Requirements for a
moving image production
In this report I am going to define, explain and relate to requirements that exist in order to create a media product. I will be writing about the types of production, sources of finance, requirements, time, personnel, facilities, gathering materials, contributors, locations and codes of practice and regulation.
Types of moving image production
Me and my group produced a 90 second short film for an online competition called DepicT!.
DepicT! challenges filmmakers on any budget from anywhere in the world to show their stuff in just a minute and a half. We distributed it online via YouTube. Despite us having to do a 90 second short film, there are so many other different types of moving image media products such as: Feature length films, television shows /programs (series, serial or stand-alones) and web series.
Despite us choosing to distribute our moving image production via YouTube there are many other methods of distribution other than online, such as: cinema, OOHA (out of home advertisement) and DVDs.
Example of OOHA:
Finance and
sources of funding
When making a moving image production funding is vital.
There are many sources of funding such as taking out a loan, crowd
funding/sourcing, approach friends and family, self-financed, private
capital/investment, BFI film funds, selling marketing deals, competitions and product
placement.
taking out a bank loan is a popular way of gaining a suitable amount of funding however this isn't recommended as the final you may end up having to pay back more then what you earn from the final production.
An example of private capital/investment would be Megan Ellison; she is the daughter of billionaire Oracle Corporation Chairman Larry Ellison. She financed many films such as Walking Madison, Main Street, Passion Play and True Grit. She also collaborated with the Creative Artists Agency's film finance group headed by Roeg Sutherland and Micah Green. She has since founded Annapurna Pictures, a company that plans to take a so-called "Silicon Valley" approach to film-making by investing in original, daring movies made by prestigious directors and screenwriters.
There are many ways to receive crowd funding, but one of the
most well-known ways is via a website called Kickstarter. Kickstarter hosts
projects from the worlds of Art, Comics, Crafts, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film
& Video, Food, Games, Journalism, Music, Photography, Publishing,
Technology, and theatre. With Kickstarter members of the public read about the project and if they think they want to see it complete they can pledge money. The creators of the product will not be given the money until they have reached their funding target so then they can start the production. One example of Kickstarter would be a project created on Kickstarter by Zach Braff to get founding for a film called Wish I Was Here. The project was successfully funded on the 24th May 2013 and was released on the 18th July 2014.
Product placement is where companies pay to advertise their
product within the production. A good example of product placement would be within the film White House Down(2013). In the video below you can see within the scene a character wearing Jordan trainers, you can tell this is product placement as throughout this scene the camera tends to show and focus on the shoes to try and sell them to the viewer.
Self financing is were a film maker will use their own personal funds to create their production. One example of a self financed film is Colin. Colin is a 2008 British zombie film written and directed by Marc Price. After a successful run in a number of film festivals, it went on to be shown at Cannes in 2009. Applauded for its success despite its low budget, the total cost of production was reportedly £45.The director, actor and comedian Marc Price, shot Colin on a standard definition Panasonic mini-dv camcorder that he had owned for 10 years and edited the film on his home PC using Adobe Premiere 6 software which had come bundled with a video capture card he'd purchased a few years earlier. Facebook and Myspace were used to gather actors to play the zombies.
Marketing deals allow companies to create official merchandise for the production, for a price, which will benefit both the manufacturer and film maker as they are technically advertising each others products. Here is a image showing merchandise for Toy Story 3.
BFI funds is where film makers present their ideas to the British Film Institute. If they accept the idea, money will be sent to fund the production of the idea.
One last way to gain funding can be through competitions, such as the DepicT! competition we created our short for, another competition that's quite well known was hosted by Virgin Media as well as being in association with Nikon and BFI monitoring. This competition is 'Dedicated to unearthing undiscovered talent and give a helping leg up into the competitive movie industry'. At the end of the competition there are thirteen shortlisted films and one grand prize winner of £30,000 to shoot their next film. This has grown to become the UKs biggest short film competition, after six years and 6,059 short film entries, the competition has finished for good.
Requirements
When it comes to making any production there will be a lot of things you’ll have to spend money on, such as: talent, equipment, crew, distribution, location props, transport, make-up, costumes, accommodation, soundtrack(if you’re using copyrighted materials) and other expenses.
Whilst doing our Depict planning we had to obtain equipment, costume, talent, location and distribution. We had to buy props with a budget of £5.
Personnel
A small low budget film or short may only have very few actors, cast and potentially even fewer crew. For this the minimum make up of the crew could just be the camera operator. In small productions it is common for the camera operator to take the roll as director.
A Hollywood feature film will significantly have a bigger team working on the production then on a small low budget film. This may include; a director (a person who supervises the actors and other staff in a film, play, or similar production), camera crew operating more than one camera, boom microphone operators who will handle the boom microphone to ensure that everything the actors say is heard clearly and that the microphone is not seen in the shot, make up artists, set designer, prop and costume designer to ensure that all props for each scene is present and that actors are wearing the correct costume in full.
Television programs require the same amount of cast and crew as a Hollywood feature film, if not more. One example of this is the television program Strictly Come Dancing which is famed with having the most cameras in a multi-camera set up then any other television program.
When it came to making our short, as well had a very small group of three, we allocated job roles by personal choice as well as experience. Two members of our group were cast as the talent and the third member of the group was operating the camera filming the production due to past experiences using cameras. We had to get a member of the class to help and perform two different acting roles. The cast all had experience acting in short productions before.
Crew
A small low budget film or short may only have very few actors, cast and potentially even fewer crew. For this the minimum make up of the crew could just be the camera operator. In small productions it is common for the camera operator to take the roll as director.
A Hollywood feature film will significantly have a bigger team working on the production then on a small low budget film. This may include; a director (a person who supervises the actors and other staff in a film, play, or similar production), camera crew operating more than one camera, boom microphone operators who will handle the boom microphone to ensure that everything the actors say is heard clearly and that the microphone is not seen in the shot, make up artists, set designer, prop and costume designer to ensure that all props for each scene is present and that actors are wearing the correct costume in full.
Television programs require the same amount of cast and crew as a Hollywood feature film, if not more. One example of this is the television program Strictly Come Dancing which is famed with having the most cameras in a multi-camera set up then any other television program.
When it came to making our short, as well had a very small group of three, we allocated job roles by personal choice as well as experience. Two members of our group were cast as the talent and the third member of the group was operating the camera filming the production due to past experiences using cameras. We had to get a member of the class to help and perform two different acting roles. The cast all had experience acting in short productions before.
Cast/other contributors
In addition to the crew, there are many other people who may contribute to the production of a media text who are incredibly important to the whole dynamic of the production. One member of the team who is extremely important is the scriptwriter. Without this individual there would be no specific lines for the actors to say during each scene. Despite this in some productions there is not always a scriptwriter an example of this would be in silent films, improvised performances however it is highly common for one to be present for most productions. Often in television productions the scriptwriter will often double up as a character or director such as Lee Mack in his show 'Not Going Out'.
Another individual is the accountant of the production. They work out the budget of the production and ensure that there is enough money to continue and finish the project. The most important job for the accountant is to make sure that all the cast and crew receive their payment otherwise the cast and crew will most likely refuse to work and then the production will not be able to continue.
Another contributor would be the location scout who will search for a suitable location to film the production. Without a location scout, many locations that would be perfect for filming may be overlooked and gone unnoticed.
One other contributor to the production team who is required for everything to operate as well as possible would be a first aid attendant. This person is required as there may be a number of different issues outlined in the health and safety risk assessment, the presence of a first aid attendant will help to eliminate the risk of injury and will be there to attend to people injured on set as quickly as possible.
Another individual is the accountant of the production. They work out the budget of the production and ensure that there is enough money to continue and finish the project. The most important job for the accountant is to make sure that all the cast and crew receive their payment otherwise the cast and crew will most likely refuse to work and then the production will not be able to continue.
Another contributor would be the location scout who will search for a suitable location to film the production. Without a location scout, many locations that would be perfect for filming may be overlooked and gone unnoticed.
One other contributor to the production team who is required for everything to operate as well as possible would be a first aid attendant. This person is required as there may be a number of different issues outlined in the health and safety risk assessment, the presence of a first aid attendant will help to eliminate the risk of injury and will be there to attend to people injured on set as quickly as possible.
Time
During our Depict production we were allowed one week for pre-production and one week to film our productions. within both time scales we, as a group completed both the pre-production and filming earlier then needed. There was initially an issue due to weather as the day we had assigned to film our outdoor scenes in the forest there were heavy downpours making the area unsafe for filming.
We had booked the room for our indoor scene on the Wednesday of the week however we were able to swap with another team and film our indoor scenes early. We completed our outdoor scene on the Tuesday of the week. We managed to finish all of the required filming by the Wednesday of that week and managed to start editing our shots together earlier than expected and had our piece completed within one week’s time, by the following Wednesday. I believe that we used the time very effectively allowing us to finish early and giving us extra time to complete our evaluation of the piece we had created.
In the professional industry if a deadline is not met it can be critical for the production as, if a moving image production falls behind schedule it may mean the release date being moved back by days, months or even years meaning investors may get irate about the situation, making them unlikely to invest in the future.
In the professional industry if a deadline is not met it can be critical for the production as, if a moving image production falls behind schedule it may mean the release date being moved back by days, months or even years meaning investors may get irate about the situation, making them unlikely to invest in the future.
One example of not meeting deadlines is the well anticipated Hunger Games sequel which was meant to be released in November 2014 but now it doesn't have a release date and it expected to be on screens in 2015.
Equipment/facilities
For a professional moving image production there are lots of different pieces of equipment required including lighting equipment, camera equipment, microphones and additional equipment such as camera stability equipment such as tripods or dollies for panning the camera. Lighting equipment is required to light the scene if there is no ambient lighting, or if ambient lighting is not being used.
Camera equipment will be used for filming the performance and the camera stability is used for securing the camera as opposed to having it handheld a tripod could be used. Moving image production companies can either purchase props and such equipment or hire it from a facility house.
Another company is hireacamera who rent out cameras by the day and send the cameras via post. The highest price of an SLR camera on the website is the Canon EOS 1DC costing £125 a day. Other equipment such as monopods and other camera accessories cost varying prices, the monopod costing as little as £2 a day.
For our production for the Depict competition we were allowed to get out equipment from the college’s AV room where they keep equipment for usage for students.
We borrowed a camera, tripod and SD card to film the production and we also borrowed fake blood, a glass and bottles as props from the college’s prop cupboard.
Locations
A location recce is needed within any moving image pre-production. Its to show that they have visited a location to work out its suitability for shooting, including access to necessary facilities and assessment of any potential lighting or sound issues and is closely related to location scouting.
A location release is a binding contract between the film maker and the owner of a private property whereby the owner of the property grants written permission to shoot a movie, video, commercial, or similar productions on the owner’s property. This agreement includes provisions regarding forgoing the owner’s right to sue for specific types of claims, allowing producer and team to enter property, releasing any rights to recording of one’s property, and potential compensation for the use.
When it came to our short we had to complete both a recce and a location release for our two chosen locations. The first location was within the college and the other was a nearby park. When we had completed the recces for both locations we then had to obtain a release to allow us to film within the college. Due to the park being a public area and wasn't private property we did not need permission to film there. However we did have to send a permissions email to the local police to ensure that they knew we would be filming quite violent scenes that may worry or cause distress to the public.
We picked to film our first scene within college as it is a good indoor space to film as it has cabinets and a desk so it would work perfectly for it. Another reason why we chose it was because of the lighting equipment available within that room, it was ideal for some of the shots we had planned. Our second location we picked for our second scene was Meadow Park, it was picked as it has a large forest connected to it which works perfectly as it gave an ominous and spooky feel. The other reason we picked both of these locations is that access to them is free and there are no travel expenses as Our first location is at the college and The park is just a five-minute walk from the college.
We faced one minor issue with the second location as on the first day of filming it rained, however we managed to get around that by moving our indoor scene to the first day of filming and the outdoor scene, which would have been the first scene, to the second day of filming, once the rain stopped.
Materials
There are various different resources required for not only the filming process but also the editing process. The first required things are the make-up and costumes which, depending on the type of moving image production, can be very important.
A documentary will use less costumes and make-up as they are factual and realistic but a Hollywood feature film will use more to make actors look like the characters they are portraying. Another required element to a moving image production are props.
Almost all moving image productions from music videos to feature length films require props.
In our Depict project we used a number of props including fake hatchets, files, a glass and a telephone to add to the mise-en-scene to make the office scene and the forest scene more believable. Depending on the production archive footage may be required.
The final elements are incredibly important to the production. These are the music and sound effects. One example of this is Kevin Smith's film; Clerks that the soundtrack was the biggest cost within the production. Music and sound effects are important because if there's a horror movie without a tense soundtrack it wouldn't have so much suspense and wouldn't be as thrilling.
One requirement which can cost a lot of money, insurance. This is a very important element as if a member of the cast or crew gets injured on set it can be very expensive so ensuring that the project has insurance can prevent large costs should they get injured.
Codes of practice and regulations
Legal issues
Whilst using certain materials in a media production there
are considerations taken to legality. One example of this would be not having
appropriate rights to certain materials i.e. using a material that has been
copyrighted without having rights to.
Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission. Copyright prevents people from: copying your work, distributing copies of it (whether free of charge or for sale), renting or lending copies of your work, performing, showing or playing your work in public, making an adaptation of your work and putting it on the internet.
Copyright didn't really affect our DepicT! Production as our soundtrack was composed by a member of our group and we used copyright free sounds using a website called Free Sound (https://www.freesound.org/)The only issue we encountered that was due to copyright was that we had trouble finding an image to suit a certain scene but after searching various copyright free sites we managed to find one that was almost ideal.
Most production businesses like to have clearances, clearance means for someone to be able to be get official authorization for something to proceed or take place. This is to have the permission to use the copyright work material for your own work. They also have to think about the public liability insurance with any types of slips and trips that could happen in the process of the filming. Insurance is an arrangement by which a company undertakes to provide a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage or illness, or even death in return for payment of a specified premium. However they are given a completion guarantee/ insurance for making sure that the film is completed and that they are not going to steal the money from the company/ person that have had the making of the film possible.
Regulation
OFCOM is the communications regulator in the UK. They regulate the TV and
radio sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, as well as the airwaves
over which wireless devices operate. OFCOM make sure that people in the UK get
the best from their communications services and are protected from scams and
sharp practices, while ensuring that competition can thrive.
OFCOM’s main legal duties are to ensure:
- the UK has a wide range of electronic communications services, including high-speed services such as broadband.
- a wide range of high-quality television and radio programmes are
provided, appealing to a range of tastes and interests.
- television and radio services are provided by a range of different
organisationspeople who watch television and listen to the radio are protected from harmful or offensive material.
- people are protected from being treated unfairly in television and radio programmes, and from having their privacy invaded.
- a universal postal service is provided in the UK.
- The radio spectrum (the airwaves used by everyone from taxi firms and boat owners, to mobile-phone companies and broadcasters) is used in the most effective way.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, is regulated to an extent by Ofcom however they are not fully regulated by the government body. The BBC has its own internal body that regulates what is shown and that is known as the BBC Trust. The trust is made up of twelve trustees who ensure that everything shown on the BBC is appropriate and that the BBC maintain to achieve their goal which they state is “The BBC exists to serve the public, and its mission is to inform, educate and entertain. ”. The BBC is different to Ofcom as it is an internal organisation that works for the company it is regulating. Another difference is that Ofcom can impose legal penalties should any of the rules it set be broken. The penalty is dealt with in a Magistrate's Court and can be up to the maximum penalty a magistrate is allowed to enforce. The BBC Trust ensures that all of Ofcom's guidelines are met as well as ensuring that they perform the following roles:
“make the most creative and distinctive output, innovate online and create a more personal BBC, serve all audiences and improve value for money”.
This is due to the fact that unlike other broadcasting companies such as ITV, the BBC do not show advertisements on their channels, they are funded through people paying for television licenses.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) are another body of regulation, however they regulate films. The job of the BBFC is to decide what certificate to give a film. The different certificates that they can give a film are U, for universal as in anyone can watch the production, PG, standing for parental guidance as there may be some scenes inappropriate for children, 12A, meaning anyone aged 12 or over or with parental accompaniment can watch the production, 12, meaning anyone ages 12 or over can watch, 15 and 18, for anyone aged those ages or over, respectively. This is very important and is enforced in cinemas as well as in DVD shops. This is to prevent anyone accessing a film with a higher rating than the customer is, an example of this would be children accessing inappropriate content such as nudity or violence which may be in films with a higher certificate.
Regulation affects everything we see on television, film and hear on the radio however it does not affect everything we watch. Videos distributed online are not regulated. The internet streaming website YouTube does have a code of regulations for what is uploaded to their website and they will, and have in many cases, remove videos deemed to be inappropriate for the website. However bad language is not covered by this policy meaning that children may get access to videos with vulgarity in them. Despite swearing being allowed on YouTube there are, of course, some boundaries such as real violence is not allowed to be uploaded nor is any form of inappropriate nudity or anything which is deemed incitement or racist.
“make the most creative and distinctive output, innovate online and create a more personal BBC, serve all audiences and improve value for money”.
This is due to the fact that unlike other broadcasting companies such as ITV, the BBC do not show advertisements on their channels, they are funded through people paying for television licenses.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) are another body of regulation, however they regulate films. The job of the BBFC is to decide what certificate to give a film. The different certificates that they can give a film are U, for universal as in anyone can watch the production, PG, standing for parental guidance as there may be some scenes inappropriate for children, 12A, meaning anyone aged 12 or over or with parental accompaniment can watch the production, 12, meaning anyone ages 12 or over can watch, 15 and 18, for anyone aged those ages or over, respectively. This is very important and is enforced in cinemas as well as in DVD shops. This is to prevent anyone accessing a film with a higher rating than the customer is, an example of this would be children accessing inappropriate content such as nudity or violence which may be in films with a higher certificate.
Regulation affects everything we see on television, film and hear on the radio however it does not affect everything we watch. Videos distributed online are not regulated. The internet streaming website YouTube does have a code of regulations for what is uploaded to their website and they will, and have in many cases, remove videos deemed to be inappropriate for the website. However bad language is not covered by this policy meaning that children may get access to videos with vulgarity in them. Despite swearing being allowed on YouTube there are, of course, some boundaries such as real violence is not allowed to be uploaded nor is any form of inappropriate nudity or anything which is deemed incitement or racist.
Trade unions and trade associations
A trade union is an organized association of workers in a
trade, group of trades, or profession, formed to protect and further their
rights and interests. Trade unions play an important role and are helpful in
effective communication between the workers and the management. The reason they
are so important is because they provide the advice and support to ensure that
the differences of opinion do not turn into major conflicts. The central
function of a trade union is to represent people at work. But they also have a
wider role in protecting their interests. They also play an important
educational role, organizing courses for their members on a wide range of
matters.
Pact is a trade association representing the commercial
interests of UK independent television, film, digital, children’s and animation
media companies. BECTU is the UK's media and entertainment trade union; sectors
covered include broadcasting, film, independent production, theater and the
arts, leisure and digital media.
They both represent staff, contract and freelance workers who are based primarily in the United Kingdom as well as supporting their members with legal and business affairs advice and support, as well as a wide range of services and campaign work.
a trade association is an organisation founded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. These are just as important as the ones above as these will play a crucial role in promoting the best practice, helping companies become more competitive and formulating effective public policy and delivering the best. They look into the public relations activities such as advertising, education, political donations lobbying and publishing.
They both represent staff, contract and freelance workers who are based primarily in the United Kingdom as well as supporting their members with legal and business affairs advice and support, as well as a wide range of services and campaign work.
a trade association is an organisation founded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. These are just as important as the ones above as these will play a crucial role in promoting the best practice, helping companies become more competitive and formulating effective public policy and delivering the best. They look into the public relations activities such as advertising, education, political donations lobbying and publishing.
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