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

Assignment 1 - Learning Aim A

 

Introduction 

 

This is jam productions report for all the necessary requirements, procedures and documentation in relation to the pre-production of a digital moving image product. In order for this complex process to work, there are several elements that need to be organised in order for the success of the process as well as the overall achievement of the end product itself. Within this report I intend to evaluate every factor in this sector which could contribute to the finished result in any form. 

 

The pre-production requirements:

 

Requirements of the product (FILM)

A crucial aspect of the pre-production process is the sourcing of the right personnel for a media production is  and you will need to ensure that your production team is the right size for the job and that each member has the right balance of knowledge, skills and experience to undertake the specific role that is needed.

An important requirement is accurate expenditure throughout what products you are sourcing or ensuring of these sources. This can also waste time and set you back as everything has been planned to take a certain amount of time and therefore will put you behind schedule and may result in you losing money and having to pay for more costs such as overtime or extra location hours in terms of licensing. This is why efficient teamwork is very important so that all your crew can try and avoid any dysfunctions or errors saving them money. All the crew will need to originally get together for some sort of meeting where they discuss their ideas either way to try and build on ideas and have input from everyone involved to see what works and needs to be changed.

In the case study film ‘Life in a Day’ which was a crowd-sourced documentary compromising a series of video clips selected from around 80,000 clips.  All these videos were submitted to a you-tube video sharing website showing various different perspectives of the same day all over the world on 24th July 2010.  While producing this, it was important to consider that submissions could only be made by those who were able to film whether that be physically or mentally as they need to be willing for their life to be shared publicly. In order to receive submissions from poorer communities, cameras had to be sourced and then distributed to individuals specifically. 

 

Sources of finance for the product (FILM) 

An important part of the pre-production process is to ensure financial viability so that there is a sufficient income that meets the existing costs. This is one of the most crucial aspects that must be ensured for this creative media production if it is to be viable. It is usually one of the first objectives that is organised as it means you know exactly how much you have to spend and if you are even able to produce your goal. Steel Mill Pictures are a production company who were originally planning to produce a film called ‘the cottage’ but instead produced a low budget film called ‘London to Brighton’ due to their lack of funding. Creating this social British realist film ‘London to Brighton’ with a budget of £80,000, meant that they could use the profits from this product to then carry on their initial plans for ‘the cottage’ which would cost them around £2.5 million to make. There are several ways to get funding for films whether that be from different organisations or even crowdfunding. Independent filmmakers, without the help from these organisations, sometimes get help from big companies such as the national lottery in order to produce their product. Bigger production companies will not need to find sources for funding as they will often already have this from previous films they have produced. Those are the potential sources of finance, but there is also the expenditure including any equipment or things such as travel costs, facility hires or legal costs. An increasingly popular way of finding the financial support for your product is to use crowdfunding as a tool which is where you raise small amounts of money from larger numbers of people. Sometimes production companies do this by offering your crowdfunding investors merchandise of some sort of rewards, often in relation to that specific media product. Kickstarter is the main crowdfunding project which is an American public-benefit corporation used globally for example in the film ‘Veronica Mars’ produced by spondoolie pictures and distributed by Warner Bros which this technique of funding which worked out very successfully. They ended up raising $5,702,153 by 91,585 people which makes it one of the funded projects of all time where it only took them 11 hours to raise over $2 million. Some TV series can be funded from advertising as the more popular the product is, the more viewers they will have meaning more money will be put back into advertising. This provides them with more opportunities and allows them to make even more programmes. The advertiser who then helps finance the production, thereby obtains the right to associate its brand to certain values and experiences through the television production.

 

Logistical considerations (such as deadlines)

When considering the logistics it comes down to budgets and when budgets are small deadlines tend to be tighter and stricter as they will want to minimise costs and keep them as low as possible. Pre-production is most crucial for low budget films as they are often made in a short space of time and therefore everything must be set so they can use those days to purely capture footage for the film in order to make the deadline. This is not only to bring down costs, but so that they can get profit quicker and maximise their profits to produce bigger budget films. In the case study film ‘shifty’ by Between the Eyes production company which was delivered after a shooting schedule of 18 days, is an example of a low budget film which had around 10,000 to spend.

‘London to Brighton’ is another low budget film which took 19 days to film which had a very large casting team for such a small film. Before a film can be produced there are several things you have to consider and 

the timescale is an important factor for any media production and deadlines can often be very tight. The reason these two films were quite successful are due to the fact that they stuck to a strict schedule meaning there are no unexpected outcomes. Often films can be left unfinished as they did not have enough funding required and therefore waste money resulting in the disruption of all the hired cast and crew members income as they may still not be paid. Crew members and cast are paid an hourly/daily rate and if the pre-production is ready then it will all go to plan however if the schedule runs overtime then anyone working at the time will be working overtime which they will be claiming to be paid for. In order to come out with a successful result, you need to ensure the budget is being used properly and efficiently alongside considering the other costs that may change a few things. This is why there must be a detailed production schedule and planner so that before the production even takes place we can ensure that it will later be processed into its final product. This means that no time is allowed to be wasted as you not only need to work out all the costs necessary from the budget in terms of all the other aspects such as the actors and props or any equipment necessary. This is also to do with any location scouting/hiring, transportation, clearance requirements or more public needs.

 

Resources and regulatory requirements

 This is the adherence to codes of practice and regulations for planning and delivering any media product. There are several regulators that production companies have to be aware of such as making sure they are aware of the copyright for any music they are using if it has already previously existed. This process involves them going through the MCPS or PRS which would then give them the permission rights. It is crucial for this to be ensured otherwise most likely you will get taken to court and charged a big fine. 

These regulations can often be expensive but if not done properly could cost you more money in the long run as you could be breaking regulations and paying for it. 

It’s important to make sure every member on your team is getting the right amount of pay so that your team has equity and it is fairly spread across everyone accurately.  It is quite often that during any production of a film, any cast that are playing the role of someone below the age of 18, are in fact played by an actor who is at least 18. All children under the“state school leaving age” which can vary depending on which region your are, however in the UK is 18, are required to be licensed by the child’s local education authority. Within this licence, it dictates the hours they are permitted to work, any special steps that need to be taken to protect the child, and other requirements. This is due to the child license which means they can only film with those actors for a certain amount of hours and therefore may take longer to make the film as it takes longer to capture footage as more hours required. In the case study ‘Riverdale’ which is an American drama series, they cast teenage roles as older actors 18+ as the hours they are allowed to act for increase meaning they waste less time and can produce the footage quicker.

 

The impact these factors have on each other.

Finance is one of the biggest factors as this is the base of your entire foundation and will impact every element of your project. When productions are over budget it can be as simple as cutting down costs and finding cheaper options or not using certain ideas at all. Having the right funding is crucial as the decision whether it is worth making must be first be made. This will include looking at all the costs and timescales to suit your production plan and if this as well as the right resources can be successfully achieved, generally will let the pre-production progress. If the budget is too low and you do not have sufficient funds for the project, this can be why producers higher older actors to play the parts of children or under 18s as they will be able to save money on filming as it will take less time to capture footage and furthermore, the actors will be able to work longer hours. This is technique is not only used when the budget is low but for any production as they initially choose to their cast to be casted that way. 

 

The established industry formats used within the pre-production processes

A script is a technical instruction to what you are being shown on screen with some from of dialogue and actions describing what is happening. Certain documents must be done in a particular way so that they are suitable for the different markets otherwise they won't even consider looking at your work. This is because of how they structure things certain ways which is now expected from everyone. In scripts they have to be written in the font courier new in 12 to ensure it is laid out properly. They have chosen this font style and size due to the fact that it replicates the style of a typewriter as well as being laid out to correspond 1 minute of filming. There are two different scripts available which are ‘shooting scripts’ which is more specifically for selling your program whereas ‘spec scripts’  which is more in terms of the finished script which will contain all the necessary information to then go straight forward to production. It is important that these two different formats of scripts stay separate and do not get mixed up as this could cause a lot of confusion and put you at a disadvantage. This is because you are giving a source to that crew member which is specific to what their job entitles them to do and therefore they need all the correct and necessary information to do their job efficiently and accurately. Risk assessments must be carried out for any area within your production as there are masses of problems that could arise and you must be prepared for any of them. These risk assessments can be written in any format in comparison to scrips as long as they clearly show any risks and how you might be able to minimise them or prevent them from occurring. This is so that any procedures carried out are safe and do not put anyone at risk so that you can prevent any accidents. These risk assessments should be produced prior to the filming or whichever is taking place to ensure that you can follow these guidelines while they are happening and that all aspects are covered so that nothing goes wrong. 

 

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

These processes are there in place to make sure that everything is prepared in advance so you can avoid any problems that might arise or if they do, you know what steps you have to take to either solve them or put something else in place to help resolve the issue.  There are various different risk assessments which cover all the aspects of the project and because of these mean that you have an advantage if something goes wrong as you already know what needs to happen to resolve this. Scripts are released in different colours as a technique to ensure that everyone knows the difference between each script and that they all have the same to avoid any confusion. Every time a script is change, the colour is also changed as this shows a clear contrast to the others instead of looking for minor details to tell them apart. This saves a lot of time as you can easily tell the difference whereas if the colours were the same, this would hugely impact their time and as a result money. This is due to the fact that the longer the producers take to make the product, the more it will cost due to all the money they have to spend on staff and locations for example. Another useful resource is the use of watermarks which means that other companies or individuals cannot copyright the script unless someone has leaked it. The useful thing about them is that even if a script was leaked, it has every individual's name on each certain script so therefore you would know exactly who the leak is. Not having copyright on the scripts can be useful as it enables everyone to have a good use of communication and know what they are doing. It means that actors can prepare for their roles and that they can rehearse lines whenever they need to and with whomever they need or want to. 

Unfortunately sometimes there can be some circumstances where unforeseeable situations occur which is why there are risk assessments in place to help, however occasionally there can be bigger issues which corrupt the entire plan such as the client making changed or changing their mind as this can mean re-writing the entire script. This will have a major impact on time as they will have to start again from scratch and basically scrap all of their previous work. It not only wastes time but money also as the longer you spend on a project the more expenses you will have it cover and therefore you will have to consider if there is any point on progressing with the project.

The purposes of pre-production documentation

The function of pre-production is to ensure that before you start actually producing your piece of media you have all the right resources that will enable you to complete the production smoothly and successfully. For example, After the process of script making, it may be that the producers will use a storyboard to present their ideas as it might be easier to express your ideas through a visual representation rather than worded as those crew will be able to visualise your ideas better. This can also be an efficient way of saving time as the crew you pass that information on to will know exactly what you expect and there will be no mistakes or need for extra shooting scenes. If there is no storyboard, this would massively disadvantage you as there would be a failure of communication as you cannot understand one another's vision and therefore would increase the length of time they will have to work on it and take longer to film.

Conclusion

 

Overall, it is clear that you can achieve a finished media product as long as all these factors are maintained for example, sticking to a fixed budget and having a shared vision which you complete and present through the use of the right techniques such as storyboards. If everything is therefore planned efficiently through the use of successful pre-production the end result is then possible and you can accomplish the shared goal which was set in the first place.

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Bibliography/Webography

https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/09/50149-crowdfunding-best-top-10-successfully-funded-kickstarter-indiegogo-films/