Requirements for Production

Requirements for Production

There are lots of different moving image media forms such as TV, cinemas, mobile devices and tablets. We produced a 90 second short moving image clip for the competition DepicT! (http://www.depict.org/) DepicT! challenges filmmakers on any budget from anywhere in the world to show their stuff in just a minute and a half. The media industry is huge especially the film industry and film can be played anywhere, from the big screen to your laptop at home and also on your TV. This gave me and the members of our group to show our skills in making a 90 second short film for the competition so set out thinking of a good story line that would entertain the audience. We finally decided to do a story on a 'tramp' and a 'businessman'. To give you the outline of the plot the tramp gets lucky and gets a lot of money and the business man loses all of his money, the tramp ends up being rich and the businessman is on the street. So we decided that an appropriate title would be 'Swapping Shoes' as the two characters in the story have swapped places.

There are many sources of finance involved in film making as large scale films cost alot to make. Our 90 second film didn't costs anything to make as our college were able to provide the camera's and all the equipment and props we needed, however if we are talking about a large scale films there are many sources of finance that are available such as bank loans. Bank loans are one of the most common ways of getting money for making a film, a bank loan is where a certain amount of money is borrowed from the bank and is then paid back normally in small installments and each installment is normally the same amount of money as the other. Another way of getting money for making a film is private investors. Private investors invest money into a film so they can have more budget for the film and actors etc, for example Megan Ellison gives millions to film makers every year http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/jul/08/megan-ellison-billionaire-heiress-save-movies

You can also put your own money into the film however this is a huge risk as if the film doesn't do very well in the box office you could lose your own money. The National lottery also give money to film makers with a mix of skills so they can extend their skills in film making. http://www.bfi.org.uk/film-industry. Product placement also brings in a lot of cash for the film industry, if a company like 'Aston Martin' wanted to show their new car in a James Bond film they will pay large amounts of money for it to be in the film even if its only shown for a small amount of time however the more money that is payed to the film makers the longer the product will be shown. Smaller products such as Beer and Coca Cola also pay large amounts of money just to have a big movie star like Brad Pitt drink or use their products in the film, finance can be made from small advertising to large scale loans.

Now you may think that having millions of pounds just to make film is a little much however there is a huge list of things that need to be paid for and that need to happen before the film can even be shot, for example you need to get all the clearances done like making sure nothing has been copyrighted or if it is pay for the copyright so you are able to use that certain product etc. You have to pay for the actors and some actors cost a large amount of money to have in your film such as Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz however if you have big stars in your movie more people will come and see the film and they will be wanting to see their favorite stars in a new film, some films can be sold purely on who the film has in it. The crew and equipment also costs a lot of money, many directors/ film makers don't have their own camera's so they are hired and so are the crew. The camera's cost a lot of money to hire per http://www.holborn-studios.co.uk/holborn/price-list.html?category=studios.  You also have to pay for travel for all the cast, crew and equipment, facilities also have to be hired such as studios and locations for the shoot or you might need an editing house so you are able to edit the shots you have got from filming. Most film makers hire special effects specialists so the special effects in the film look as best they can be, so making a film is quite a large risk as by the time you have spent everything from crew to cast to equipment you have spent a lot of money so you would want to hope that the film does well and you make your money back from customers.

As we didn't have long to shoot and edit our film we had to manage our time correctly. Most of the deadlines that were set we were able to meet them, the only deadline we were unable to meet was the end one as we just needed to add the music to our 90 second film and that took 2 minutes however if this was in the real film industry the film director would probably not get any work as people do not want to invest in directors/film makers that cannot manage their time and spend their money correctly and most importantly meet deadlines. The equipment that our group used to shoot the film was a small handheld camera, however we were able to connect tripods to the cameras so we were able to get steady shots instead of trying to shoot our film freehanded and the shots being unstable. In one shot (that is personally my favorite) we connected a dolly to the camera so we were able to get the tracking shot we wanted. In the professional industry most of the cameras that are used are hired along with the crew etc, its very rare that you find a director/film maker that has brought all of the equipment as it is just so expensive. As you can see from the picture above this is a fairly modern day 'Hollywood' film making camera, they are high tech pieces of kit and as you can see quite large and hard to move around so it also costs alot for the equiptment to be shifted to each new location. The people that were available to us were of course ourselves, however we also had two actors however this didn't work out as they were unable to shoot at certain times and we were running low on time so we decided to just keep it in our group as it was quicker and easier. The size of the group I was working in was three and in my opinion I think that this is the perfect size as you can have two actors and one camera man. Alex was the tramp in our production and Lewis was the business man, I was the camera man however I did appear in the film for a short amount of time. As we are only college students we don't have a lot of experience like the professional editors and camera men, I think that if you have experience and skill then things run so much smoother and the film looks generally better. If you have the skill you can also add effects onto the film that others wouldn't have even known was there, however having skilled and experienced people costs a lot of money. Cost can be affected by personnel in many ways but the main reason the cost goes up is because the more people that you use in the production the higher the cost of the production is. The resources that we had were limited however my group was able to make it work, we found a suit jacket for the businessman and a sleeping bag for the tramp. We printed off a fake cheque that was also going to be used in the production. The last thing we needed was a tin can for the tramp but we were able to find one easily enough we were generally quite lucky with the props that we needed as the college had what we needed. At first we decided that we were going to get two actors (two of Alex's friends) however we started to run out of time and we found that it was generally easier if we kept it in out group as we all knew what we was doing and how we wanted it to be done we also done this to ensure availability as the actors couldn't do certain days etc and as it was kept in the group atleast two of us were available at any one time so even if one of my group was anyway we were still able to get on with something not a day was wasted when we was making our 90 second short film.

The equipment that was needed for our production was easy to get hold of as everything we used was at the college, we were able hire cameras which had SD cards in them, tripods and the dolly we needed for the tracking shot. We also used a shoulder brace for the cheque scene and of course the props. The equiptment needed for post production is the editing software that we used on the MACs, you also need the footage. You could get all the equipment in the professional business if you had a Facility house/studio. A facility house is were you can get/store props and equipment and you can also film and edit there however in studios you are only able to film and edit there. This leads onto the point of 'Outsourcing', this is were you get people that are not from the company in to help you make/film the production. 89% of people who work in the UK film industry are freelance this means people outside of the company. We did some of this when we were trying to find actors for our production but as said before we didn't go though with this plan. There are financial considerations to make when thinking of securing facilities and locations such as hire length are you going to get everything done within the time you have hired the facility/location for? As they are normally hired out straight after you have used it and other directors/film makers are going to want to use it, you are not going to be able to have a few extra days as the studio is most likely already been hired out. Also the cost of using/hiring the facility (it depends on how long you want to use it.) Another point is, are there actually any available facilities when you need one? You have to plan ahead and get all your shooting/editing done in a certain time as you dont normally get second chances.

Before you pick the locations you have to do a location recce which is scouting out possible shooting locations once you have done this and picked your perfect location you will need to get a location release which is getting permission from the land owner that you are aloud to shoot etc on there piece of land you will also need to have a legal document which expresses permission to film in a certain location. The reason we picked our final location is that after we decided to not have actors we were running out of time also the location we picked was very accessible and we didn't have to pay any transport costs. As we didn't have to get transport or even walk very far we were able to get on with our film quickly and effectively. When filming in a location we faced risks and limitations to assess them and get over them we signed a risk assessment which is how to identify and overcome risks, when we were filming if you wasn't in the film at that time we had to wear 'crew' tops to show people that we were filming. We also sent an email to the police that we would be filming at this time and place so if anything was seen like a gun they would know that it was for a film.

There are many materials available for the modern day film maker, with the right amount of money and a good enough story line anyone can become a film maker/director, for example the first 'Paranormal Activity' was made on a very low budget but made millions around the world and they are now on their 4th film. http://adage.com/article/madisonvine-news/low-budget-movie-marketing-paranormal-activity/139588/
Film makers can use original materials this is where they make the materials they need themselves, we did this in our film as we had an original piece of music that we made using garage band, however an alternative to this is using a sound/video library or other archieve, where you can get clips of music and films. The internet can also be used as a material when making a film, you can use it to find locations (Google earth), or hire out an extra camera. Scripts are also a material to film makers as this shows what actors will be doing and they can also be altered   if they think something isn't right, the costumes for the actors are another material you have to think about is it going to look right on the character? One thing you must do when using all of these materials is check the copyright status and it the material you want to use is copyrighted you must make sure you have all the right clearances to make sure that you are aloud to use it for example you would need written permission or a contract stating your aloud to use this certain copyrighted material. As your using copyrighted material which in other words is its another persons original material and you would need to pay a charge to the owner of the material to use it, if you do not pay this charge and use it anyway you would be paying a large sum of money to the owner as you could be charged even more for using it without permission.

There are various people that can contribute to a media product such as the public they can make certain scenes in a film that seem more realistic etc another type of person that can contribute to a media product is the specialists, people such as camera men, make up artists these obviously shoot the scenes sort the make up etc. The talent also contributes to the product as they are using their talents of acting to make the film look good., however before choosing who your going to let contribute to the media product you would first look at their contributor biography which is like a CV it gives certain information about that certain person, such as name, age, profession etc. You look at these to make sure that you choose the best person for the job that you want them to do. As said before you need to make sure you have all the correct clearances before you use something the term clearances basically you are aloud to proceed, your aloud to use something of someone else's something that you might require to get clearance for is say you wanted to use the very distinctive star wars music you would have to get clearances from the owner George Lucas and permission to say that you are aloud to use the star wars music in your film and you would have to pay him/the owner a charge for using their original material. For small time film makers copyright can be a huge problem as some people have a small budget and they cannot spend large amounts of money to use certain pieces of music,sounds and even some phrases. This affected our group as we were not aloud to use any copyrighted music unless we got permission and it was is very hard to college students with no budget to get permission for a certain song, however we overcame this problem by creating out own original music piece on a MAC using garage band. Public Liability Insurance covers any awards of damages given to a member of the public because of an injury or damage to their property caused by you or your business. In other words, if you or your business injures a third party (that doesn't mean someone who works for you, they're covered by Employer's Liability), or their property, PL insurance provides financial protection against damages that might be awarded in a lawsuit (and, depending on your policy, legal fees etc). completion insurance guarantee is if you are unable to finish the media product the people that have put money into the film etc will get paid if you are unable to make the money back on the film or if you are unable to finish the product.

Ofcom is the office of communications its a government approved regularity and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the UK. Ofcom has huge wide ranging powers across the TV, radio, and postal sectors, Its has main duty is to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from what might be considered harmful or offensive material. Some of the main areas Ofcom are in is licensing, research, codes and policies, complaints, competition and protecting the radio spectrum from abuse. Another business like this is called PCC or Press Complaints Commission, their function is very similar to Ofcom. PCC deal with complaints about editorial content of newspapers and magazines. There are many businesses that protect the public from harmful material such as the ASA or Advertising Standards Authority. The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. They apply the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice, their work includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. PEGI of Pan European Game Information is slightly different to to the others, PEGI is to do with computer/video games it supply's the age ratings to help parents make decisions on whether a game is appropriate for their child. BBFC or British Board of Film Classifications  is also slightly different to to the other company's. The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos/ DVDs since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984. We had to think about all of this when we were making our videos we had to make sure it was appropriate for all ages and there was no harmful material.

A trade union is an organization whose members consists of workers and union leaders, united to protect and promote their common interests. The principal purposes of a labor union are to negotiate wages and working condition terms, regulate relations between workers (its members) and the employer, take collective action to enforce the terms of collective bargaining, raise new demands on behalf of its members, and help settle their grievances, in simpler words its a union for worker who want pay rises and settle arguments etc. A company that does this is PACT (Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television) and BECTU (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union) both of these trade unions help workers with wages etc. A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association or sector association, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. An industry trade association participates in public relations activities such as advertising, education, political donations, lobbying and publishing, but its main focus is collaboration between companies, or standardization. BIMA (British Interactive Media Association), ELSPA and TIGA are all fairly simular as well. TIGA is TIGA is the non-profit trade association representing the UK's games industry, their members include independent games developers, in-house publisher-owned developers, outsourcing companies, technology businesses and universities. BIMA supports individuals and organisations which deliver high quality, creative and innovative, interactive media solutions. These company's help individuals if they are wanting to get into a certain trade like gaming or support them in their currant jobs. This concludes my analysis of requirements of production.

Bibiography:
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