Pre-Production Assignment

1.)   THE REQUIREMENTS OF A MOVING IMAGE PRODUCTION

FINANCING 

To make a movie, financing is crucial. All of the most basic parts of making a film requires money in order to do it. This could be anything ranging from paying people to act in your film. The more prolific the actor, the higher the paycheck will have to be. Crew members (cameramen, makeup artist etc.) will also require to be paid for their work behind the scenes. All the equipment used by aid crew will have to either be hired or paid for, and things like cameras are very expensive. If any damage is caused, then even more money will need to be sent on replacement equipment. The same could be said for props and costumes, which may be less costly, but a lot more may be needed. Also, different sets will need to be paid for, and transport between real life filming areas could be very costly depending on where they are being shot.

There are different ways movies can be financed. One of these is to be funded by a public agency, like National Lottery or being funded by the department of culture. Winning the National Lottery is rather unlikely however, and isn't an easily accessible way to obtain funding.  Creators could also ask for private investors, having people donate money to help the production of the movie if they are interested in it. An example of this is Equity Financing, where investors earn a percentage of ownership to the film, and will therefore profit from the final product. This is good as creators can have very rich people funding they idea, even if they aren't too overly interested in the actual movie. However, there is also crowdfunding, which is funding raised by members of the public with a passion for the idea of the unmade piece. This is also a positive as the movie has fans before its release, who will spend more money in order to see it when it is finished. 

An example of a film with private funding is Blood Simple (1984) by The Coen Brothers (True Grit) who used roughly 65 private investors to help them raise 750 thousand dollars. This allowed them to create their film, which went on to almost make 4 million dollars at the box office, giving them a hefty profit. 

TIMESCALES

In pre-production time management is very important. People working not the movie have lives outside of it, other its personal errands or other jobs to work. This means that not every single crew member will be available everyday, so planning must be made for when all the required crew are needed for something way in advance. Also, equipment that is rented may not be available to be rented at certain times/days due to the rental companies preferences, and the fact that they may have already rented out said equipment. Like most things, movies may have a deadline to be finished by, especially if they're being made by a big production company. This means that if time is wasted and the movie overruns, the budget and crew availability are both affected massively, hindering the production further.

An example of this is "Jaws", which suffered from delay due to the difficulties of shooting at sea. When a shot had to be reset it took many hours, causing 12 hour work days to only have 4 hours of actual filming done. The sea also contributed to damaging equipment like cameras and making crew members sick. The film took 159 days to shoot, way over the 55 day deadline.

FACILITIES

For the pre-production of a movie, it is best to have all equipment needed planned out beforehand, to avoid any last second rushing. It needs to be taken into account wether the equipment is suitable for the scene, or it needs to be replaced with a more advanced/specialist piece of equipment. It also needs to be taken into account wether the equipment should be hired or purchased Hiring is a lot cheaper, but more restricted due to it only being available at certain times and the equipment eventually needs to be moved. Costumes also should be planned ahead to make sure they are all accurate, to avoid any continuity problems in the final movie (Costume parts randomly going missing).

LOCATIONS

Before a movie can be shot, a location for the shooting must be decided. The best thing to do is to identify and recess, meaning you visit the location personally to scout it out, seeing its current state for yourself. This is because if you've only seen photos of the location, they could have been outdated and the locations appearance may have changed since. Also, appearing in person allows for a risk assessment to be done, to prevent any potential accidents while filming. Another thing to be planned beforehand is the availability of the location, as this can differ based on a variety of things ranging from bad weather, how much it costs across the year, and wether or not other people are hiring it out.

PERSONNEL

Before beginning production, all personnel must be selected. This includes all the extras that are to be used in background scenes or play minor speaking roles. This means that a lot of people need to be selected, which is time consuming and also costly as all extras still require pay. On top of this, all specific crew members like cameramen and editors need to be selected, and they need to be skilled in this line of work for the film to come out well. Any extra crew like stunt men and fight choreographers are required based on the movie genre, so they may need to be selected too. 

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Before filming, one of the most important things that is needed is a script. Every movie needs a script, so that it isn't an incoherent mess. Without one nobody would know what to say, what actions to perform or even where to stand. To make things clearer, a storyboard could also be used as its an easy to follow draw-up of each shot in the scene, which helps the cameramen and editors just as much as it helps the cast members. If anything from existing movies is needed (Scenes shown on TV's) then permission needs to be asked from people who worked on that piece for permission, and the same goes for copyrighted music. Using these without permission can result is many legal issues, so it's best to ask.

CODES OF PRACTICE AND REGULATIONS

What codes of practice or regulations are important when planning pre-production?  Consider the importance of extensive health and safety procedures, the importance of checking and obtaining permissions regarding copyrighted material, and the involvement of trade unions.  Why are effective and robust procedures here vital and what could be the problems if they are not?

When filming, it is very important to follow rules and regulations. This means following health and safety rules such as risk assessments is necessary, to avoid any possible injuries during filming. Things like hygiene regulations for any food onset are also important, as crew members getting sick could majorly halt production. Everyone should be treated well, both verbally and physically, to avoid any fights or arguments onset.

2.)   THE FORMATS FOR PRE-PRODUCTION PROCESS

THE PROPOSAL

A proposal is essentially the overall premise of a movie. It features the overall plot, the narrative structure, the target audience and information of the characters. This is used to see if anyone would be interested in helping with/backing the project based on its concept, and to also see if everything would work well. It is essentially the starting point for any movie.

SCRIPTING: MASTER SCENE SCRIPT

A master scene script is the industry standard script, as it is designed to be easy and accessible. This makes it easy for anyone to read, even if they may suffer from any potential learning difficulties. This script features both dialogue and description, making the story easier to follow than if it was just all dialogue. This script is split into the blocks of dialogue for the performers, a narrative description and then scene headings. This makes it easier for every member of staff to follow what is happening, and makes the script clearer when shown to investors. The scene-headings are called "Sluglines" and talk about the scene location, the time it occurs, and the interior/exterior in the scene. The narrative description begins after the scene heading, and i just the telling of the story as it happens. It should be descriptive and clear so that everyone can follow it easily, and act out accordingly. Nothing that cant be seen or heard should be mentioned, it should only be based on picture and sound as anything else would be pointless for a script and a waste of time to write out.

Commonly, one page on an MSS equals one minute of screen time is means pagers are typically 120 pages, for 2 hours worth of content. This means that however long a scene is, then it should be described well enough to take up that many pages.

Dialogue blocks consist of three different sections. This is the character name, wryly and then the dialogue. A wryly is what shows the way a line should be pronounced, depending on the emotion of the character. This is to make characters seem more natural and realistic. Names are in upper case, wrylies in lower case and dialogue in normal sentence case. Additionally, all font is commonly in size 12.

SCRIPTING: SHOOTING SCRIPT

These are scripts that are used during the production and he;p to shoot the movie. These feature things like transitions, camera angles and scene numbers, making them more friendly for the people editing the movie together. These scripts are not used for investors, just the crew and cast, so it will feature information specifically geared towards them, hence the camera angles. These can be hard to read for people not familiar with what goes into pre-production, hence the existence of the simpler MSS to use for pitches.

STORYBOARDING

Scripts can be converted into storyboards. Storyboards are essentially screenplays, complete with images of each different shot. This really helps camera workers with when to start and stop recording, and what angle to do it in. This helps to see if there would be any issues with doing certain things as-well, since its an exact plan of how everything should look when finished. They can also help in seeing how much it may cost to shoot scenes, based on location and how long each shot should actually be. This is very good to know in advance as it helps fight against chances of going over budget.

SHOOTING SCHEDULES

A shooting schedule is essentially a plan of when things are going to be shot. Different shots will be filmed on different days, depending on the locations of these shots, the equipment needed on them and what staff is available on this day of shooting. This is to ensure everything runs smoothly to ensure everything is finished on time and without stretching the budget.

OTHER PAPERWORK

What types of paperwork may be used to collect together key information?  What type of information may they contain?

One necessary paperwork is permission from owners of land and specific buildings that may needed to film. Without permission, a lot of commotion could be caused and it could potentially lead to legal problems. There should also be documents of the risk assessments that were carried out.

3.)   THE FUNCTIONS OF PRE-PRODUCTION

When preparing a script, it is expected that they go through numerous drafts, showing a change over time as ideas change. It should always be the strongest possible script in the final piece, as theres no way to change it after its finished filming. Professional script editors can be consulted to see any potential errors, such as certain things not quite making sense. Multiple writers can work on one script as-well, allowing it to have numerous insights and ideas all put forward, allowing for a more compelling script to be written. During production, certain locations can be reconsidered and then replaced with a more suitable or safer location, likewise, props and costumes may be changed during production, due to quality issues or idea changes. The changing of ideas allows for a comparison between old ideas and new, to see if the change would even be for the better or not. This is why a lot of costumes have concept art and drafts, to see what idea would suit the situation best.

4.)   THE PURPOSE OF PRE-PRODUCTION

The purpose of pre-production is so everything goes smoothly once the actual production begins. This includes how it goes legally (laws and regulations of staff treatment) and in terms of the shooting. Other legal requirements could be health and safety paperwork, permissions to film on owned locations, permission to use copyrighted images and sounds, and pay for everyone involved. There will need to be public liability in place, meaning responsibility will be taken if a member of the public is harmed by your filming. Without any of these in place, you could suffer from fines, being sued, and even have your whole project legally shut down.

Pre-production also helps plan the movie around the set target audience. This means it needs to be made age appropriate, also when it is rated by the BBFC it isn't rated different to how it was intended. For example, if someone was making a children's movie but had it feature inappropriate language and violence, it would be rated too high for any child to see, making it completely miss the mark.