The Pre-Production Process:
Types of Media Production:
For our project we produced a 90 seconds long short film for
an online competition called ‘Depict!’. We then put our finished product on ‘YouTube’.
We used Adobe Premier to produce the film and edit it and used a VCR Camera to
record the footage. This is just one type of the many different types of media
production. One example of media production would be TV series. These are
regular episodes of a production in which has a long story usually about the
day to day life of a family or group of people e.g. Eastenders or Friends.
Another type of media production would be high end movies which get aired at
the cinemas etc. These are also put on DVD’s and online on services such as Netflix
and are aimed at a mass audience. YouTube videos are also another type of media
production. These can be anything from tutorials or music videos and appeal to
a mass range of audiences. Adverts, electronic billboards etc are also a type
of media production and are used to advertise products or services to a range
of people globally.
Finance and sources of funding:
For our media production video, we made we had no sources of
funding as we didn’t need to spend any money in order to produce our Depict
short however in media production, funding is a vital part of being able to
produce TV shows, Adverts and Hollywood productions etc. For individual
productions it is likely people will just take out a loan from the bank or save
up money for themselves as their production will most likely be very cheap
compared to other media productions. People can also use websites such as ‘Kickstarter’
to get crowd funding campaigns to help them produce their films etc. Another
source of funding for low budget production would be money payed out by YouTube
to people who achieve a certain amount of views on their videos. This can help
a person expand their channel and also help them achieve better media
production due to an increased budget. For a higher budget production you can
get people to invest in the production and then pay them out accordingly if the
production is successful. You can also sell the rights to the production or
advertise it to increase interest in the film thus increasing the revenue you
will receive from the film. Entering competitions such as ‘Depict!’ is also a
way of getting funding for the film as you can win prize money and the chance
to have your film premiered to a large audience.
Requirements:
There are many requirements needed in order to produce a media
production. Firstly, you will need to ensure you have all the equipment in
order to produce the product. This includes things such as cameras, computer
with the correct software, props, actors, locations etc. Actors are an
important part of a production as you will need someone to play the roles of the
characters of your production. These actors will also most likely have to be
payed and you will also have to pay for the camera crew and the editors etc. In
our media production we only required a camera, an SD card, a mac pc with adobe
premiere and 1 actor in which didn’t have to be payed as they were part of the
group (myself). We used locations such as the college and the local area in
which we didn’t have to pay for to use or have any restrictions on what we
could film there. We were also required to use a soundtrack on our media
production and as we couldn’t use copyrighted music we had to find copyright
free music on YouTube as we didn’t have the funding to pay for the use of a
soundtrack. When producing a mass media production, you will also be required
to put a lot of effort in the distribution of the product. If a product is
distributed properly it is far more likely it will be successful due to it
reaching a wider audience and reaching its target audience easier.
Personal:
In our small media production; in which there was only 3 of
us; we allocated roles to each of us to make the production process a lot smoother.
For example, I was the actor in the final short film, Leah and Dale both did
all the camera work and filled in the paperwork such as our storyboard whilst
we were recording. We all took part in the editing process and I was allocated
to make the soundtrack fit in to the production as this was a vital part of our
production and I had experience in working with music. In thing such as documentaries
it differs because instead of extras you need interviewees, for example if you
are documenting a certain place in the world on crime in that specific area you
need to interview the public that live in that area and see their views and
listen to their side of the story. In a larger media production, it is vital
they use the right personnel for all of the jobs needed in order to complete
such a large project. Many of these productions have hundreds of staff employed
to do their own jobs, this could range from producing or composing the music in
the product to being a background civilian character in a film. However small
or large the role of the person it is still essential that they all play their
part properly. For mainly feature films or documentaries there will almost
always be first aiders, script editors and contributors that take care of
accounts, this is less likely in short films because they will be restricted to
how and where they can film with limited time.
Time:
In our short film media production, we had a timeframe of 8
weeks to work on the project. For the first 4 weeks we did all of the preliminary
work in which included planning out the film, gathering ideas and writing up
evidence of all of this as we went along. For the next 2 weeks we shot our
short film and gathered all of the video we needed in order to complete our
project. We used the storyboards we completed previously as a guideline for our
recordings. In the last 2 weeks we edited all the video and added our
soundtrack to create our final project. This is a very short timeframe to work
with but our video was only 90 seconds long. In large media productions they
would have months and months to complete all of these sort of tasks but at a
much more disciplined and structured format. In the professional industry if
you miss the deadlines that are set out it could result in postponing films for
days, weeks and even months and this would corrupt the films reputation and can
delay the release date. This is how films can spiral out of budget and end up
having millions of pounds put to waste. Additionally, it destroys the
reputation of the producers, directors and film makers for not being efficient
with planning and organising their production.
Equipment and Facilities:
We used a variety of equipment to help us produce our
product. We used a DSLR camera to record the footage and had the camera placed
on a tripod. We had to use an SD card in the camera in order to store our
footage and upload it to the computer to edit the software. We then used a Mac
computer to edit the software on Adobe Premiere and uploaded the footage off
the SD card straight on to the Mac PC. At a professional level it is essential
that they have all the equipment ready in order to record the footage. They
will use far more equipment than we did in our small media production. They
will have lots of high end, fully professional cameras in order to record lots
of different footage at the same time and from different angles etc. They will
also have numerous editors working on many different PC’s in order to complete
the production. High end projects will also have many facilities in order to
produce their piece. They will have the facilities to be able to get any
equipment they need at any time and will have the facilities such as a studio
in which they could produce a soundtrack in and edit pieces of music or video
footage. Many colleges and universities have blocks in which have rooms
specifically to house the production of media footage and music. They would
have computer labs and studios so that people can access the software and
spaces they need in order to produce a certain production.
During our pre-production we had to plan for the locations we wanted to use, to do this we used ‘location recce’s’ and ‘location releases’. A location release allows you to gain permission to use and film in a particular room, with the owner’s signature that grants the access. A location recce is for when you have permission of the room and you need to assess it, we had to count the plug sockets available for the lamp we were using and also had to risk asses each room we chose in the result if any accident did occur we would have covered it in the risk assessment. We were fortunate in that we didn't need location forms for the majority of our filming due to the fact that we were filming in public on open roads.The only time we needed to use location forms was when we were filming in Leah's house then of which we had to get her parents to sign a form to say they are O.K. with us filming both inside and outside their house.
Locations:
During our pre-production we had to plan for the locations we wanted to use, to do this we used ‘location recce’s’ and ‘location releases’. A location release allows you to gain permission to use and film in a particular room, with the owner’s signature that grants the access. A location recce is for when you have permission of the room and you need to assess it, we had to count the plug sockets available for the lamp we were using and also had to risk asses each room we chose in the result if any accident did occur we would have covered it in the risk assessment. We were fortunate in that we didn't need location forms for the majority of our filming due to the fact that we were filming in public on open roads.The only time we needed to use location forms was when we were filming in Leah's house then of which we had to get her parents to sign a form to say they are O.K. with us filming both inside and outside their house.
