The Pre-Production Process

We were required to create a 90 second short film for DepicT!, an international web based short film competition that challenges filmmakers to produce a short film in under two minutes. You can find out more about DepicT! here; http://www.depict.org/about/

We used two different ways to distribute our production, initially posting it onto Youtube, a video sharing website. Once we had posted it, each of our team then posted links onto each of our personal social media accounts. Another obvious way to distribute it would be to enter our production into the DepicT! competition.

Although we were required to create a short film for this particular project, there are many other mediums in which to create moving images, such as;

• Feature Films (also known more commonly as a motion picture, movie or just film) - a film with a running time that is long enough to be considered the sole feature to fill a programme.
• Trailers - a short film containing extracts of a feature film, usually lasting for around 2 minutes 30 seconds.
• Commercial - a television advertisement is a short piece of content intending to distribute a company's product or message.
• Television Programmes - a piece of content most commonly broadcasted over the air, cable television, or internet television, other than a commercial or trailer.

Distribution

There are multiple ways these media products can be distributed and consumed. For television programmes and feature films, the most popular platforms are;

• Netflix - an American multinational entertainment company founded in 1997, providing a legal platform to stream media and video on demand. Their website can be found here; https://www.netflix.com/gb/
  
• Cinema - a theatre in which feature films are shown for entertainment. Possibly the most traditional way to watch films.
  
• DVD - the acronym DVD stands for Digital Versatile/Video Disk. This medium can store all sorts of digital data. Pre-recorded DVD's are mass produced, providing consumers with a physical copy of the media.
  
• On Demand - services such as Sky+ and BBC iPlayer provide an online service that stream media much like Netflix, although these platforms almost primarily provide television programmes. 
  

Another, unfortunately popular, way to consume moving image media is illegal online file sharing and streaming. These are two ways of accessing media products such as feature films and television programmes without having to pay for them (all of the platforms listed above require payment, either monthly subscriptions or purchasing). 

File sharing is a process in which peer to peer computers connect and share content with each other, usually by using programmes such as uTorrent. This service literally connects to other peer computers online and accesses shared files, creating access to desired media products without paying a thing. Another way is streaming, in which the media product is posted online, and consumers watch on their devices as it literally streams down through their internet connection, hence the phrase 'streaming'. These both cause major losses to media companies, as purchasing their products, thus generates profits.
Web 2.0 has changed the way media is both produced and consumed, resulting in 'prosumer' (combining the producer and consumer into one). Web 2.0 is defined as the second stage of the ever developing internet, significantly the change from 'static' web pages to user generated content, and the continuing growth of social media.

Funding

There are multiple ways in which to begin funding for a project (for instance a feature film) such as; 

• Crowd Funding - websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo provide a platform to appeal for public funding, the act of raising lots of individual amounts of money from a large amount of people that support a project that the creator does not have the funds themselves to produce. Usually in return for large investments the investor is included in the credits.An example of a crowd funded film is Zach Braff's 2014 feature film 'Wish I Was Here'. Zach Braff is relatively well known and respected in the film industry, but he wanted to have complete creative control over every aspect of the film, which he would not have if he relied on private investors and large corporations to fund WIWH. Therefore, he turned to crowd funding, which allowed him direct, star in and completely manage the entire film.
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• Investors - mega multinational corporations such as SONY, Time Warner and FOX take a big gamble when investing in films called risk capital. 9/10 feature films are not successful in the first run at the box office, meaning that often these films do nor profit or make back the amount that it costed to create, thus also resulting in a loss to these global giants. Well re-known companies such as these only invest in ideas that they deem will become extremely successful, as one movie that makes it big will cover all other losses. Private investors such as Megan Ellison also help. Ellison is an American film producer and founder of motion picture company Annapurna Pictures. She has backed and produced many successful films such as Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle and Sausage Party. Another yet extreme example of private funding is Robert Roderigez, an American film-maker, screen-writer and musician. Roderigez's first credit, 'El Mariachi' (1992) initially cost $7000 to create, and he managed to raise $3000 of the total cost by volunteering his body to science to test a cholesterol reducing drug. He was paid $100 a day for 30 days, and in that time he wrote almost the entirety of the 'El Mariachi' script whilst inside the lab. Almost all of the final cost of $7000 was used to purchase film for the camera.
  
• Competitions - competitions are a good way to distribute your production to a wider audience, and to gain publicity from people that are already established in the industry. Often prizes for winning competitions are substantial amounts of money or funding, and inevitable publicity and exposure to people in the industry that may take an interest in a project and generate extra funding. A good example of this would be DepicT! (http://www.depict.org/)
• Charities - charitable organisations such as the BFI (British Film Institute) give grants and bursaries to certain projects. The BFI uses funds from the National Lottery to develop, support and aid UK film-makers and helps their productions reach a wider audience. Below is a table of the top 10 BFI funded films with the combined total of awards (April 2011 - March 2015). More information on BFI Funding can be found here - http://www.bfi.org.uk/supporting-uk-film/film-fund
  
  
• Bank Loans - bank loans are a very rare source of funding for film-makers, although commercial companies easily can from Wall Street. Banks require security that the given amount can definitely be paid back, which is often why low budget films don't even attempt to get a bank loan. Low budget films are essentially a no go for banks as it signifies that the film-maker is new to the industry and they are not yet well established, therefore the chances of their film flopping at the box office are very high.
  

The reason film-makers need funds to make their ideas come to live is for the expenses. Such include;

• Equipment - camera, dolly etc
  
• Props and Costumes
• Cast (actors) and Crew
• Transport - to and from set 
• Editing Software
• Marketing, Distribution and Advertising (trailers, posters etc)

These are just a few of the many, many expenses large corporations have to pay out to create a successful feature film. As we had no budget for our 90 second short, we had to obtain equipment that was readily available to us through our college resources. Luckily, our college had all the basic equipment that we would need to shoot a successful amateur film. The only equipment that we had to obtain was a camera, a tripod and an SD card. 

One massive portion of the film-making budget is spent on is hiring personnel, talent (actors) and crew (production team) that work on creating the production. There are many different elements of the production process, all of which require field specific personnel. Different types of production require different expertise. For example, a low budget film could be successful with only a handful of cast and crew, whereas it is necessary for a feature film to have endless personnel (just see the credits of any successful Hollywood blockbuster film), from camera and lighting crew, sound department, hair and make-up, special effects and even stunt crews. 
A good example of a successful low budget film with a small cast and crew is 'Clerks' (1994). The cast consists of 5 significant main characters and a crew of merely 11 people. The full cast and crew list can be found here - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109445/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
The fact that the budget was so low meant that it had to be spent wisely, resulting in a small production team, and minimal set and costumes, elements that would not be abandoned in a large scale feature film production with an even larger budget.
An example of a multi million budget film is Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). There is a vast difference between the amount of cast and crew due to the expansive budget. The complete list can be found and compared to that of Clerks here - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395427/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
Television programmes fall in a happy medium between feature and low budget films in terms of cast and crew. In terms of funding, television programmes often recieve a lot of funding, especially if they are made specifically for one channel. For instance, Skins (2007) is a British teen comedy drama aired on the British terrestrial channel E4. As E4 is only aired in the UK, the target audience is considerably lower than that of a multi-national block buster movie, yet as the series was created by reputable father-son television writer duo Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, it recieved a lot more funding than a low budget film would, therefore the cast and crew are much larger also.
Responsibilities were allocated as evenly as possible throughout the production process. All three of us had equal input when initially deciding the topic of our film, sharing our ideas and taking elements of each to create our final plan. From there on, we shared the story boarding so that each person created a few storyboard frames themselves, and after this we allocated ourselves different roles. Nic and I had the task of scouting our desired location, filling out the Location Recce and completing a Risk Assessment. Whilst we did this, Raffi concentrated on compiling a script. We had all discussed where we would like our film to be set (a bench) and we had brainstormed some ideal locations the were close and easily accessible to us, and we had also discussed the story line, so each of us had the confidence to split off to our assigned jobs knowing that we would be successful in finding what we had agreed without the entire group being present. We then came back with a variety of different locations and as a group we decided upon one, and we all read through the script and made any changes we felt suitable so that we had all had an input into each element of the pre-production process. We then began editing and piecing together our short film, in which we took turns so that we could all gain experience and practice our editing skills.

Time

We had a specific time frame in which to complete our short film. We were given a deadline (which we successfully met) of a week and a half to complete the pre-production paper work (risk assessments, recces, etc), a week and a half to shoot, and finally a week and a half to complete the editing process.

Meeting deadlines is vital in the media industry. If they are not, many problems can arise. For instance, if a project is overdue it will almost certainly run over budget, consequently causing the production company potentially huge losses by having to spend more money than intended on the hiring of equipment, locations and wages. Deadlines are not only important for large scale productions, but are also possibly even more important for live television broadcasting. For obvious reasons, as if the production is not ready to air by the time it is scheduled there would essentially be no product to broadcast at all, resulting in a massive waste of time and money.

Equipment

There are many ways to obtain professional moving image equipment such as purchasing or hiring. Hiring equipment is generally used for lower budget films as the cost is a lot less. An example of a hire company that a low budget film crew may use is Media Dog Hire, a UK based broadcast equipment hire company, and their website can be found here - http://www.mediadoghire.com/ 

The essential equipment that we required was luckily easily available to us through our college by booking it out from it's AV resource area, and the computers that we edited on already had the Adobe Premier editing software installed.

Location

When filming, a location recce is required, and this is a pre-visit to the intended filming location to see if it's safe and suitable for filming in/at.A location release is also a requirement, as this form is used to protect both the location owner and the production company, outlining when the filming will happen and an acknowledgment of liability. Often, members of the public can become confused and sometimes even scared when they see crew filming in a public area, especially when there are prop weapons (for example guns or machetes) or fake blood involved and the location release covers this. Police are usually notified when filming of such nature is taking place in a public area so as to further avoid this confusion. 

The location we chose was a bench in a park, and we decided upon the particular bench that we used as it was very close to college so that it was accessible to the whole cast during college hours, and it just seemed to fit the description of what we were looking for. 

We faced a few logistical issues (practical issues that appear when filming which must be solved) such as rubbish on the ground (which we disposed of) and also a few risks. When we visited the location pre-production, we completed a risk assessment which outlined all the possible safety risks that could occur whilst filming. These risks consisted of;

• Rain - this could damage the equipment, disturb and delay the filming process, and as we were filming on a grass field, the rain could change the terrain and cause slips and/or falls whilst carrying the equipment
• Wind - could disturb/move equipment as well as being a nuisance whilst trying to capture dialogue
• Crossing the road - to get to the location we had to cross a road, which meant we had to be extremely cautious as we would be carrying equipment at the same time

Materials

In addition to cast, crew and equipment, other elements of moving image productions need to be obtained, such as; 

• Props/costumes
• Music/sound
• Script
• Graphics (such as titles)

The trouble with obtaining music for a production is ensuring that it is appropriately copyrighted. Royalty free music is often used, which refers to a music license that allows to be purchased only once and to then be used as much as desired. My websites even allow the music to be used without charge, either with or without credit required. Audio that can be used without credit is under the Creative Commons License, which is a public copyright license that allows the free distribution of otherwise copyrighted music. One such website is YouTube's Audio Library, found here - https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

Legal Issues

There are a couple of legal considerations that will appear when using certain materials in a media production.

1. Legal Considerations - the producers must ensure that their material doesn't infringe copyright laws or taste/decency provisions
2. Insurance - liability insurance covers the producers (and in our case the college) against any damages that may occur whilst filming on location and to the location. It basically protects the insured party in the event that they are sued for claims that are included within the coverage of the insurance policy.

Regulation

Ofcom is the UK's communication regulator that regulates TV and radio. Before any production is shown, it must be Ofcom approved, ensuring that it does not violate copyright.

Copyright is an assignable legal right given to the creator for a certain number of years to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.

Ofcom does not regulate the BBC, it is instead regulated by BBC Trust, a governing body 

that works on behalf of license fee payers to ensure that the quality of the productions that are show on the BBC are of the highest quality. The BBC deemed Ofcom as unequipped to regulate the BBC as they felt is held to "a different standard of accuracy and impartiality".
Ofcom regulates TV and radio as BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) regulates film and video. The BBFC provides age ratings for films, and they have also have the legal power to cut or even reject work.

Trade unions and trade associations

A trade union is an organized association of workers from the same trade that come together and fight for workers rights when required, for instance when a boss wants it's workers to perform the maximum amount of work to be paid the minimum amount possible. The union ensures that workers are paid fairly, that their working conditions are suitable, that their hours are suitable, and that their wages are fair. One such union is BECTU, the UK's media and entertainment trade union, representing staff, contract and freelance workers that are based in the United Kingdom. More information can be found here - https://www.bectu.org.uk/home
A trade association is an organisation that is founded and funded by business that operate in the specific industry. Many are non-profit organisations, such as PACT, the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television. This association is based in the UK and represents independent television, feature films and animation.