DepicT Pre-Production Process

Distribution:

In this piece of writing, I will be explaining the various requirements in which you will to create a media product. For this media product, the specifications were that we had to create a 90 second short film for the Depict film contest. There are various types of moving image productions which we could have used over a short film. We could have instead created; a GIF, animation, feature film, or a TV show. To distribute this production we have used the platform "YouTube" as it is a popular and efficient way to distribute it. If it was an earlier date around the year 1990, we wouldn't have been able to distribute it as easily and would have most likely have had to use a Film Reel or a tape. We would have to physically have to transport the product rather than digitally uploading it which may incur some extra costs and even take longer to reach a larger audience. This is an old outdated method however some cinemas still use the film reels and a projector to show films rather than downloading it online for a viewing. An example of a  platform that allows you to view films and TV shows online would be Netflix. This is a platform that requires a certain amount of money a month in exchange for these films and TV shows (Subscription). This was the time where web 1.0 was active. Web 1.0 was where users of the internet could only consume what was originally produced on the internet, as instead of posting and producing your own documents and work on the internet. When Web 2.0 was invented in 1999, but was not popularized and functional until late 2004. This allowed users to produce their own parts of the internet and upload their work which vastly populated the internet with useful information. The internet became an uploaded database of many peoples work and businesses and essentially, people became the internet.

Finance:

The financial aspects of a production can also be a problem for smaller film producers as a lower budget will most likely lower the professionalism and quality of the film. However, this is not the case for all films. Films such as; The Blair Witch Project and clerks were based off of a small budget ad are very
successful, more successful than some largely funded productions. Blair Witch Project is also the film which holds the highest amount of profit of any film and also is still one of the highest grossing films. It is so popular, there is even a remastered film coming out soon with a much larger budget. There are many ways to create a budget however some of the most popular methods are investors and production companies. Bigger productions of films such as Harry Potter and Marvel films are funded by companies such as Warner Bros. The larger production companies that invest money into films such as; Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Blumhouse Productions, Universal and many others do not make their investments back from the first screenings at the box office and will often rely on the more successful films to make their money back. A film production on average, costs around £200 million so it can often be hard to make this money back. Not all of the money which comes from the production comes from production companies, a large amount of the money comes through private investors who put money into the film to be a part of the production. These people will often get access to make appearances at red carpets and get tickets to the film premieres. Some of the funds from the lottery can be used to fund films at many different levels so that they have a higher budget for production. This is called BFI Funding. For lower budget productions, investors and global multinational companies helping with the funds are not an option. Investing in a low budget film can be risk as they are not as likely to be as successful due to not having the best of facilities and equipment. This can also be risky because the majority of low budget producers and their cast do not have the experience to be able to make a profit and will instead do it to further benefit their own personal careers. Lower budget productions will often have to use online fundraisers and kick-starters to get the money the will create the production. If kick-starters aren't very successful for raising money, the producers can also take out loans if they are confident they are able to pay it back from the profit they get in their production. Producers such as Robert Rodriguez  and Megan Ellison have funded their own productions. Robert Rodriguez raised the funds for his film El Mariachi through taking part in medical testing studies and raised up to $7000. This film grossed over 2 Million and won the audience award at the sun dance film festival.

Budget/Requirements:

For any production, there are many requirements and necessities which make up a film. These requirements are the reason that TV & Film producers need this important budget. The budget is spent on many things such as:

• Actors
• Transport
• Camera
• Camera Equipment
• Lighting
• Location
• Facilities
• Software (E.g. Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects)
• Clearance/Permissions
• Materials
• Props
• Costume
• Editors
• Others

For our production of "Barking Up The Wrong Tree", we used the original resources which we already had, as we were not given a budget or any money/funds to put a more professional production together. We used the cameras which were provided by the college along with their equipment and accessories for it. We took out an Action Camera from the college and had to use another students head strap for the Action Camera. The editing facilities we used were in W12 of East Norfolk Sixth Form College with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects pre-loaded onto the machines for our use. To use these facilities it was free as we are students at this college and were making this production for a college assignment. If we were to be making a production outside of college we would still have access to these facilities however, if we were not students at this college, we would most likely have to rent out the facilities to be able to have these programs and use them or we would have to purchase them at home for our own personal use. We may also have to pay extra for a license for commercial use if we planned to make this production available to the public and make money from it. For our production, we also had to obtain all the props and costumes. For the prop side of our production we required guns for our shooters. Instead of going out and buying the props with a budget, we had to pull our resources together and instead, i had to bring in some of my air soft guns to use. As a result of having something that may resemble a real gun, we had to notify the police that we would we filming in this area with air-soft guns in case a local citizen may interpret this as a gun and report it to the local authority. For our clothing and costume wear, we used a bandanna which we tied around kai's mouth to give him a more fiendish look. For Luca, we brought a full face mask with a skull design on the front of it. The screenshot below is of a website called hireacamera.com and it is a website that allows you to rent cameras for a day. They offer cameras for all uses such as; motion, still, slo mo etc.

The team for a production can be a large team and requires a lot of different people to produce and edit different componenets to make up a larger production:

• Actors/Cast
• Producers
• Directors
• Editors (Audio/Visual)
• Location Managers
• Photographers
• Stunt Actors
• Make up/ Cosmetics
• Health and Safety
• Script Writers/supervisors
• Nurse/First Aid
• Music Producers
• Web Design
• Security
• Others

 The cast/actors are an essential part of the production as without them, there would be no one to film and would therefore be rendered a null production. Another part which relates to actors is the extras, the extras are important to the production in order to make it look more natural and is also very important when going through publicly populated areas such as; shopping centres, schools etc. If there are any dangerous or health and safety issues with a certain scene, there will be stunt double actors so that the main actors are not hurt or harm themselves. If an actor is hurt during production, it can set the production back a long way. If the actor is hurt so bad that they cannot film any further for a long duration of time, they may often have to restart the production with another actor or have another actor fill in for them for the rest of the production. To ensure that the actors do not hurt or harm themselves during the production people that specialize in health and safety are hired to do risk assessments of the surroundings and make everything less hazardous for those involved in the production. On site, there will also be people who are qualified in first aid and quick response in aid. This is encase a smaller injury occurs, this will prevent them from needing to go and get medical attention. Photographers will always be either on set or in the studio, they are used for the promotional material for the production. Editors are a big part of a production as they are who produce the final piece of work. There are different kinds of editors which make up the editing team. There are the sound editors who put the audio and sound effects together to create the right moods in the scene. There are different kinds of visual editors, such as the VFX/CGI editors which create all
of the scenes through computer generated effects and simulations such as monsters, fire, water and naturally scenes that would be a lot more difficult to film physically. There are colour grading editors which edit the colours in a scene to make the scene seem a lot more composited as the colours recorded by a camera are raw and can often be corrected. There are the cut editors, the editors which cut the scenes and place the scenes together. Location managers are the people that check the locations before hand and organise them for their use. This will entail contacting the property owner and renting the area for the production. They also have to scout out what power sources there will be, how available the area is to the all of the people involved in the production and they will also have to check what times the location is available to use to film.

In a low budget film, the majority of these are not needed and instead, the most part of the list above is rendered useless. Security is not needed for a low budget production, as the actors will usually not be as known and are less likely to be harassed. Photographers may also not be required throughout the production, as the promotional material will usually be made either after the production or at certain intervals which may be scheduled for the production. Similar to the Hollywood feature films, this will require main actors however, the extras may either be unpaid peers or the general public. The production will most likely not have a high enough budget to pay for extras. Also, differing to a feature film or low budget film, a television broadcast will also have a shot director to tell the camera crew which camera to switch to. Although the television broadcasts have a teleprompter, it is similar in the sense that there is also a script for the Hollywood feature and the low budget production. In Hollywood feature films, you can expect to see more CGI and visual effects in comparison to a TV program. This is due to the Hollywood Feature Film's having a higher budget than a TV Program. Feature films usually have a higher budget because they need more people to put together and sustain the production of something with a longer run time. However, this is not the case, there are certain exceptions where the TV program has more CGI and VFX than a Feature Film. The popular TV show Game of thrones has more CGI and VFX than the film Forest Gump. This can be due to the TV show having a longer run time as there are multiple episodes and seasons whereas, another factor of this can be the genre of the production. If you were in a sci -fi film, you would expect to see a lot more of VFX as instead, if you are in a drama, you would expect the focal point to be the story line and the problems throughout the plot rather than the VFX.

In our group, it was rather easy to allocate the correct amount of work with the correct amount of capability with each piece. During the production of our storyboard, we each took a turn coming up with a scene which would happen and the final plot came from all of our ideas. We all brought different props and resources to the table so that we were all contributing. Luca brought the masks from the college prop box, Kai brought his dads bandanna and i brought the air-soft guns. We each all then discussed our roles in the production so we were all comfortable with the parts which we all played. After the production, when it came to the editing, i left the cuts and audio editing to kai and luca, as i was going to do the after effects side of the post editing and did not want to be possessive over the group. I handled the After Effects side of editing as i had previous experience in this program for somewhere next to 5 years. After all of this, the production came out well and we were all very pleased with it.

During a Feature film, there are various other people that help to contribute to the production. This can be people such as;

• Make Up Artists
• Stunt doubles
• Lighting
• Extras
• Set Builders

Make up artists contribute to the production through doing the Actors/Actresses make up and they do not appear on the camera. Often they can be asked to fill in as an extra in a film if they are short on extras. Make up artists are not a part of the production crew, however, they can still work with the production crew and with the actors backstage. Set builders are important as they are the people that make the recording set. These are the people that make the set available to use and also are not a part of the production crew. In most examples, they probably work for another company and are hired to build the sets before hand. Lighting is a very important part of production as it can often be what sets the mood for the scene. If the scene is meant to be mysterious, they may place spotlights to shine through a window to create light rays in a dark area and therefore making it more eerie. If the production crew decides to film in dark or unlit spaces, they will need to use lighting so that the camera is able to capture them. As well as lighting, extras are also essential as they are what makes the scenes look natural instead of the whole film being solely populated by the main actors. Extras can really be important in scenes where there is some form of death with extras that change the mood completely. E.g. in World War Z, there is a scene where they are all on the highway and everything is calm, then a person is hit by a car and dies and suddenly, the scene becomes tense and everyone begins to die. If there were no extras to die, the scene would make no sense as there would be no danger presented and the people opposing them may seem powerless. For main actors in these tense scenes, they will have to often do something dangerous and as a result they have a stunt double actor. This is an actor who will do the stunts and anything that may harm or damage the main actors. It is important to the production that the main actor does not harm themselves, as it can either delay the production or cause it to be cancelled completely.

For our short film production, we were given week and a half to film and a week and a half to edit it. We ended up finishing the filming after 2 days as we were able to film it in college time. We took almost a week to edit our production as we also had to find the audio and sound effects for our whole production due to the action camera not recording audio. Overall we met the deadline however, we had to redo some parts due to me being ill during the production and not being able to participate. If we were in a professional media industry and didn't make the deadline, it may cost us a lot more and may raise the budget. This can be a problem as you need to find ways to raise the money to go over budget to make all of the actors and people on the production stay longer. They often bring in extra crew to be able to help finish it off as quick as possible and fill in the parts which are incomplete. Sometimes, if the deadlines are not met, some of the investors may drop out. This can also be bad for your career as a director as you may lose a lot of credibility for it.

If you were in a professional moving image production, you would need to rent all of the equipment which you need in order to make the production. This will often be cheaper when using it for one production, rather than buying a camera for each separate production. This can often be a lot cheaper when trying to get a better finished product. Films often use expensive cameras such as a red scarlet dragon. The Red Scarlet Dragon camera can cost up to £56,000, whereas it is £200 to rent it for a day. You would need to rent the camera for 280 days in order to make up the cost of what it would be to purchase. For a production you would also need access to editing facilities with all of the right programs and software. The nearest editing suite i could find for rental was in London. They charge £180 for rental of an editing suite for a day. Instead of using all of this in a professional moving image production, our group was making a no budget short film. This meant that we had to take out the equipment that was available to all college students at East Norfolk Sixth Form College. We decided to make a POV shot production for our short film and therefore decided it would be best if we were to use an action camera which we would be able to mount upon our heads. Other camera equipment such as; Tripods, Rails, Dolly's etc. were not necessary. For the editing equipment, the college already had iMac's pre-loaded with fairly updated adobe editing software. We only required to use Adobe Premiere to cut and put the footage together with the audio and Adobe After Effects to make the VFX. I already have all adobe programs fully updated along with an extensive set of plugins from many different companies and even custom made plugins which would have been helpful to the production however, that would have meant that i would have had to edit the whole thing all myself and Sean informed me that it is important that everyone is to take part in the production so i decided to use some manual VFX through putting certain effects together on after effects which took a lot longer however, it allowed Kai and Luca to participate in the editing.

For our production we were asked to fill out location recce's and releases. A location recce is a form which is potentially scouting an area to find out its suitability for filming. This can range from checking if the lighting is usable to having any audio issues. A bad example of a recce would be if you went to film next to a motorway. This would be bad as it would mean there would be a lot of background audio and would also propose the risk of possibly being harmed by a car. (Our Recces and releases). For our production, we specifically picked to use the forest behind Nexus Engineering College as it was a public place owned by the council. This meant that we didn't need to seek any permission from any owners as it is a public location. This forest is also remote and not many people walk through it, that meant that we would rarely be interrupted by people passing by. When we were initially planning the establishing shot, i mentioned that the sun sets perfectly over the field and the rays pass through the trees which meant it would be perfect for setting the mood for our Short Film. We ended up using the reck forest opposite the college in order to film the rest of our production, due to Nexus Forest not being accessible during college time. We were all only available to film outside of the college today and in total it wasn't enough time to film our productions so instead we decided to use the forest opposite the college because it was a lot more accessible during our production and also if anything was to go wrong and we were to lose any footage, it is within walking range and therefore the footage would easily be re-shot. We originally planned to film the whole production in Nexus forest however, it was a long way away and on multiple occasions of attempting to film there, we forgot important parts of the production
and decided to end up scrapping the footage and filming the rest of it in the forest opposite college to save time.

For our financial part of the production, we had to take into account what material we would be using, how much it would cost and also if there were any legal constraints. We also had to make sure that we didn't damage the camera as we signed a waver form for the college agreeing to pay for any damage that could be caused to the camera. The material we used for the production was already pre owned and therefore we didn't have to pay for any of the material we used. We had a total budget of nothing. If you were to use certain materials in a professional production, you would have to make sure that you dont use anything that is copyrighted. This can range from using copyrighted music, to using pictures and videos which you do not own the rights or a license to use. If you use material in a production that isnt yours, there may be many outcomes which can affect your production. The first outcome and most damaging would be for the owner of the material to prosecute you, sue you and your production company and possibly even cancel the production. The second outcome could be that the material is removed from the production and the owner will set you a fine. As well as these, some smaller producers may just ask to receive a certain percentage of the earnings you get or may even just ask for a mention throughout the production so they are credited rightfully. Bigger producers that dont need as much exposure to the public, will usually just focus on making a profit and protecting their material. This may vary on whose material you take, as these are just estimations and stereotypes. Another legality that could be brought up is also the Off com broadcasting code. This is a set of principles that set the rules, provide awareness and set objectives. This can be found here. Copyright affected our production in the manner that we were not allowed to use any copyrighted material as it would be posted to the college media channel. When we were editing our short film, we had to make sure that we used audio and anything video related such as overlays or visual material was royalty and copyright free. For this, there were various websites which you were able to use, however, our group decided that we would use royalty free YouTube channels to find the audio needed for our production. We used a song which we found on YouTube and the rest of the audio and sound effects we obtained from a royalty free online sound library. A common mistake made by people is using a copyright infringed piece of audio. If someone is to record someone playing the happy birthday song and upload it, the producers of that song have placed a copyright claim on that piece of material and therefore can press charges if they wish to.

Clearance-

Clearance is another word for permission. Permission is needed and should be seeked by someone who wishes to use something which someone else owns. Whether this be land, property, audio or visual materials, it must be cleared or given permission to use otherwise this can lead to many copyright legalities and complexions. If you were to use a song from an artist, you would first need to seek permission from the artist themselves, their manager or anyone else who has the rights to their licensing. Just as similar to filming on someones land, you would need to seek the land owners permission.

Public Liability Insurance-

Public liability insurance is insurance that is put in place to protect the public if they are harmed or damaged in anyway because of your business/production. Big companies such as McDonald's, ASDA or Tesco purchase this as it is common for people to injure themselves in their businesses. A common case of this would be if a customer fell over or slipped in one of the businesses, if there is any form of compensation or medical bill that may need paying, this insurance will cover it. Depending on the business size and budget, the cover for public liability insurance may differentiate. If it is a larger business, they may cover up to £200 million on average to protect themselves from compensation claims however, if it is a smaller business such as a personal plumbing business, they may only cover up to £1 million as it will be a lot cheaper and a lot less accidents will happen.

Completion Guarantee Insurance-

A completion guarantee is also known as a completion bond, is put in place to ensure that the film production meets its deadline. This often happens with middle-high budget films and usually guarantee a percentage of the production budget which usually ranges from 3-5%. 3-5% doesn't seem too much but when it is used in higher budget films, it will equal out to a large sum of money. When a film goes over the deadline, it means they have to go over budget and possibly even get the production company to send more staff in order to finish off the film as quick as possible.

A trade union is a group of people in a profession that come together to protect one another from being mistreated and furthers their interests and well being. Trade unions are important, so that the workforce make one another aware of how they may have been mistreated without knowing it. These unions are also important as they protect peoples jobs and also their rights in the workplace. If you are a part of a trade union, the union will aim to improve the pay you get along with the conditions that you work in. Two examples of a trade union would be PACT and BECTU. They are a union that aims to improve peoples pay and working conditions whilst also winning new recognition agreements. They are committed to equality throughout the workplace and also aim to give everyone an equal opportunity.

Trade Associations are commonly known as industrial bodies and are made by companies and businesses that operate in a specific industry. These people have the common goal of wanting to collaborate with other businesses and companies that may be able to provide services that would benefit one another mutually. These are often non profit organisations that participate in public relations and charities. These people will often host conferences, networking and will provide the public with educational materials. The great majority of these associations is governed by bylaws or officers who are also members.