pre production report resubmission
- 1. Unit 1: Pre-Production report Introduction My production is called ‘Absent Minded.’ It is about a girl who wakes up after being attacked the night before, shown by flashbacks. After gaining her consciousness she sees someone walking down the stairs and begins to run up them, after them. She asks the person for help only to find that they do not respond and cannot see to hear her. The person then reacts to something behind her which leads to her turning around and seeing her dead body on the floor. Type of Production My production is a short Thriller film which will be about one minute long. It requires a small crew, a script, a storyboard, one location, make up, equipment and artificial lighting. The film will need around £25 to £30 for the budget which will be spread out between costumes, props and catering. Props will include a metalpole which will be used as the murder weapon; make up will include blood and other make up used to make a dead body look; and catering will be needed on the day in order to keep the cast and crew happy. A number of facilities will also be needed, including, shooting equipment and an editing suit and there will have to be three actors. Finally, there are also a number of permissions in which I will need to get. In a higher budgeted short film, it would come to a lot more money for things like facilities, actors and locations. A usual short film would come to a total of about £653.84 which is extremely high in comparison to my low budget short films. Finance My production will need make up, props, food and equipment which will all need to be put into my budget. My budget is quite small and only comes to about £25-£30. About £5 will be used for makeup. This includes fake blood and general make up which will be used to make the dead body look real. The metal bar will be free from my house and about £20 pound will be used to feed the cast and crew. Feeding the cast and crew will be important as this will ensure that they work for free and therefore I will not have to add them to my budget. Equipment will also be needed. This includes things such as cameras, tripods, boom microphones and editing suits. This, however, will be free to use from the school so none of the budget needs to go towards it. The school will also provide public liability insurance which will be needed before shooting on any location. Locations are another requirement but I will be shooting on free locations and they therefore do not need to be added to my budget. If I was to raise money one of the places in which I could go to would be Kickstarter, who help people sell their ideas to investors in order to fund their project. My budget, however, it quite small so I will probably just pay for the short film out of my own pocket. This will mean that I will not have to undergo any procedures, such as bank loans and pitching to investors, in order to fund my project. Time Another thing which will be important when filming and editing my production is time. If deadlines are missed the whole production will take longer and everything will be pushed along. This means that everything will cost more and the budget will be raised as it means more time booking locations and editing suits and more money will have to be spent on
- 2. actors. To ensure this is kept there will be a very tight production schedule and all of the equipment will be booked in advance to fit this schedule and so will the facilities. Call sheets will have to be given out, everything will have to be done in advance and nobody will be able to miss days as it will take a lot of time and deadlines cannot be missed. To ensure everything goes smoothly I will have lots of deadlines to ensure deadlines are met. This will include a shoot deadline which will ensure there will be more than enough time for editing after the filming is done. There will also be a rough cut deadline so that the rough cut is done in time and there will be more than enough time to properly edit and a final submission deadline which will be the cut off deadline. Lots of soft deadlines will also be put in place in order to keep deadlines. This will ensure that if we go over a deadline, we will still have time before the actual deadline. Many procedures will so be involved to break down the time. The schedules will have to be broken down for filming days. For example, different locations will have to be slit up and deadlines will have to be given for all of them. This, however, will not apply to me as there is only one location in my short film. Days and times will have to be set up in advance. Crew and personnel The production team will be quite small. In terms of crew, it will be made up by three people. The first member will be the producer who will deal with most of the planning for the production. Their job will be to organised the actors, all of the schedules, actor and location release forms. This will include going to the location in advance and pulling off a location recce and risk assessment. They will have to ensure that everything runs smoothly and all of the actors have an experience and skill. The second will be the camera operator who will deal with taking all of the shots. They will produce the short list and storyboard for the production. This means that they must have a good eye and be very talented with the camera meaning they can work all of the settings including pulling in and out of focus, so that all of the footage comes out good. The final person in my production team will be the director. They will deal with a large amount of the work during the shoot. They will direct the actors as this is a very important part within the movie and can help to create affect. This is important when filming a thriller as its important to build suspense. They will also deal with the actions and speech of the production as they will be in charge of writing the script. Then in terms of actors two actors will be needed within the movie. This will include a women and a man. Both of these actors will need a high level of skills. They will need to be able to make the audience feel as if the scene is real and as if it has all happened in real time while putting on a good performance. They will have to be quite experienced in acting but not enough that it will cost a lot of money to hire them. Instead, they will be drama students that will do it purely for the experience. There are a number of places that I look for actors to be in my short film. For example, most actors sign up for agency. Some examples include, total-talent.com, star now and actors centre. These will all help me to find actors that match my requirements. This should cost any money with the acceptance of the money that will be paid towards food. If this were a high budget short film, however, the funds would be very different. For example, to hire an actor, they will pay 50 pounds a day which would be 100 pounds for my production which includes two actors. This higher budget production would budget the film as the actors will be more experienced and willing if they are getting paid. Facilities
- 3. There will be lots of facilities needed if this production is to be a success. This will include shooting equipment such as a camera, a boom microphone, a tripod and artificial lighting and post production facilities such as editing suits. The shooting equipment will all be needed to catch the scene and make it realistic. camera will catch all the action; the boom microphone will catch all of the sound; a tripod will keep the camera steady and the artificial lighting will be used to create mood and meaning to the film. The editing suit will be used to access final cut x and cut all of the footage together. All of this equipment will be provided by the school for free, however, I will use the schools booking system to book the equipment in advance. If this was a higher budget movie, however, all of this would have to be paid for. The price of a camera operator who brought their own equipment would be about £168 pound for a day of filming. There would also have to be a boom operator which would be about 100 pounds for the day. Another thing that would need to be submitted would be an editing suit and editor. The suit would cost no less than 180 pound per day while the editor would cost £105.84 pound for the day. This would all come up to a total of £553.84 just for the facilities. This would be good as everything would be professional but it would cost an extremely higher price for all of the hire. Materials When editing my movie, music will be needed in order to create mood in the movie. However, this is a low budget movie and music cost’s royalties to use in movie. Instead of paying royalties and adding to my budget I will use copy right free music in my movie which costs no money to use and can still create just as much mood within a movie. Another option is to create my own music with the use of logic pro which means I can create an original score which fits my movie but cost nothing to put on my movie. Contributions Talent will also need to be considered when producing my movie as acting can either make or break a movie. Although, the acting will have to be good, the production is very limited as there will be limited money to spend on actors as this is a low budget production. This will mean I will have to find actors will a certain extent of talent but willing to work for nothing. To solve this problem, I will aim to get acting students that are just looking for the experience and willing to work for free. The fact that they are acting students will mean that they will also have some talent. Locations My movie will only use one location as it is only a minute long. The location will need to be quite dim as my movie is a thriller as has a quite dark tone. It will also have to have a stair as that is one of the key aspects of my movie. It will hopefully need to be away from any roads so that the traffic does not interferes with the sound of the movie. The location will also have to be easy to access so that all of the cast and crew can get there easily. Finally, there will have to be a lot of space so that the equipment can easily fit without making the location look to small. To ensure that my location is ideal I will undergo procedures before shooting on the location. First I will go about scouting many locations that fit my description and out of these I will pick to go ahead with at least two of the locations. One in which I will shoot on and one which will be used as a back-up encase something goes wrong. Then for each of the location I will need to contact the local council to seek permission and see if any costs will be involved in using the location.
- 4. I will then go on to visit the locations to make sure that they follow all of my requirements for my movie. I will do this by making a location recce detailing the positive and negative points of the visual aspect of the location. That way if there are any negative points I can either find another location or combat the things wrong with the original location. While I’m there I will have to make a list of all of the risks on that location. This way I can plan how to limit the risks when on set. In a real production location would be paid for so that everything is professional. These would be found on location agencies such as coins street, JJ locations or shoot factory which would give you a data base of lots of locations available for filming and the price it would cost. Codes of practice and regulation There are many things that need to be taken into consideration when organising my production as there are many procedures that will need to be taken care of beforehand. For example, things such as music, explicit violence, imitable behaviour, discrimination, sexually provocative content, union rules, working with children and insurances that need to be considered. To begin with, no copy righted music will be used in my one minute short film and therefore I will not need to go to lengths in order to get permission to use this music. When rating my movie there will also need to be some consideration. My movie probably be rated a 12 so guidelines on age ratings will need to be looked at for my production. For example, although there is violence used within’ my movie, it is not very explicit and barely imitable. It also has no discrimination or sexually provocative content. Therefore, my movie follows the guidelines of a 12 movie. Another thing which will need to be considered is union rules for my staff and minimum payments required. As my movie is for school and very little or no money will be made from it, none of the actors will be paid. Children in my movie will also have to be taken into consideration as children under the age of 13 in this type of sector will have to have a performance licence. They can also only work a maximum of 40 hours a week. This will not be a problem as there are no children within’ my production and therefore the hours is much higher and no performance licence is needed. One final thing that may be needed to be taken into consideration is public liability insurance which needs to be taken out in any kind of production encase someone gets hurt. Fortunately for me, Christ the king pay liability insurance and therefore I do not have to. Conclusion To conclude, my priorities when it comes to requirements for my production considering the fact that all of my equipment include; a good location which fits all of my requirements at a minimal cost; a good cast that are going to improve the quality of my movie for the audience; a strict time schedules that get everything done on time; make up, props and costumes to create mood within’ the movie and catering to keep the actors happy.