Unilever Pre-Production

Here is the pre-production paperwork for my 'Pot Noodle' advert.

The paperwork includes:

Receipts

Production schedule 

Location release

Shot list

Talent release (minor)

Location recces

Shot list

Risk assessment

Pitch Feedback and Reflections

                                

                         Pitch Feedback and Reflections

What did I do well?

• Spoke clearly.
• Used a variety of different tones.

What would I do differently?

• I would've studied the 'prezi' more so that I wouldn't have needed to check the board as much.
• I would've slowed down when speaking so that I didn't stutter as much.
• I would've tried to keep more eye contact with the class

Prezi

Presentation Techniques

                                     Do's and Don'ts

                                             (Pitch and Presentation)

Do's:

• Stand straight
• Keep organised (Plan your timing, remember the pitch)
• Keep practicing
• Have visual aids 
• Know all your facts and figures (BCAP code, air times)
• Show your passion
• Be clear
• Stick to the subject
• Keep to your time
• Stay Professional
• Be loud and and clear when you speak
• Change your tone frequently
• Keep eye contact

Don'ts:

• Slouch back
• Face the board
• Hide behind your cue cards
• Shout or mumble
• Swear
• Do nothing until the day
• Be unorganised
• Drift from the subject
• Go over time
• Stick to one tone

Peer Pitch and Feedback

             
From this feedback I now know that my detail on the history of Unilever, Pot Noodle, demographics, phychographics and target audience is high and I should make sure that the rest of my work reaches that standard. I also know that my idea is clear and easy to sell. My line of appeal is 'happy families'.
Another thing that was not written down was that I needed to work on my 'SPG' (spelling, punctuation, grammar) as I had a few mistakes in the presentation.

The Pre- Production Process Requirements for a Moving Image Production

                              The Pre- Production Process

Type of Production:

Our group had the task of producing a 90 second film for a online short f
ilm competition named 'DepicT!'. Depict is Watersheds international short film competition which challenges filmmakers all around the world to make any story of any genre in 90 seconds, Mark Cosgrove (Watersheds cinema curator) said this "What you'll find with something as micro short as 90 seconds is that it forces the imagination, it forces the filmmaker to think about how can I be impactful? How can I be compelling?" (http://www.depict.org/).We had to distribute our short video online on a website called YouTube, YouTube is a multi-platform video sharing website which allows you to watch/ upload original videos across the world. We had to upload our video onto the colleges YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/ENBTECMEDIA).

There are a variety of different forms of moving image media product some examples of this would be:                                                                                                                                                            

• Feature length films 
• Animation  
• TV shows 
• Advertisements 
• Music Videos
• Ident 
• Online videos

For every form of moving image you need a way of distributing the moving image product, some examples of this would be:

• DVD
• Blu-Ray
• Cinemas
• On Demand
• Public Screens

Sources Of Finance

There's many different sources of funding that exist for film, television and other moving image productions. Some examples of this would be:

Private Investors

A private investor is usually a person but can also be a company and they give their own money to others when they can see a potential return (plus a profit). An example of a private investor would be Megan Ellison, some films she produced include; Zero Dark Thirty, Her, American Hustle and True Grit.

Kickstarters/ Crowd Funding

A kickstarter is when the general public can contribute towards a film because the director may not be able to get funding by private investors or the bank etc. An example of a film that came out because of a kickstarter is 'Wish I Was Here' by Zach Braff, though the film did come out he also got a lot of hate from others since he was already successful from 'Scrubs' and that a kickstarter isn't relevant to someone as successful as himself.                

VIDEO: Zach Braff Kickstarter 

Self Funded

A film that is self funded is a film where the filmmaker invests their own money into the title, an example of a self funded film would be 'Clerks' by Kevin Smith. Smith had to sell a large number of his comic book collection and maxed out 8-10 credit cards i order to fund the film with a very modest budget of $27,575.

Bank Loan

A bank loan is what most people trying to make a moving image production would do, this may be the easiest way to earn money for a film but its also risky as if the moving image production is unsuccessful then you have a large debt in your hands.

Competitions

If you win a competition with a cash prize then you can use the money that you won to make a moving image production. An example of this would be 'My Date with Drew', what happens is a young filmmaker has always wanted to have a date with Drew Barrymore, so when he wins a competition he buys a camera and documents his journey into finding Drew and dating her.

My Date with Drew Trailer

Requirements

Once you have the funding for your moving image production you need to spend the money on what is required for the production, some of these may include:

Props

Props can be anything within the screen while filming, the amount of props you have will depend on what type of production you make (if its a survival film you would have very few props maybe a backpack and a knife, whereas if your film is set in the 1940's you'd have old fashioned telephones etc).

Cameras

Cameras are used to film the footage you need for your production. There are a majority of cameras out on the market, most big budget Hollywood films would use the big IMAX cameras for their films, but most films don't have a big enough budget and/or are not popular enough for someone to book an expensive IMAX ticket for the film ending up wasting money.

Talent

The talent is any actor that's involved in the film like Leonardo Di Caprio in 'The Wolf of Wall Street', or Johnny Depp in 'Pirates of The Caribbean'.

Lighting 

Lighting is generally used to hide shadows in productions, though it can also be used to enhance what's happening on the screen or to amplify the tension in a certain scene. There are many different types of lighting there's ambient lighting, motivated lighting, chiaroscuro and artificial lighting.

Sets

A set is the place where you film, though now days most productions would film on location to make it feel as realistic as possible. Back in the early 2000's many productions used to film the majority of their scenes on a green screen (Star Wars prequels) although a lot of modern films still use green screen in their films it's not as popular as it was in the early 2000's.

Costume

Costume is what the talent are wearing while filming, what they're wearing usually tells you a lot about the film or the character themselves, for example if someone is wearing an authentic Elizabethan styled dress you'd know that the production is set in Elizabethan times and the character you're observing is probably a wealthy character as they can afford a nice dress. Costume is used a lot with the modern superhero films today as it's being authentic to the comics.

Advertising

In order for people to watch your production you're going to need to advertise it. Trailers for films can be highly anticipated these days with the new 'Star Wars' trailer getting 112 million views in one day. The problem with this is if your production has gone under the radar while filming etc then a lot of people won't know what it is and it's very hard to get views if no one knows your production exists.

Personnel

The personnel includes the 'Talent' and 'crew that work in a media production. There's a different number of crew depending on what type of production is being produced, for example:

A low budget short

The low budget short called 'Hag in a Black Leather Jacket' was John Waters first film with a budget of only $30 with Waters taking the role of director, writer, producer, cinematographer and editor. The talent consisted of only three people; Mona Montgomery, Mary Vivian Pearce and Tricia Waters.

Full Cast & Crew for 'Hag in a Black Leather Jacket'

A Television Programme

For a show as big as 'Breaking Bad' there's a much larger number of cast and crew involved in production. The talent includes Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn and Dean Norris. There's more than one director involved in a television programme as certain people will only direct one episode Michelle MacLaren ended up directing the most episodes, other directors include; Adam Bernstien, Vince Gilligan and Colin Bucksley. The writers include; Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould and George Mastras. There were many producers involved with Breaking Bad, some notable ones are; Melissa Bernstein, Vince Gilligan and Bryan Cranston. Michael Slovis was the main cinematographer in charge of the show. Some notable editors are; Kelley Dixon and Skip Macdonald.

Full Cast & Crew for 'Breaking Bad'

A Hollywood Feature Film

A film like 'Se7en' would still have a large cast and crew, but not as much as 'Breaking Bad' because only one director is needed etc... The film was directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The talent include; Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. Some notable producers are; Phyllis Carlyle, Arnold Kopelson and Stephen Brown. Darius Khondji was the director of cinematography and editing was done by Richard Francis-Bruce.

Full Cast & Crew for 'Se7en'

Producers

Producers play a vital role in media.  A producer will oversee each project from conception to completion and may also be involved in the marketing and distribution processes. Producers can work closely with the directors and other production staff, sometimes they need to have the ability to take over and direct the whole production themselves. Producers arrange funding for each project and are responsible for keeping the production within the allocated budget. Some well known film producers include names like; Steven Spielberg, Dr. Dre, George Lucas and Ridley Scott.

Our Group Work

We only had three people in our group, so we all rotated our pre- production work between us, for example I'd get signatures for permission to film while another person does the storyboard as someone else does the risk assessment then we'd all swap jobs after a good 15 minutes. When it came to the filming I was the main person in the film so I spent most of my time in front of the camera, but, if I wasn't needed in front of the camera then I'd be getting the shots. I have had experience in acting before, though I've never really had any experience filming before I believe that only one person in our group had experience filming before.

Time

Professional Media

In the professional media industry it's very important to stick to deadlines, because if you don't stick to the deadline and you only have to film just for one extra day you'll have to pay all the people that you'll need for that day (crew, talent) also you'd have to pay for any flights for the talent to get to the set, so it all adds up and you'd end up spending a lot of money for one extra day.

Our Group

In our group we had one week to fill out all pre- production paper work, one week to film and one week to edit. Our group managed to stick to our deadlines perfectly as we didn't have any scenes to shoot while editing.

Equipment/Facilities

Sometimes a filmmaker will not have the budget to buy a whole new camera, so another option they have is to rent a camera from a professional media facility house an example of this would be White Label Media which is based in Norwich. Some examples of price would be:

• SONY PMW 200= £85 per day 
• Generic 1X1 Led Panel Light Kit- 2 Piece = £51 per day
• Rode Stereo Videomic X = £19 per day

(All prices taken from http://www.hireacamera.com/en-gb/)

Equipment for Depict Project

Cameras

Getting the cameras was obviously very important for our project, luckily they're very easy to get hold of at our college all we had to do was rent them out from our colleges AV room free of charge, this was very helpful towards our production because we had a budget of £5, so we didn't need to worry about spending any money.

Prop(s)

We only had one prop in our short film, and that prop was a spinning top which is what our whole short film is based about. We didn't have to pay for it because another member of our group had his own one at home and brought it into college, though we did write the price of the spinning top in our pre-production paperwork.

Equipment 

In addition to the camera we also rented out a shoulder rig, voice recorder and a 50mm lens. The shoulder rig was to make sure that the camera was still instead of being shaky, the voice recorder was to record any audio in the film (the sound of fist hitting desk etc...) The 50mm lens was for the reason that, in our film, we have a lot of detailed shots of the spinning top and it looked a lot better in the 50mm rather than the default lens.

Locations

For our short film we already knew where we wanted to film, but we also had a backup just in case we were unable to use the room we wanted for filming. In order to chose where we wanted to film we had to go on a recce, a recce is when you go scouting locations and seeing where you could potentially film, we also looked for any problems with the location (lighting or sound issues). After we went on our recce we had to have a location release signed, a location release is when you get permission to film in that location. We chose the classroom because all we needed was a desk and the classroom we used seemed like the perfect choice since it was right next to an outside area where we also needed to film. One issue we faced was because of the fact that we filmed right next to a window when we filmed at different times of the day the light was shining through and it would've been bad continuity, the way that we overcame this was by putting all of our bags up against the window blocking the light.

Materials

In addition to equipment, crew and cast you need certain materials to make a moving image text some of these include:

Props

Fairly easy to come by, most things now days can be ordered online, but, if something completely original is needed for a production it would have to be constructed from scratch, which means you would need materials to make that certain prop.

Costume

All films have a costume designer which will design and make certain costumes for certain characters, so you would need the materials for making the costume, and even if you were to order clothes from online or from a shop that costume itself is also a material. 

Music

With music you have to take in financial considerations when using certain materials, for example we had to use a royalty free website called 'Bensound' the reason for this is because we would have to pay for any non-royalty free music as we wouldn't have the permission to that music.

Legal Issues

The main legal consideration there is when using certain materials in a media production is copyright laws, this means you can not use any original work that's not yours without that persons permission, you can not distribute copies of that work where it's charged or not, you cannot show, perform or play that work in public. Our group didn't really have to worry about copyright for our Depict project as we only used our own original work and the music we used was royalty free.

Clearance 

Clearance in moving image text is when a filmmaker will get permission/authorisation to film.

Public Liability Insurance

Public liability insurance is if or when an accident happens or anything goes wrong on set the filmmakers only need to pay a fraction of the final cost as the insurance covers the rest. The most common types of claims would be; slips, trips and falls.

Completion Guarantee/Insurance

A completion guarantee is when many of the talent and crew would have to sign an agreement to work up until a certain date, thereby triggering the payment of minimum distribution guarantees to the producer.

Regulation

OFCOM

Ofcom is the regulator of communications in the UK. They regulate fixed line telecoms, mobiles, TV and radio sectors, postal services and also the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

BBFC

The bbfc is the UK's regulator of film and video, providing age ratings such as U, PG and 12A. They are a designated body that have legal powers to rate, and sometimes cut or even reject works. They also age rate some online material. Every 4-5 years, the BBFC carries out a major public consultation exercise to gather information about what the public thinks about the age rating of films and videos before they are released and whether the BBFC’s classification standards meet public concerns. The BBFC will then adjust its standards in response to any changes in public attitudes. 

Reflection of Depict Short and Pre-Production Process

The thing that I enjoyed most about Pre-Production was making the storyboard, the reason why I enjoyed this is because all of our group was equally involved and everyone got a say on what should happen and what different shots we should be used. It also gave us our first taste on what the kind of shots the film would have and a perspective of what the final product would look like. The thing that I enjoyed the least about Pre-Production was getting the signatures and permission to film at our locations, the reason why I disliked this was because our team was waiting for the signatures before we could film and it ended up where we couldn't do anything until we had the signatures, although I disliked this about Pre-Production I know it's necessary and that it must be done if you are to follow copyright laws correctly.