Production process - requirements for a moving image production

Media Forms


Within moving image production there are many different types and forms of media. The type of media product that we produced was a 90 second short film with the intent to enter it into a worldwide competition called ‘Depict!’, this is an online competition that contests amateur film makers to make a low budget 90 second short film. Our film was originally distributed via YouTube for people to see prior the potential for it to be submitted. There are many different forms of media, including magazines, Radio, newspapers and video, the main forms of moving image productions are; Cinemas, TV, Adverts and DVD’s (Blu-Ray). These have different methods of distribution, for example they could be shown to an audience via TV, DVD’s and the internet. One of the new main forms of media and distribution would be through services like Netflix and love film; also people can stream films via the internet and through sites like iPlayer and 4od people can watch TV.



Funding.

There are many different sources and types of funding that a production can acquire. For example for an extremely small low budget short film like we created, we needed very little money and so could sources it between ourselves or could inquire friends, teachers and family on small amounts if necessary, in our case we managed to get all of our finance between ourselves and are teachers. In the professional world films would have a much higher budget and their funding comes from things like; Sponsors and advertisement, Companies, Investors, Crowd Funding, Banks/loans and many more. For example a big Hollywood blockbuster would need a budget of millions.

These productions acquire their money through many different forms. Advertisement is one of the biggest forms of investment and companies want to be able to show off their product via product placement. An example of this would be ‘Skyfall’ throughout this film all the characters technology and devices were all Sony, as a company Sony would have paid them money in order to be able to do that. Another form of income for them would be through private investors who would give them money for the production with intent of a profit margin. Examples of these are people like Megan Ellison and Robert Rodriguez. In extraordinary circumstances actors can invest in films by themselves, but this comes with great risk. For example Vin Diesel invested his own house in his new film ‘Riddick’; he said "If we didn't finish the film, I would be homeless.” Other forms of investment in films include Crowd Funding. This is where a group of people would pledge there idea on a website and give out a target for their budget, people would be able to view this and give small amounts towards it, people can raise millions through this by getting a lot of people to donate to their idea, in this case someone would pitch there film and people could give them donations towards it an example of this is

'KickStarter'.Other forms of investment in films can come from things like; BFI, The Lottery, BBC and Creative England. Creative England fund TV, Film and Games, they will fund both new and emerging talent within the industry with budgets and crew. BFI (British Film Institute) is another company which will invest in film makers. They do this via lottery funds. Most film funding used to come from the UKFC but closed down and changed to the BFI. Films have many requirements, and these cost money. From the investment that the production will have obtained they will need to spend it on; Props, Costumes/Make-up, Equipment, Actors, Catering, Accommodation, Insurance, Facilities, Location Transport, Software, Copyrights, Staff and many others. In the case for are short film the things we had to obtain were; Equipment, Props, Actor, Facilities and Software. The only thing that we had to spend money on where props, this was a very small amount of money as hat we needed was not very expensive. All of the other requirements were free as we filmed within college, we borrowed equipment from the AV room and the actor was a part of our group.

Personnel and Deadlines

Different types of moving image productions require different amounts and types of talent and crew. The makeup of a typical low budget film in comparison to a big Hollywood film would be vast, for example instead of having hundreds of people and teams having their own specific and individual roles, in a low budget film you would only have a hand full of people, but these would have more than one job and would be mixing roles, for instance part of the crew cold also be talent. TV programs can vary in crew; this all depends on what the genre is, so for example if they were filming for a documentary about animals they would only need a very small select group.

 On the other hand if the program was a soap opera like 'EastEnders',there would be far more people taking part including; actors, directors, camera crews and many more. This leads on to our production for our 90 second short. As are team was only 3 people, we had to mix our roles a lot, but also providing the fact that we had little to no experience in any of our roles. An example of this would be me, at points I was both camera man and director, and later on I was the main editor. This is a prime example of how we manage to mix our roles within a small group. In these media production there is a lot of work that happens behind the scenes, the crew itself is made up of many different teams, costume designers and makeup artists are examples of this. These people have a major role to play in these productions. In front of the camera you have the obvious, like actors. Other people can contribute in scenes; if a scene was being shot in a busy city center then you will have people in the background contributing to the mise-on-scene.
In the professional industry there is a lot of pressure with time frames, and meeting deadlines are vital. For instance if a big high budget film missed its deadline then not only would the production lose a large sum of money but the producers would gain a bad reputation and maybe lose their job, hence there is a huge amount of pressure on them to meet their deadlines. In our case deadlines are important but not as crucial, when making our short we did go over is deadline by a couple of days, this is because we had to go back and re film segments. We had 3 weeks to do are pre-production, filming and editing. One of the reasons that we went over are deadline is because there was an half term break in the middle, this meant that we had to continue from where we left of but made it difficult for us to do so.

Equipment, Facilities and Materials

Within moving image productions there are many different types of equipment and facilities that are needed. The equipment that is needed in order to film a production is things like; cameras, tripods, tracks and others, these cost a lot of money. In the professional world the best equipment is bought as the budget allows it, these may cost thousands. Also they would use media facility houses for all of their pre production and editing needs. These are places that have offices and studios with the software and equipment that they would need to both plan and finish the production, these facilities have the highest quality industry standard hardware and software like final cut pro. These facilities cost a lot of money to hire due to the industry standard equipment and materials, for example 'East End Studios' charge £120 and hour for a minimum of 4 hours just for the studio. Another example of a media house is 'Vet' within this facility there are all the materials and equipment required for per and post production. In our case we did not have to spend any money on wither facilities or equipment, this is because we managed to borrow the equipment through the college and so we could get hold of our camera and tripod at zero cost. Also the studio from which we filmed in was on the college premises and did not need hire. Lastly the facilities required in order to both plan and edit are production did not need hiring as it was all college hardware and software from which we were entitled to borrow and use.
Before people can start filming productions they need to find some viable locations to do so. Teams do this by going out on location and complete a form known as a recce. This is how they will evaluate the location to see if it is suitable and safe to film on. Once they have found an appropriate location to film on they will need to get hold of a release. This is what allows them to film on that location. A release is when they have been given permission to film on location and in some circumstances they will need police clearance. This is if they are filming in a public area, because if they were using a prop that looked like a real gun and they didn't notify the police that they were filming then they could get into big trouble as they did not notify the police. In the case of us finding a location from which we were going to film, we decided on doing it all from within the studio after evaluating it. Therefore we didn't need to notify any officials, all we needed was permission from out teacher. We originally went onto location to fill out a recce and risk assessment to see if it would be adequate for shooting. There were only a couple of issues with choosing the studio as our location; these were mostly health and safety due to small things like wires on the floor for lighting. We did not face any logistical issues because it was within college hours and within the college grounds. In the professional world there would be many issues they would have to face including health and safety and logistics.

The materials in addition to the equipment, talent and crew that are needed in a production are things like props, costumes, sounds, music and effects. These can either be bought or improvised and made. Examples of these would be props and costumes, a lot of the time you can use things that you already have but in some circumstances these can be made yourself. Also sound effects; if you have a low budget film and don’t want to buy effects, you can try and record some yourself, in the industry big productions would either buy existing ones or hire out a sound studio, when it comes to props big films can need expensive cars and technology. Sometimes some props can cost a lot and so you have to be conservative if you are running on a low budget. In our short we did not need to spend very much money on props as they were all relatively cheap. In the professional world in a high budget action film there would most likely be explosions and other effects; these cost a lot of money in a production and can either be digitally added or can be genuinely done. Either way it costs a large sum of money in order to do so. In our project we did not need to add any effects/ sound effects but we did have to add music, we did not have to do anything as it was un-copyrighted, but if we were to use copyrighted music then we would have needed written permission from both the artist and its producers and record label in order to be able to legally use it.
Legalities and Copyright. 
Legal issues can play a massive part when using certain materials, for example if you use a branded object in a film and didn't have permission to do so then you can get into a legal battle with the company. In instance if we were to actually send our project off to the depict competition then we would have problems because we used cans of monster in the video. Sometimes items can within films as part of product placement or advertisement and only can be used with written permission from the company; else they will encounter problems with the copyrights.

Clearance is where the producers and crew have gathered all the permission to film on set, including their; releases, recce, health and safety, this is what would happened in the professional industry but in our own production we got our teachers to check all of our paper work and give us permission to film on set.

Public liability insurance is there for in case people on set obtain an injury, this is important as it is what pays the compensation to the people injured. An example of this would be ‘Twilight Zone’. When they were filming this film there was a tragic helicopter crash who took 3 lives, of which included 2 child actors who were illegally hired to be in the film, there was a massive legal battle about this. This shows that accidents can happen when on set. This insurance is there for when they happen.

Completion guarantee is a type of insurance that can be obtained via a company, this is often taken by independently financed film, it is in place to make sure the film is completed and delivered. an example of a company that provides this is 'FilmFinances' they have offered completion guarantees to over 6000 productions.

Regulations

Within moving image productions there are many different regulatory bodies, these control the monitoring and ratings. OFCOM or otherwise known as the office of communications is a government authority that controls broadcasting and TV. OFCOM’s job is to control what is shown throughout telecommunications and make sure that the public are protected against offensive and potentially harmful content. The governing body of the BBC is the BBC trust. These are the people who control what is shown on the BBC; these are different from OFCOM because the BBC trust gives quality control and value for money even though OFCOM still regulates them.

The BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification and is a non-governmental independent body; the purpose of the BBFC is to give age ratings and classifications to films. TV is currently regulated by OFCOM and makes sure that no harmful, offensive or indecent material is broadcasted. On the other hand online videos are not entirely regulated at all; YouTube has a policy to not allow any pornographic, violent, dangerous or illegal material to be uploaded. But throughout the internet as a whole, there is no leading body or organisation that regulates the material on the internet. Even though it is entirely illegal to have this content online, it is very difficult for authorities to police because a lot of it comes from other countries. The closest things to being able to contain or stop these kinds of material are safeguards and security, these don’t allow children to be able to view any indecent content on the internet, but does not stop it.  All this means that because the majority of the content on the internet is not regulated, a lot of indecent material is easily accessible. The only things that are regulated are on demand websites like iPlayer, 4od and ITV Player; this is because they are regulated via the BBC and OFCOM because they are directly linked to the TV broadcasts. This can also be managed by making sure that people are of a certain age to even have an account for the online service, on most of these you will be asked your age and to accept a policy to be able to view the program. In relation to our Depict video it doesn't entirely matter because it doesn't have any indecent material within it, even though it would get regulated we would encounter any problems or ratings.

Trade unions and associations

Trade unions are organizations that fight for workers’ rights; these include things like pay and working conditions. These are important because it means that you can’t labor people, for example; less than minimum wage or poor working conditions. These unions make sure that workers are treated fair. PACT is the UK trading association, and promotes and supports independent film and media companies.  Another similar organization is BECTU, these also help people within the media industry, and they help with funding, legalities and many other things, they help support independent media companies.

Trade associations are people who help individuals within a specific industry, for example CTBF is the leading UK industry for funding for films, cinema and TV. There are many other associations that help people within the industry like; BIMA, BKSTS and IVCA. All these associations help people in need within the industry buy giving them money to help fund their prodject.

Bibliography

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/vin-diesel-had-leverage-house-riddick-103558491--abc-news-celebrities.html
http://www.montclair.edu/arts/school-of-communication-and-media/facilities/#filmmaking
http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/knowledge/article_5097_1.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6166814.stm
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/
http://bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/guidelines
http://www.filmfinances.com
http://www.vet.co.uk/site/Facilities
http://www.eastendstudios.co.uk/rates/