Requirements for a Moving Image Production

The Pre-Production Process.

In this blog post I will be talking about the different requirements for making a moving image production. We produced a 90 second short for a web based competition called DepicT! Our 90 second short is called 'Barking up the wrong tree' and was distributed on YouTube. We were given a week and a half to shoot, a week and a half for pre-production and a week and a half to edit. But due to absences throughout the class, the overall time was slightly extended. Making a feature length moving image production will take a lot more time, effort and personnel in order to complete. Other types of moving image productions include: TV programs, animations, Gifs, and TV adverts. Other types of distribution methods involve physical distribution, for example, selling physical copies of DVDs in stores. And digital distribution such as websites which allow you to watch movies that are either in cinema or not even out yet for free. Others include: Cinema, YouTube and non illegal websites like Netflix or Amazon Prime. YouTube will have advertisement companies pay YouTubers to have an advert of a film put in front of their video, if the YouTuber accepts, they will get paid to have that advert put in front of their video, if this happens, people will have to watch that advert first and then will hopefully want to go and watch the film. Cinemas have the movies displayed there first so if they have a successful viewing rate, they will then be put onto DVD and will be released.  

Sources of funding and finance:

Kickstarter is a source of funding that is known as Crowd Funding, which a lot of people use to fund a project they are wanting to film. In order for this to work someone has to raise a certain amount of money withing a certain time limit and if they succeed, they will then be able to create their desired project. A few films that have been funded by Kickstarter are: Wish I was here, and Star Trek: Axanar. There are other websites like Indiegogo are also used for the same purpose however on Indiegogo if you do not reach the required amount of money when the time limit is up, unlike Kickstarter where you will lose all the money you gained and are left with nothing, Indiegogo lets you keep the money that you have obtained and with that money, you will have to make something with it. Another source of funding for moving image productions would be investors, for example, Megan Ellison and Robert Rodriguez. Megan Ellison is an American film producer who is best known for producing Zero Dark Thirty, Her and American Hustle. Ellison has also provided funding for a fair few movies such as Waking Madison, Main Street and one of the most popular, True Grit which was released at the end of 2010. Robert Rodriguez is an American filmmaker and screenwriter who produced the 1992 film El Mariachi. In order to fund his movie he sold his body to science to gain enough money to produce it. Another source of funding for a moving image production would be lottery funding. Lottery funding is when the lottery donates to different film charities in order to produce their desired movie, you can also go onto the lottery funding website and set up your own funding project.

Requirements for any moving image production:

Some of the requirements needed to make a moving image production includes:

• Equipment - Cameras, lighting, props and editing software
• Locations - Different sets (In public, or round someone's house)
• Cast - Actors, talents
• Crew - Director, Producer, Editors, screenwriter, scriptwriter and a lot more
• Transport getting to and from certain locations
• Permissions to use certain locations 
• Insurance - If any equipment gets broken then you will need to pay for replacements. 

These are most of the requirements needed to make a moving image production. In our 90 second short we only needed a few of these requirements, such as, equipment, permissions and of course, a cast.

Personnel:

When making a moving image production there is a lot of personnel involved, for example, you first of all need talents, which are the actors for your movie. And you will also need a crew, or production team which usually consists of:

• Director - Is someone who controls everything that happens in a film. 
• Producer- The producer is the person who hires the director, raises money for the film and oversees production and post production. 
• Screenwriter - Someone who comes up with the story for your moving image production. 
• Scriptwriter - Someone who creates the script for the media production. 
• Editors - Edit the production after it has been shot. 
• Post-production crew- anyone who is involved with editing. 

The makeup of a typical team for a low budget short would include: A director, a producer, the cast and crew a screenwriter and a scriptwriter. For a television programme the team is usually the same as the low budget short but also has a location manager, make-up artist set designer and costume designer and specialist editors. And finally for a Hollywood feature film you will also be needed camera crews, an art department, special effects team and also stunt teams and stunt doubles.
For our 90 second shorts we were only in groups of three so there was a fair bit of work involved for just three people so we tried our best to split the work evenly so we were able to reach the deadline and complete all of the work on time.

Time:

For our 90 second short we were given a week and a half to shoot, edit and to do all the pre-production paperwork that was necessary, but because of various absences in class, this time was extended. My group stuck to the time frame well as we finished our filming quite quickly with good quality and succession. This gave us a lot of time to finish any pre-production that was needed and also gave us a lot of time to edit the film to make it the best we possibly could. In the media industry if someone was to miss a deadline for anything at all, they will unfortunately lose their job because in those kind of conditions, it is really crucial that deadlines are met. For our 90 second short we did end up meeting the deadline, in fact we had completed all the editing for our film with one lesson to spare.

Equipment/Facilities:

For our film we need to use a Go Pro camera as our whole film is shot from the point of view of the main character. In order to do this we had to hire a camera from the college using our student cards, we also had to fill out an insurance form meaning if anything were to happen to the camera whilst it was out, the person who had taken it would have to pay for a replacement. A good place to hire cameras from is a website called Hireacamera. The only equipment needed for our 90 second short we the camera itself, masks, and the guns. Some of the prices on Hireacamera vary quite a lot, ranging from prices as low as £35 and as high as £111 to rent for a day. 

Locations:

A location recce is when someone goes out and takes photos of the place that you and your team are going to film at, here is an example of what we had to do for our location recce for our 90 second short: 

This was the location in which we were going to be filming at for our 90 second short. A location release is when you have to get permission to film at a certain location. My group produced a location release as we wanted to film in a forest that was owned by a college near James Paget Hospital, this is what one looks like:

For our 90 second short we originally had the idea to film behind the Nexus engineering college in a forest, in order to do so we had to fill out a location release for permission purposes, we chose to film when it got dark to give our film a really tense feel and we chose this location originally because it is a large area with a suitable environment as we needed to climb trees and luckily there were an abundance of fallen trees. However we ended up using the Rec opposite the college as filming in the dark did not turn out as expected because it was near impossible to see anything when watching the footage back. So we had to film during the day and as we could not arrange another day to go back there as it needed to be out of college hours and because of others not having enough free time after college, we had to stick with the Rec opposite the college. In my opinion it was for the best as we would have not had much light after college anyway which would have given us limited time to shoot while it was still light. As far as logistical issues went we did not have that many, we had to figure out times in which all three of us were able to make it down to the forest and what day to do so would be best. We had also produced a risk assessment that we had to stick to in order for no injuries to take place, as we were going to be jumping out of trees and using air soft guns, the risks were quite high for something quite severe to happen, so we had to take great precautions when shooting and had a thorough risk assessment.

Materials:

In addition to equipment, crew and cast, there are also a lot of other aspects needed for a moving image production such as props, costumes, visual footage, for example; editing, and also a script. There are also a few financial considerations that need to be taken into account for a moving image production as well, for example; we needed music and sound effects throughout our whole film, and in order to do so we had to make sure that all the music and sounds was royalty free, because we were not allowed to use anything that has copyright. You need to have insurance in case any equipment breaks, our group had to fill out an insurance form in order to take any equipment outside of college so if the camera were to break we would have to pay for the damage. 

Legal Issues:

A legal issue that could be considered when using certain materials in a moving image production would be the music and sound effects, most of the time, if they are not royalty free music or sounds, you cannot use them in you media production. If you do use such music and/or sounds then you can get a copyright strike and your production can be taken off YouTube if it is on there or even worse taken to court. Copyright protects your work and will stop anyone else from taking ideas and getting credit for it and also will stop anyone from using your work that you have produced as well. You can get copyright for your work if you make your own sounds and music, film and TV recordings and from different broadcasts. Copyright will stop people from also distributing any of your work online to others, making an adaptation of your work and even stops people from renting and lending copies of the work to others as well. Copyright affected our DepicT! 90 second short because we were not allowed to use any copyright music or sounds, everything had to be royalty free music and sounds, we got the music off YouTube and we got the sounds off a website known as Freesound.org. Clearance is something anyone working in the media industry will need as clearances are permissions to use anything or go to any place to shoot, without these you are extremely limited. Public liability insurance is important as if someone is injured in anyway, it will cover the cost of legal actions and compensation claims made against your business. A completion guarantee/insurance is a form of insurance that is usually used in independently financed films to make sure that the producer will complete and deliver the film on time.

Regulation:

OFCOM is the communications regulator in the UK. Its function is to regulate TV, radio, video-on-demand sectors, fixed-line telecoms, mobiles and postal services to protect anyone from scams and sharp practices. OFT, OFCOM and the European commission all regulate the BBC. BBFC is the UK's regulator of film and video providing age rating for movies and videos. They are a designated body so they have the legal rights to rate and even sometimes reject peoples work. Some of the regulations do apply to our DepicT! 90 second short project because in order for our film to be put on YouTube we had to make sure we had royalty free sounds and royalty free music. 

Trade Unions and Trade Associations:

A Trade Unions is an organised association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or a profession, formed to protect their rights and interests. They are important because workers who are part of a trade union tend to have higher wages than someone who is not a member of one. Trade unions also sometimes act as as representatives of workers in case of legal matters, and also the rights of the employees are better protected. PACT is the trade association representing the commercial interests of UK independent television, film, digital, and animation companies. And BECTU is the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematography and Theatre Union. BECTU is a trade union in the UK and it has around 25,000 members who work in film, theatre, entertainment, leisure and broadcasting media. Finally, a trade association is an organisation founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry, such as the media industry. An industry trade association takes part in public relation activities such as advertising, but its main focus is collaborating between different companies.