Learning Aim A: Pre-Production Report

 

Pre-production report

My aims of the report are:

·         To go into detail in each section.

·         Explain as much as I can.

·         Everything flows.

Pre-production: work done on a product, especially a film or broadcast programme, before full-scale production begins. Pre-production is just as important for non-scripted work as well. Even if you don't have a script, you need to figure out the message or story that you're trying to convey to your audience.

It’s important to be careful with budgeting and how you spend because for example ‘Monsters’ film budget was $500,000 and the filming equipment costed $15,000 and the production budget was “way under” $500,000 compared to ‘One Mile Away’ as the budget was over £20,000 as it was initially funded and it was a documentary about gangs that are based in Birmingham so the cast and crew didn’t have to travel far.

 

Finance and budgeting

There are 6 different ways for finance and budgeting (crowd, grants, government funding, big studio model, private investors and tax reliefs/incentives).

One way a film is financed is crowdfunding. And to do that the production team would have to do a pitch and ask the general public to submit donations for the team to reach their goal. An example of a crowdfunded film is ‘Batman: Dying Is Easy’ and it was crowdfunded through ‘Indiegogo’. The budget for this film was $75,907. The directors for this film are Sean Schoenke and Aaron Schoenke.

Another way a film is financed is big studio models. To do this you would have to do equity financing, debt financing, and various forms of financial assistance such as tax breaks or grants. An example of a big studio model is ‘Warner Bros’. They did over 7000 films and over 5000 cartoon episodes and the revenue is over $5.5 billion.

Overall, I think that that big studio models financing is more successful as there are more than one big company and they can give you a lot of budget money in order for the film to look really good and high quality depending on how big the film is. The budget might go towards high tech filming equipment. It could also be unsuccessful because a film might have a certain amount of money for things and it could end up being over budget or something might happen that ruins the filming production.

 

Logistics

Before filming you have to think about different categories in order for the film to be good (for example, cast and crew, equipment hire and locations and more). An example of this would be ‘Monsters’. There was 13 cast members and 6 crew members and they filmed in multiple locations and travelled by mini bus. The filming also lasted for 3 weeks before finishing.

Whereas in, ‘World War Z’ they had 183 cast members, filmed in multiple locations and they travelled in a private airplane. And the filming also lasted longer than expected. They both would have had other things (scripts, risk assessments and others) but ‘World War Z’ would have been more successful as it had more locations and more cast and crew members. And as ‘Monsters’ had less locations and cast members with a filming budget that was small compared to ‘World War Z’, it would’ve not done well.

Overall, the needs for a contingency plan is important as both films could’ve had a lot of things that got in the way to slow down production so they may have needed backup things just in case an issue occurred. They also would’ve needed an effective management of a production schedule as it’s important to keep a track of time during pre-production so everyone will know where they are and how long for.

 

Pre-production documentation

Before thinking about other things for your film you have to think about the creative side so that your film can flow and makes sense. A few examples are script and storyboard. In the film ‘Monsters’ Edward did not create a script or storyboard. He also had 5 months to create all 250 visual shots. Compared to ‘World War Z’ David Allcock and Seth Engstrom created the storyboards.

However, in ‘Whiplash’ the film had both script and storyboard as ‘Blumhouse’ helped Chazelle turn 15 pages of a script into an 18-minute short film and Chazelle also hand drew 150 storyboards. Another example of creative is location recces.

An example of this is ‘One Mile Away’ as it was a documentary that was filmed in Birmingham and apart from location the cast had to be realistic so there wasn’t actually that many things to do during the creative process. In this case all film expect ‘Monsters’ would’ve been more successful as they all had scripts and storyboards.

Documentation should be kept because without everything that goes into the pre-production the film wouldn’t go ahead really well and it might not end up being filmed as expected during production.

 

Codes of practise and regulations

A few legal factors media producers need to consider is copyright music, filming people and filming in locations without permission because if you want extra people to be in the film background you’ll need permission from them and if they say yes, they’re happy to be in the film unblurred and if they say no you may have to blur their face or try and edit them out of the film. And filming in locations is going to need permission from the council and/or someone who owns the property as it is considered illegal to film in other terrorities and it’s considered trespassing. And for the music if someone used a song they didn’t have permission for it could get copyright claimed and the film would have a strike as copyright can be counted as illegal as it can be known as fraud.

An example of a film that had to blurry people’s faces if they didn’t give consent in being in the film is ‘World War Z’. If a person didn’t say yes to being in the film, their face would be blurred and obscured. And they got the permission to film in different locations as they filmed in Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales, Fort St. Elmo in Malta, Cochrane street in Glasgow, and Discovery Park in Kent. And the film soundtrack music had to have the original artists permission to use it so the film wouldn’t have copyright claims.

Other example of a film is ‘Monsters’ if people didn’t give consent to being in the film their faces would be blurred and the film also had Child performance licenses meaning that the license states the conditions which must ensure the child’s safety and the local authority must be ok and satisfied that the child’s educations wouldn’t suffer. And they got permission to film in Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and the United States.