Requirements for a Moving Image Production

 

Our moving image product was a ninety second short film. we made this to enter it into the Depict! competition on the Internet. We are distributing our short film through you tube, one of the leading video sites on the Internet.

There are many other types of moving image media products such as feature length films which are shown in the cinema, these films can run from ninety minutes to sometimes over three hours and they have many different genres such as action, adventure, sci fi, western,crime,etc. Another type of moving image product is television programmes which usually last around half an hour to an hour . there are also adverts which advertise a product and usually last from ten to thirty seconds. there are also music videos and also videos on the Internet which almost everyone in the world can see. the distribution methods for these different media products are usually television, DVDs and the more recent blu rays


Here is an example of advertising for the product snickers:

Finance and sources of funding

There are many different ways media products get their sources of funding. one is the use of production companies, these are companies that give film makers money to make films after they have pitched their idea to them while the production company will get m. Examples of production companies are Warner Brothers, studio canal and a Band Apart. There are also private investors, like production companies they give people money to make the film and get money in return however they are not companies, they are individual people who invest money into a film. An example of a private investor is Matthew Vaughn who produced the Guy Richie films Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. another private investor is Megan Ellison who produced such films as True Grit and Lawless. another method for getting financing is through crowd funding, this is when a website is set up by the film maker and people from all over the Internet can put small amounts of money into the project. People can rely on family and friends to lend the money or get a bank loan. there are also companies set up such as the BFI (British Film Institute) and Creative England which offer support to film makers in many different ways such as supplying film makers with money, offering them advice and delivering professional development programmes to help emerging talent. another source of finance would be sponsors or product placement. this is where a company gives the filmmaker money to have their product sponsor the film and product placement is when products from different companies are put in the film to help advertise the product.

Requirements

In the film industry the money is spent on many different things that are need to make the film. The money usually goes towards props and costumes, location;sometimes you will have to pay someone to film on a certain location. another requirement that will cost money is the catering for the staff on set, there is also transport, accommodation, equipment; the equipment that film makers can be bought, they can already own in or they can rent it from sites such as www.filmcenter.co.uk and www.filmequipmentrentals.com. There are also some documents that need to be obtained when filming any type of moving image production such as talent releases; Talent releases are documents that give the actor or actress permission to be in the media production. There also have to be location recces and a location releases signed.

Personnel

Films and television programmes of any size will need a crew of some sort. However the size of these crew vary quite a lot.
In a low budget short the crew would most likely be under ten people as the film is shorter and not on such a high budget, the positions most likely found in a low budget short are the actors, a director and the camera crew. seeing as these shorts don't have a lot of money put into them people usually double up as editors and cinematographers
In a television programme the crew is usually a lot larger as quite a lot of money is put into them. the positions you would usually find on a television programme are actors, a director, a camera crew, a lighting crew, a make up crew,editor(s) and extras.
In a Hollywood feature film the crew size increases as they have a lot of money poured into them. on a feature film crew list you would find actors, prop crew, camera crew, lighting crew, make up crew, a director the editor(s) , location scouts, producers and extras.
Other contributors to the production of a media text can be people on the financial side of it such as accountants and producers. Outside the set and financial area of films there is composers who make the music for the film, researches who research things from locations to props and there are also film distributors, these can be individuals or companies that are responsible for the marketing and release dates for a film.
In our very small group we shared the roles of directing and editing. I did most of the acting with Maya , the acting role cant be shared but we all had an input in directing and editing.

Time & Budget

Time is a very important concept in the media industry. If the media product is not released in time of its predicted release then the director has to pay a fine, and ,probably the worse of the two, get a bad reputation in the media industry which could mean no-one will want to work with you after one bad project, also if filmmakers go over the budget for the film it can cause a massive problem for the filmmaker as this will again give them a bad reputation. A good example of this is the director Micheal Camino, who after directing the hugely successful film the Deer Hunter, he directed a film called Heavens Gate in 1980. This film originally had a budget of 7.5 million but Camino went incredibly over with a final budget of 40 million and ran well over five hours, he eventually managed to trim it down to under 3 hours. The film was a commercial and critical disaster which more or less destroyed Caminos career and he didn't direct a film for another five years which shows what going over the budget and getting a bad reputation can do to a film maker. We used our budget to buy props as we had burrowed the filming equipment so there was no need to buy or rent any.

 

Equipment/facilities

In professional moving image productions the equipment can be bought,burrowed or rented. A website that i came across when looking for sources of media equipment was the site prokit which sells professional
moving image production equipment there where 3 categories; cameras, lighting and sound with many different sub categories under these three initial categories.I will be looking at the prices for the first sub category in cameras, lighting and sound.for cameras it was single chip handheld cameras, the prices of these varied from £900.00 to over £4000,00. In the sound department the prices for microphones varied from under £100.00 to over £800.00. In the lighting category the prices for Tungsten lighting kits went from under £600.00 to over £1400.00. Sites like this will most likely use a document called a rate card which customers will use to rate the service and products of the company. Lots of equipment was available to us however we didn't use a lot of it as we didn't need it. The equipment we used for our production where a camera a tripod two sd cards, which where our own, and the editing software. however lighting and green screen was available to us but we did not use these as the lighting we used was ambient and we did not need green screen for our production. Here is a link to the prokit website:
http://www.prokit.co.uk/

Locations

For our location we had to fill in two documents; A location recce and a location release. a location recce is a survey of the location:why is it good for our production. the location release is permission for the location. Our location was the staff room kitchen, we chose this location because it was the perfect location for our film.There where a few risks we faced in the location we chose such as slipping on wet floor and cutting ourselves on sharp objects we overcame this by filling out a risk assessments and making sure we stuck to them.

Materials

 Materials needed for moving image productions are props, costumes and soundtracks/sound effects. when getting props and costumes the budget needs to be taken into consideration, as I mentioned above in the paragraph titled;'Time and Budget'. If a filmmaker goes over the budget it can heavily damage their career. when getting soundtracks/sound effects the filmmaker may need to get permission for the song and may even have to pay the artist for using the song.

Legal Issues

when making a media production the legal issue that may need to be taken into consideration are copyright issues. If someone uses a product with a logo or name of some kind is on a prop in the production then the film maker may have to pay a fine if they have not got the proper permission. In our production copyright issues did not effect us as we didn't have any known names or logos in our short film.
there are 3 legal terms that fall into the category of legal issues:
-Clearance: Means the legal permission for almost everything you need to use in your media production such as copyright material, the talent in the production and use of the location to name a few.
-Public Liability Insurance: This is needed in case a member of the public gets put out of place because of the filming. e.g if someone is late for work because of filming on a road.
-Completion guarantee/insurance: This is a form of insurance that is used to make sure the film is made in time. if someone does not get the film made in time the consequences can be as much as not being paid for making the film.

Regulation

OFCOM is a company that monitors media on television and radio. It protects the public from content that may be seen as harmful or offensive. A new media platform that's causing a big problem for OFCOM is the Internet as they don't have control over what people see on there.
There is another company called the BBFC is the British Board of Film Classification, it is funded by the film industry and is responsible for the classification and the censorship of films. The BBFC use certificates to help the public know what is suitable for children and what is suitable for adults
U- Everything is suitable for children.

PG- All ages are permitted but some scenes may be unsuitable fro children.

12A- Considered unsuitable for very young children, however those under 12 can see it if accompanied by an adult. These films can contain mature themes, discrimination,soft drugs, infrequent strong language, moderate violence, nudity and sex references.

12(Home media)- Nobody under 12 can buy a 12 rated film. the guidelines are the same as 12A.

15- Only over 15 year olds are allowed to see and buy these films. these films can contain adult themes, hard drug use,very strong language, nudity, strong violence and strong sex references.

18-Only those over 18 are allowed to view or buy an 18 rated film. these films usually have no limitations on the strong language and can contain strong violence hard drug use, strong sex references, explicit sex scenes and strong violence.

These are the OFCOM regulation sections:
Section One: Protecting the under eighteens.
Secton Two: Harm and Offence.
Section Three:  Crime.
Section Four: Religion.
Section Five: Due impartially and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of view and opinion.
Section Six: Elections and Referendums.
Section Seven: Fairness.
Section Eight: Privacy.
Section Nine: Commercial References in Television programmes.
Section Ten: Commercial Communications in Radio programmes.
Here is a link to the OFCOM site where you can read the sections in more detail:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/

 

Trade Associations and Unions

The trade union is important because they fight to make sure that there is no exploitation in the media industry.
The Broadcasting, Entertainment, cinematography and theatre union also known as BECTU the united kingdom's media and entertainment union. they specialise in education and training for people who are interested in any of the above. Here is a link to the BECTU website:
http://www.bectu.org.uk/home
The producers alliance for cinema and television also known as PACT serves the film, independent television new media and animation sectors and is the united kingdom's contact point for international co production or co financial distributors or partners. Any members are given training and advice.
One of the trade associations that interests me is the film distributors association. The FDA is the trade body for theatrical film distributors in the united kingdom the companies that release films for the United Kingdom cinema audiences.





Sources:
snickers advert: www.youtube.com
Matthew Vaughn photo: www.imdb.com
Camera photo:smh-media.blogspot.com
Martin Scorsese photo:hdguru3d.com
    Heavens Gate photo:en.wikipedia.org
    BBFC photo:www.bbfc.co.uk