Requirements For a Moving Image Production (First Draft)

Our media product was a 90 second short film for the ‘DepicT’ competition. It was filmed at and around my college and distributed through video sharing website ‘YouTube’. Though our product was not actually entered into the competition, we had to create all of the pre-production work, filming and editing in set amounts of time.

Short films on the internet are just a small part of moving image productions; there is a vast range of different platforms and distribution methods. Moving image productions spans across three main platforms, Television, film and the internet. There is wide variety of products in each of them.

For Film, there are feature films in animation, films that are made using computers program. There are many types of this including CGI motion capture, which involves filming actors and editing the animations over them or creating computer models to program, and hand drawn animation, in which each frame is created individually. An example of this CGI is ‘The Lego Movie’ (2014, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller). Live Action is one that is filmed with actors and, if needed, special effects. Live action requires full sets and a large camera crew. A recent one is ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (Marvel 2014, James Gunn). Then there are short films, which don’t tend to play in cinemas alone but are shown prior to the feature films, such as Disney’s short ‘Get a Horse’ (2013, Lauren Macmillan) played around with 3D and 2D animation, which was played before recent feature film ‘Frozen’.

In Television, there is a broader range of products. Including reality TV Shows, which have become very prominent recently. Reality TV Shows can be very different from each other, but there are two main sections; ‘Competition’ shows, in which contestants will compete against each other to win prizes, Such as ITV’s ‘I’m a Celebrity’, and documentary style show which follows the life story of a particular person, with shows like ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians.’ There is a vast amount of sitcoms that have been running for several years, these are comedy shows, which tend to be American and focus on a specific location, such as ‘Park and Recreation’ (2009) which is about a Government Business. A large amount of Children’s television is animated, much like in Films. Though it is much more likely to be Hand drawn than CGI, ‘Gravity Falls’ (2012) is a hand drawn animation that is currently popular. On the other side of the spectrum, there are the Soap Operas, which are dramatised versions of life stories, typically following lives of multiple characters and covering mature themes and ideas. Many have been running for incredibly long amounts of time. ‘All my Children’ has been running since the 70’s.

The internet is a platform which is more popular in recent years, with its main focus being on sites such as YouTube, which features all media from Music videos to Webisodes.  It has also created a new culture of ‘Youtubers’ and ‘vloggers’ who document aspects of their life through videos on these sights.

In terms of funding, we weren’t given any options, though the college was able to pay back a small sum of money if we needed any props brought in. In Media, there are many different kinds, that all apply to separate types of products. One of these is ‘Private Capital’, which is essentially a sum of the creator’s own money. This is usually better for small budget films as anything longer would take an incredibly large amount of their own funds. There is also the option of getting Bank Loans, this works well as you can get as much money as you need and then pay the bank back after you’ve accumulated enough revenue. The only problem with this is what would happen if the film does not do well or make enough money as is expected, because the creator would be in serious debt from the Bank they used.

Grants, funds and Bursaries are methods that could be used, where a separate company, such as the BFI film fund, pays for the product. This does not always work out, as the company’s will only select a small fraction of people applying to them, usually only about a 1/3  get any form of funding. Competition, like the DepicT that our film was for, can sometimes provide money as a prize. So if you create a film on a budget and win a competition like this, you will generate the needed revenue. This isn’t the best option as there is a chance you won’t win. A source that has recently become increasing in popularity is Crowdfunding, where people on the internet can donate money to the production usually in exchange for a form of ‘reward’, such as their name in the credits or a poster based upon the product. The main place for this is the website ‘Kick Starter’.

In any production, there’s a large amount of requirements that must be bought prior to filming. This includes material items, like cameras, costumes and props. The amount and quality of which depend on the kind of film you’re wishing to make. The money will need to be used in order to pay any crew and cast working on the production. Money will also need to be spent on using media and locations that don’t belong to the crew, such as music and sets.

For our production, we didn’t need to spend that much money. The location was a public area so there was no need to pay for it; we just needed to let people know beforehand. The props and costumes were taken from what people already had and cameras were rented from the college. The only things we needed to buy were the face paints to create fake injuries.

In our team we only had three main members of crew, and a couple of others, but in different types of filming there would be varying amounts of people involved. In a low budget short, it wouldn’t be unusual for people to have more than one role, such as the director also starring in the film. Whereas in a feature film, everyone will have a very specific part in the production and there is likely to be more people doing each role, such as multiple people operating different whilst a smaller scale production may just have one. In television, the size of the crew depends on the style it is in. Animated shows will likely need more people working on them as they require people to animate and draw out the scenes.

Our group consisted of me, Alex and Lauren. We decided to have Alex star in the film as he had done this in a previous exercise and therefore felt comfortable doing it, me and Lauren alternated as Director and camera-man. We also had a few people from outside the group to play smaller parts. During pre-Production we all worked as scriptwriters, storyboard artists and the like.

In a proper production, there are many people apart from the main production crew that are involved.  This involves people like makeup artists and scriptwriters, as well as the starring members of the cast. For example, in The Avengers film there are the lead actors, such as Robert Downey Jr and Scarlet Johansson but they only act in the movie, there is no need for them to do any camera or backstage work.

We had specific time limits for our DepicT video, six days each for the Preproduction, filming and editing. In the professional Media Industry, there are many issues with not meeting Deadlines. For example, if a production overruns a deadline then it is likely that they will have to pay all the crew members extra for each day it goes on, creating a larger cost of the production. In some extreme cases, the whole production may be cancelled if deadlines are not met. We only overran on one section of ours, where we spent seven days on planning rather than six as we felt that we weren’t ready to move on at the time. The negative impact this caused was less time for Filming, which meant we had an incredibly large amount of scenes to film on the last day. Overall, the product was completed in the time limit.

For our project, we had access to equipment that the college could provide. This meant we could easily use video cameras as well as Tripods. There were some more advanced pieces as well, but we didn’t require any of them. For editing, we had access to the most recent software on good quality computers.

For our production, we had to create Recces and releases for the locations we wanted to use. A Recce is a form that shows information about the location, such as the address and times its open, there will be several of these created for a production so that the crew can look over them and select the best location. A release is for when one of the locations had been definitely decided. It will explain with the crew is there and how long they expect to be, and will need to be signed by the person in charge of the location. Ours contained two different locations, an office and a park. For the office, we needed somewhere that was preferably inside the college as that was predominantly where our film took place, so if it was good to have somewhere close by to save time. The room need to have a table and a noticeboard, the rest didn’t need to look any particular way as long as we were allowed to move it around. We found a couple of places that would work, but in the end we decided on the office belonging to our Film and TV teacher, as we then knew it would always be open during our lessons. For the other location we just needed somewhere that was open, we eventually found a park that was a short walk from the college grounds, which wasn’t too inconvenient as we didn’t have that many scenes to film so only one lesson was spent there. This area was public so we didn’t need to file any forms about it, we just needed to warn people beforehand and make sure that somebody was wearing a T-shirt with the college’s logo on it. The risks here included crossing streets to get to the locations and falling from heights, as we had scenes that needed to be filmed overhead that were created by standing on top of desks.

The materials required for our production was music, but some production may also require sound effects, voiceovers or special effects on the video aspect. When creating these materials you must be aware that there are certain legal issues which arise. Many of these will link directly back to the concept of copyright. Copyright is an idea that started in the UK in 1911, the passing of Copyright Act. The current name is ‘Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.’ This law gives the creators of any form of musical, written or performed work full rights to it, meaning that people will have to get permission from the original creator if they wish to use it. Copyright was a large issue for ours in terms of sound, as we had no way of getting music that was copyrighted, so we had to find some that was royalty free on the internet. This means that you do not need to get the original permission as it had already been provided.

Another regulation is using people’s image in a film without their permission, to get around this problem we created Talent Release forms for everyone starring in the product, which were signed by them and, if they were under 18, their guardian

There are ways in which permission to use can be obtained, such as clearance which means going directly to the company. For example, if an actor is drinking a can of Coca cola in a film then you will need permission from then= ‘Coca Cola company’ to use their log. If you don’t, there is a chance you will be sued. Public Liability insurance can be used for actors, which means that if they are injured during filming then it will be the company’s responsibility. A ‘Completion Guarantee’ is used to assure the people distributing and financing your film that it will be fully completed.

There are many different Regulatory bodies present in different countries. OFCOM is the main communication Regulator in the UK. They are there to make sure that people get the highest quality, including television and Radio broadcasting. They are overall responsible for providing good service and protecting viewers from harmful aspects of broadcasting. However, some channels like the BBC have their own, The BBC Trust. This means that they are responsible for their own programs and the OFCOM do not have as much control over it.

The BBFC, The British Board of Film Classification, is the company which selects age ratings and classifications for films in Britain. The rating are selected based upon how many scenes are included that would not fit into a family aimed films, such as depictions of violence of swearing.

Trade Union and associations are very important in film. A trade Union focuses on the wellbeing and representation of people in the company, assuring their needs are met and an Association is a group of companies that represent the interests of the trade.

PACT, Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television, is the Trade Association acting in the UK independent media. It supports members of the industry with legality and business tasks. BECTU, Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union, is a Trade Union in the UK that provides services to workers such as discussing payments and training.