DepicT! Pre-production Process

We produced a 90 second short film for the DepicT! competition. To distribute this product we uploaded it to YouTube and shared it to a few close friends and family on social media.

Finance and sources of funding

There are many different types of moving image media products such as: anime, animations, GIFs, feature films and music videos. These can be distributed by TV, companies such as Sky, cinema and illegal streaming sites such as Putlocker. Due to the easy access people have now a days to technology some people can also be prosumers of media, for example creating and watching content on YouTube.

To create a film people require funding which can be acquired in different ways, depending on how big the film is and the person creating it. For those starting off in the film industry they usually have to fund a film with their own money and any contributions from friends or family. Crowd funding sites such as Kickstarter are also a great way to fund a project as it allows you to have complete control. Zach Braff used Kickstarter to fund a feature film called 'Wish I Was Here'. He did this because if he went to a a multinational media company they could force him to change things about the film so it appears more "Hollywood material", but the story was personal to him so he didn't want this to happen. The person being funded usually creates a video, like the one below, to gather support. Anyone can donate a sum of money and usually receive something in return, the more money you donate the better the reward. With Kickstarter if you don't make your goal the money is returned however other sites such as Indiegogo allow the money to be kept. Robert Rodriguez is know for funding his first feature length film by selling his body to science (he raised $7000).



Other ways of receiving funding are through organisations such as the BFI. The BFI uses National Lottery funds to support 'original UK filmmakers', feature films and distributing them to the public. They have certain guidelines which the film they are supporting must follow, such as the film must 'fairly reflect people from different backgrounds'.

Requirements

To create the majority of all production you have to be able to afford the following:
-A camera
-A mic, sometimes pieces of equipment called dead cats
-Your crew
-Your talent
-Computers and the software to edit on
-Any props or costumes required
-Travel and accommodation
-Insurance
-Copyright
-Soundtracks

We required the following to produce this production:
-DSLR Camera, lent by the college
-64gb SD card, my own
-Adobe Premiere Pro, college
-Adobe After Effects, college
-Props and costumes, Luke and I already owned these from cosplaying in the past
-Tripod, college
-Road mic, college

For most moving image texts things such as graphics, sounds and scripts are used. These things need to be considered financially because; editors are required to create the graphics and place them in the edits timeline, when using music you sometimes have to pay for copy right  and if you don't write the script yourself you have to pay someone else to.

Personnel

A Low Budget Short

To make a film that's low budget their are many people that play multiple roles in a production team. For example in our short film, which cost next to nothing for us, we had a team made up of three people who also had to act. In other low budget films such as 'Civvy Street' (Josh Trett - 2014) crews can be larger but there's still limitations on what can be done. For example due to a low budget filming for 'Civvy Street' could only take three days due to the cost of the actors. There can also be issues if you wish to film certain scenes, such as fight scenes. If you aren't careful you can tell that a film is cheap by looking at the fight scene, due to how many people would work in this area in a Hollywood feature film. An example of this is Hook's and Blades. The beginning of the fight scene, 0:38, looks cheap because we use a medium shot. It allows the viewer to see to much, looks slow and fake. However when we switch the shots to the rapid close ups it looks more professional. Things such as this would have to be considered more when shooting on a low budget compared to having millions to spend.

A Television Programme 

A television programme requires similar roles to that of a film, but depending on what the television programme is they might require more. Shows such as any News programme will need a visual mixer to decide which camera to cut to when broadcasting. Talent is still needed but not just in the form of actors like film. 

Hollywood Feature Film

In a feature film the talent will always be describing the actors. In feature films you get multiple people doing one role rather than one person doing multiple roles. This is because they have a much larger task to complete with a bigger budget, so can afford to employ more people. They also have more pressure to meet a deadline, due to having a large audience expecting to view the film on a set date (meaning they need more people working to get the product finished).

Example: Robin Hood: "Do You Love Me?" (TV)/ Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

'Prince of Thieves'

'Robin Hood'

'Above the Fold'

Even though 'Prince of Thieves and the TV series of Robin Hood are based on the same story line and similar sound effects would be required, the film has considerably more crew than the TV series.  This isn't just applicable for these two media products or department on a production, it is a common trend across all media production. 'Above the Fold' is an example of a low budget film and here you can clearly see the difference in size as they only had a boom operator working in the sound department.

Time

We had four and a half weeks to complete our set task. We split this up into thirds; one and a half weeks planning, another filming and the last editing. We met our deadline following this time scale, uploading the final cut on YouTube on the last day. 

If we were working in the professional media industry there would be a lot of pressure to meet the deadline. The Hobbit by Peter Jackson took 266 days to film out of the three years from when it was announced Peter Jackson would be the executive producer to when it was set to be released. Despite all this time it was still in edit five minutes before it had to be sent off. If he had overrun by those five minutes the company funding the project could have fined him and he would require more money to pay any crew involved at this stage. This shows the importance of sticking to deadlines in the professional industry.

Equipment/Facilities/Talent

The way you receive the equipment needed in moving image productions is by buying, renting or borrowing if you have close contacts.

A local media facility house is Epic Studios, based in Norwich. They offer the following services in their studio however don't offer the prices unless you contact them with what you wish to hire.

Another sight, https://www.hireacamera.com, allows you to hire a camera for a day. An example of prices is below. This can be very helpful for those who can afford to purchase an expensive camera if they only need it for a short while.

As actors aren't bought, that would be slavery, they are hired on sites such as Spotlight. On this site you can post who you are looking to cast and agents can suggest their actors or you can browse actors and hire them that way.

Locations

Location recces are important to pre-production as it allows you to access whether a location is suitable to film at or not. It helps you build your script and project around the location so you know that what you want to happen can happen. Location releases are a form of permission from the property owner that you are allowed to film in that location.

We chose our location by thinking what area our characters would look natural in, and also where we could draw less attention to ourselves to avoid filming being interrupted. Because of this we chose the beach and Daniel's house. We didn't require location releases for either of these locations as we were not a big enough group to obstruct or cause any inconvenience to the public at the beach and not in a public space at the house.

When filming there are often logistical issues that need to be considered. An example was that when filming at the beach we had to consider how windy it would be. To attempt to over come this we used a dead cat however it still didn't block the wind, to over come this problem we then decided to use ADR as we could not be heard properly. When filming scenes, especially across multiple days, the weather has to be considered so there are no continuity errors. For us we filmed at the beach across two days, shooting on similar days, and edited it in colour corrector slightly so they fitted together better.

Legal Issues

Copyright is automatically given when someone produces sound/music recordings, musical work, artistic work (including illustrations and photography) or film and television broadcasts. Copyright is a way of protecting your work by preventing people from; copying it, distributing it (regardless of whether it is free or not), renting or lending copies, performing and showing of the persons work in public, making an adaptation of the persons work and putting it on the internet. 

In most countries copyright lasts:

If you wish for people to use  distribute your work you can license it. A license can be for any of the rights granted by copyright and last for a selected period of time. You can also limit the access someone has to your work without charge by using a 'Creative Commons License'. If a creative commons license is agreed to, the licensee must credit the original piece of work for every piece of media it is used in, adding links to view the original. For copyright material issued to the public, such as DVDs, it is possible to make it copy-protected. This means, due to technological procedures it is not possible to make a copy of the DVD. Cinemas instead of asking for a license from the production company to show the film to the public, hire it out from distributors such as the BFI.


Film clearance is the required permission to do all aspects of a film production. For example necessary clearance includes property, people and locations.

Public liability insurance covers the cost of compensation claims made against those in the production if a third party is injured or their property suffers damage whilst you are working with them.

Completion guarantee/insurance is a form of insurance offered by a completion guarantor company that is often used in independent films to guarantee that the producer will complete and deliver the film to the distributors.

Regulation

A regulatory body is a public authority or government agency responsible for exercising autonomous authority over some area of human activity in a regulatory or supervisory capacity.

OFCOM is the communications regulator. They control the Tv, radio and video on demand sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

The BBC is regulated by the BBC trust and Ofcom. The BBC Trust regulates which shows are released and when.

The BBFC is the British Board of Film Classification. They classify films and DVDs into age ratings.

In the UK, TV is regulated by Ofcom to make sure audiences are protected in areas such as decency, fairness and privacy. Because of the internet and how anyone can upload online videos of anything it makes it harder for online videos to be controlled. However to overcome this most sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, have systems in place so users can report inappropriate material. Online there can't really any legal regulations apart from laws that already exist, such as no racism. The European Union is updating its legislation for audio-visual broadcasts, which contain safeguards to protect children from inappropriate content. 

This would have affected us when entering the DepiT! competition if we wanted to create an audio-visual inspired by sensitive topics. As we upload our short films to YouTube they would have most likely been reported. 

Trade Unions

A trade union is a large group of workers who protect and stand up for their rights.

Some examples of unions are:
-BECTU

-Equity (for actors and talent)
-Ofcom
-BBFC
-PACT

PACT stands for Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television. They 'represent the commercial interests of UK independent television, film and animation media companies'. They were involved in establishing the Communications Act. This act means 'a person is guilty of an offence if he or she: *sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character'.

BECTU stands for the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theater Union in the UK. It has around 25,000 members working in film and broadcasting. They help their members by; negotiating pay, conditions and contracts with employers; personal advice and representation for individual members; training support and courses, networking events and career development opportunities. BECTU was founded in 1991

'Equity is the UK trade union for professional performers and creative practitioners'. They work internationally and nationally with over 40,000 multi cultural. They have brought fair payments, fees and insurance schemes. The union deals with issues raised by those working in areas of the industry, from major feature films to theater, radio voice overs and circus members. Equity was set up in 1930.