push back the filming dates or move around the schedule in which we then swapped the days in which we planned to film certain things.

This was still a learning experience as we did then make sure we kept this in mind as a future possible recurrence. To ensure this doesn't happen again in future projects, next time we will do more thorough research as a team to all contribute to the risk assessment and ensure that every issue that might happen to occur is accounted for and have the right strategies in place. We were in fact very successfully equipped in terms of the special effects makeup provided by one of our group members as this was included in the risk assessment relating to any allergic reactions that might occur if Matty's skin did react with products that our makeup artist was applying to his arm. For this reason specifically, we in fact made sure that a patch test had taken place which we had evidence of on one of the cameras. This patch test was purposefully placed in a small area so that if an allergic reaction happens to occur, it will be easier to treat and limit the size of the reaction so that it does not become a safety concern.

 

Crisis management:

 

There were several reasons which resulted in delaying our filming as well as the overall completion of the final outcome. Our chosen setting was one of the science labs which was unfortunately always locked for safety reasons in which we had to then hunt for someone with a key. This often took a lot of time as the teachers were not always around and therefore meant that we would spend a lot of time waiting around which unfortunately there was no changing as teachers are busy too and weren't always in the same place. Therefore we decided it would be a good idea to ask if he could leave the key out for us in his office  at those certain times we had scheduled to film in which we could temporarily borrow them to get into the room for our shoot as well as having them accessible to him. This made it a lot easier on us however , we had to be very careful we did not lose the key and make sure we place it back where it was so the teacher can find it himself with no hassle of confusion. On our actual initial shooting day that we had scheduled, our actor was unavailable last minute and meant we were prepared to shoot something which was impossible to accomplish at that time meaning we were unsure what steps to take. If this had been provided on the risk assessment then we might have been able to resolve the situation quicker as it would have provided a way to resolve this without us having to think and find our own way. We made the mistake of not organising ourselves well enough in advance which is why we then found ourselves resolving issues that we had not considered when we could be spending time shooting other scenes we had pre planned as a backup. We ended up just shooting lots of beaker scenes and experimenting with mixing different solutions together to make different colours and imply the idea of some mysterious unknown substance. As we did not get all the filming done in one day for the scenes that followed on directly from one another, this meant that there were very different lightnings in scenes juxtaposed to one another as we weren't also always free at the same time of day everyday which didn't help either. This was due to the different subjects that got in the way of our scheduling dates and therefore we decided it was best that we all film mostly in our lunch breaks as this would improve the lighting as it would be around the same time every day which would be at least similar lighting. As well as this, we tried to make sure we used the same science room for our filming with the best lighting as with the different light switches on and the blinds down we could control the intensity of the light being spread around the room. Next time, our whole group agreed that artificial lighting would have been better to use as we would be able to control the intensity of the light and exactly which direction we want it to be coming from. Unfortunately for these reasons we had to expand our filming bracket that we initially had available which is why we spend most of our lunch times working to make up for the lost time. If we were to change any aspect it would mainly be our organisation as we could have anticipated the problems before they even became a real crisis.

 

Maintaining documentation:

 

After every shoot, we made sure we uploaded all the footage so that every member of the group could see it as well as access it. We realised after that this was a very successful thing to achieve as it did turn out that we frequently had members of the group absent and therefore meant we could still however access everything we needed to. This meant we had a good level of organisation for this element of our project as we did not want any footage to go missing or get whipped by the camera as they do every now and then. We even provided evidence of filming from the use of a second camera as this shows good proof of behind the scenes and cooperation between the actors and crew members. We kept a filming diary in our blogs for every day that we had a shooting session and described when it was and how it went. The only downside was the lack of accurate information on the documents as for example the risk assessment and contingency plan lacked a crucial problem which occurred many times. Once we realised that our group members absence was severely affecting our team, we realised it was important that we adjust these documents and apply this new information into it. To solve this error we made sure that we then updated it whenever we adjusted our blogs and published them after every change to make sure everything was visible for anyone to see. Although any errors were resolved, had the documents been compared to a better standard in the first place, there would have been more time for filming and not wasting time editing old work.

 

Difficulties with project management and ways to improve:

 

In the end our biggest fault came down to our lack of communication as this was the link between our teamwork skills and independent work.Some individuals were hard to work with as there were people with different visions for how the filming would be structured or captured and this did affect the general ease of the filming as we found different members of the group wanted to capture things in different ways. I think if we would have picked an overall project manager who would make the bigger decisions if one cannot be made as a group this would have been easier for us to handle as we wouldn't be wasting time debating with one another which way to carry out. In general we should have established a general sense of leadership which could be passed along the group as a shared group that changed from lesson to lesson who would then make sure everyone is on track and gives her advice on any aspects that any group members were struggling with. This may have helped those individuals that weren't comfortable speaking up and asking for help and would instead be checked up on and supported better. As we faced many issues towards the end of the deadline, this meant we had less time to sit down and watch our film opening and really discuss what not only the screenings were reflecting back to us from outside opinions, but also would have given us the chance to talk through what we all thought was and wasn't working.