Requirements For Production

Type of Production

The media product I produced was a 90 second short film for a competition. The competition is an online competition which is called Depict. We could choose any genre as long as it is 90 seconds.

Depict is Watershed's 90 second ultra-shot international competition since 1998, when it was created by Brief Encounters. The Competition has connected with many known companies like Aardman  and have many supporters of the competitions like BAFTA, Channel 4 and Arts Alliance media. There are many other ways to see media and many other ways to advertise media. Listed below are some of the other ways.

Other types of media forms in the creative industry :

TV, Internet, Film, Magazines, Newspapers, Radio, Phones, Tablets, Computers

Finance and Sources of Funding

There are many different ways to get funding. One of the ways is to get funding from banks, this has been a good way and easy way to get a big loan but in the current market where there is a recession banks are having to say no to people who want loans as they can't afford it. Another one is product placement, this is increasing throughout film production as it is a easy way to get money from a company. One of the most popular companies which do this is Apple Inc they are placing there new desktop computers into films which helps the company for advertising but mainly helps the film production get funded.

Private investors like the Ellison's are funding high budget films as they are very wealthy and have enough money to fund a series of films as the Larry Ellison's Net worth is £41 Billion. Megan, Larry's daughter has funded films like Terminator 5 which is currently being produced by herself. It is reported that she has also wrote cheques in the excess of £2 million. The producer of the latest James Bond, Michael G. Wilson has used the idea of having advertising in the film to create funding for the film. Michael decided to advertise Heineken in 'Skyfall'.  Using advertising in a high profile film generates alot of money for the production as the producers charge the company who want to advertise in their film huge sums of money. There are many different ways to fund a film, one of the most peculiar ones is that every lottery ticket that is bought for £1, 28p of that is split to good causes and integrated into the share is the film industries. One of the well known ways of getting funding is entering into competitions like Virgin Media Hosts short films and the best one get shown at the cinema in front of millions of people. In my production we only had a budget of £5 and this was funded by the college.

Requirements for any Production

There are many requirements for a production and one of these is the Personnel. There are two types of Personnel involved Talent and Crew. For every film there has to be actors/actresses and with the selection of the actors will come at a cost, with higher profiled names like Daniel Craig it will cost the producer more as more people want these big names and so they have to pay a price for his time which will be short during the filming of James Bond. It has the same concept as the crew the producer wants but most of the time for a film that is going to have sequels, the producer will keep the same crew throughout. Equipment is another major factor of production as the crew have to have something to film the production with. The main equipment are the cameras and with better cameras carry a huge cost as IMAX cameras are very expensive but they are worth the expense.
Sound equipment is needed to make the production professional. Microphones are needed so you can hear the character clearly. Sound equipment like cameras are not very cheap but are less expensive than the cameras. Prop and costumes are needed in a film production as it makes the character looks better with chosen costumes compared to just turning up in whatever they are wearing. The James Bond film illustrate this very well as Bond is always well presented in a suit.

Facility hire for a film is important with Post-Production because when in filming has finished the shots have to be edited together and without anywhere to do it they can't do it. So they need to hire a place where the editing can take place. For James Bond some of the scenes were filmed at pinewood studios and some were filmed in the actual places seen in the film so the editing team behind James Bond had a big job of making it look like they were in the same place instead of being in two different places . Clearances another main part of production as the producers need to have some legal documents for health & safety and for many other things. One of the main parts is where they are going to be filming because in some cases a film crew has not told the local police there are they came through while producing a film and crashed into one the cars used in the film costing them to buy or repair the current car. Also a talent release form for the actors in the film are needed as most high profile actors are under contracts with films in production. The actors have to stay somewhere?

Transport and accommodation for the actors is needed as when in production for a film the actors can't keep going home then turn up to the filming. So accommodation is needed so the actors have some where to stay close to the filming area.

Time

For every production of any kind there needs to be a time frame, so it helps the director and the producers of the production to keep track of how the production is going. For our production we had a deadline for the filming and for the editing, our filming deadline was within 6 lessons and editing was within another 6 lessons. Deadlines are a crucial part of the production and if they are not met during production problems can occur, One of the directors which over ran on his deadlines is the director 'Michael Cimino' he directed a film called 'Heaven's Gate'. The film overran it's deadlines which ruined the reputation of the director as he made his film late for the cinema. If films are not brought out on there expected date it doesn't just damage the reputation of the director, it damages his trust so producers will see that he has not followed his deadlines and maybe overlook him and look for another director. Equipment is a big factor of time as in a larger scale production than my production, they have to allocate camera's to the certain areas the camera crew need them, so they need to create a schedule for the different types of equipment needed. A rate card is when they hire certain equipment so a producer could hire many different cameras so they don't just have a few to share. The equipment available in our production was a standard HD recording camera and a tri-pod, this is all the equipment we needed for our short film. We had a small budget of £5 which we didn't use so we couldn't purchase any professional equipment like tracking equipment as it is very expensive.

Here is an example of a real Studio rate card http://www.holborn-studios.co.uk/holborn/price-list.html?category=studios

Personnel

There are many different personnel in a media production ranging from a Camera Operator to a Boom Operator. The camera operator is the person who controls the camera throughout the production with guidance from Cinematographer. But to assist the camera operator there is a first and second assistant, the first assistant is responsible for the focus of the camera throughout filming and for building at the start of the day and dismantling at the end of the day. In our production we just had a camera operator and that was my job in the production, as well as being the camera operator I also directed my team which shots and what parts we are doing. I had a short amount of experience with the camera for use in a film but I think i had enough experience to help film from different angles. The size of my group was three people 1 Actor, an Actress and 1 camera operator, because of the size of my group I felt that it was easy to guide everyone around compared to professional production where there is thousands of people to organise. Experience is a key part of personnel because if you have people who have worked on multi-million pound films and outstanding at there job it will be easier to guide them around the production as they will know what they will be doing. Some directors like to keep the same personnel when they are working for instance Michael Bay who produce the Transformers series kept the same crew throughout the whole series and he has even worked with some of his crew since the beginning of his career. Experience allows come at a high cost as they are some of the best people at the job in the world they have to have a good sum of money in swap for their skills/talent. For my production we didn't use many props or costumes as we had a small budget. We used a wallet and a four leafed clover for our props.

In a professional production to decide on which personnel (Crew and Talent) they go through many different stage looking at the experience, recent work and with other stages like interviews and looking at there cv's. A part of checking that the personnel you are trying to hire are available is by checking they have any on going contracts, for example during the film of James Bond Daniel Craig will be tied so he can only appear in James Bond during the film so he isn't doing more than one film at a time. In our production we had to sign a talent release form to check that we can appear in the short film we were producing.

Facilities

Many different types of facilities are need for different genres of film. For an action film you would expect a warehouse with lighting whereas in a horror you would expect a dark house or a church. For our short film we used a park and a residential road, we chose this because our short film was about being lucky and unlucky and so we chose to use something that is as normal as possible for a normal human being. The equipment we used to film this was just a HD camera, we didn't use any artificial light because we just wanted to be natural like you would expect in everyday life. The equipment we needed for post-production was an computer. The things we needed to use the computer for was editing the clips we have filmed together and for creating the soundtrack for our production. To edit our clips together we used Adobe Premier Pro and to create our sound track we used Garageband. In professional post-production they would also add special effects to the film if needed. This may link to the need of a studio. Not just post-production needs studios but when actually filming some producers use studios to film as it is easier to build the set inside a studio instead of flying to a location and filming it there as it costs much more. Like at pinewood studios most of Quantum Of Solace film was actually filmed inside of the James Bond studio.When securing facilities some financial considerations have to be in place as you have to pay to hire the studio, with bigger and better studios come with higher prices so it is a main part is how much is the producer willing to pay for the facility he/she wants. Before even considering the price of the place the producer is willing to hire, he/she has to check if the place is available to hire for their schedule they have created for their production.

 To do this a location recce is needed, this involves informing the local police and finding which parts of the location you are going to use.

This also include a risk assessment of the area you are going to use and the possible plug sockets for the use of electrical equipment.

Photos could be taken so the place is remembered easily.Some producers outsource which means to hire in groups of people to do the filming/editing etc for you, This is a good way to get the production complete but with hiring specialist groups of people it cost large sums of money. When doing our location recce, we found out that because we were filming in a residential area that there will be alot of motor vehicles nearby where we were filming. So this was a potential hazard, also that when we were filming that there will be people in some shots and not others so we had to wait until the road was clear of people and moving cars, until we could film.

Locations

Location recce

A location recce is a document which records locations scouted when looking for somewhere to film. For example if you are looking for park with a large field and a play area, a team of location reeces will go out to various places and find some available places and takes pictures of the area and then they would fill in a location recce form - which would provide details like power sources and the location where it is. For our production we had to find a small park with several benches in.

Location Release

A location release is a document that gives legal permission to film in that certain area. This could require the land owners signature or a police signature if filming in a busy area. For my production we had to get a location release from a police officer so we could use a park area.

Risk Assessment

When filming the producer will need a risk assessment of the area so he/she knows of all the dangers possible in the area scouted. For example if filming near a road on the risk assessment sheet there will be a danger of possibly getting hit by a motor vehicle. To avoid injurys taken place a production team will wear crew t-shirts and will contact the local authority. For our production we contacted the local authority and wore crew shirts.

Materials

There are many different materials available to filmmakers. Some of these are as follows the Internet, Articles, Libraries- Music, Video and photo, interviews. The main source of information is the Internet as is contains a vast amount of information about most things. For my production we had some research of the competition  when watching some current depict shorts that got shortlisted last year. For different genres of film producers can look at photos that have be taken of a certain area and help them to obtain different things, for example war photos could help a producer create a real life war scene if they were producing a war film. Photos also help the producer see what props and costumes people could have been wearing in the time the photo was taken. For most films produced they have sound included, the producer could obtain sound in many different ways. Recording their own music as well as getting music from a artist but this carries the need of having a licence for the music.  When using any materials in a production first you have to obtain licences and contracts. For the use of music or even advertising being used the producer has to obtain a clearance from the supplier of the object. With more popular brands and more popular music there comes a higher cost for them as there is competition to have the best products in your production. Once the licences have be obtained a clearance is needed, this is when somebody checks that all permissions to use the specified item have been obtained. As most items are copyrighted and without permission to use their work will come with a very high legal fine. 
To persuade the people who's work you are trying to obtain there are 2 ways of getting the working either purchasing the work off the client or agreeing a certain contract like a percentage of the profit. 

Contributors

There are various people that can contribute to a production, this could include extras which are the people that are in the background of the actual production for example this could be the other people in a shop except the main characters. The main people of a production are the talent, the actual main cast of the production that will be throughout the film.  Also there are the specialists that do all the stunts and the special effects. The public may also be in a media production as in factual programs the public feature in a lot of these. A contributor's biography is looked at by the producers of a production to seek more information about a contributor, the main thing a producer looks for is previous experience and recent films worked on.

Legal Issues

For most materials used in a production a clearance is needed, this may be for music/video/images or a location. If a clearance has not been given for all aspects of production legal actions could take place. The owner of the material could take the user to court and prosecute as the owner may have damages from the product being used on the created product. So the legal actions could be compensation which will make the user of the material pay a certain amount to the owner. To protect the owner from people using their material the owner can copyright it. In my production we wanted to use the song 'superstition' but as it is copyrighted we could not use it. This affected our production as we had to change the name of it. Public liability insurance is taken out in the film industry because when a producer is filming in a public area people could get hurt so the insurance is there just in case someone does get hurt. Completion insurance is taken out against the film maker as he/she agrees when the film so be finished and how much the budget will be, so this insurance is there just in case the deadlines are not met.

Regulation

Ofcom:
To regulate Tv, Radio, Advertising to protect people form harmful and offencive material.

PCC:
Press Complaints Commission
The PCC is an independent body which administers the system of self-regulation for the press.

ASA:
Advertising Standing Authority
UK's Independent regulator of all advertising across all media.

PEGI:
Pan European Game Information
The rating of the game confirms which age the game is suitable for.

BBFC:
British Board of Film Classification
An independent body which has classified cinema films since 1912.





Trade Unions and Trade Associations

A trade union are members of a particular workforce that agree together for rights and fair treatment.


PACT: Pact is the Uk trade association representing and promoting the commercial interests of independent feature film, television, digital, children's and animation media companies.

BECTU:An independent trade union for those working in broadcasting, film, theatre, entertainment, leisure, interactive media and allied areas. 

A trade association is an organisation formed and funded by a business that operate in a specific industry.

BIMA:

British Interactive Media Association 

-To support and promote the British industry 

-Share knowledge and best practise 

-Reward great work and encourage the next generation 

ELSPA:

Entertainment and Leisure Software Publisher's Association

Responsible for video game ratings 

TIGA:

TIGA is the non-profit trade association representing the UK's games industry.