Although I focused on doing a short film there are multiple types of moving image media products such as adverts, webisodes, animation and feature length films. These can be distributed in many ways such as physical distribution to cinemas, adverts or even on demand services such as Netflix where you can stream media and video.
When making any production there are certain requirements that money should be spent on like the cast and crew, transport, props, costumes, studios, filming equipment, editing software, locations cost and insurance. when making my Depict project I did not have to spend much money on or obtain many things to create the short as we didn't have any funding although in order to get the funding like many others do for their film, television or other moving image productions I could have tried multiple sources for finance.
I could have started up a kickstarter, which is a public-benefit corporation that has built a global crowd funding platform focused on creativity the company's stated mission is to help bring creative projects to life, you put out your idea and say how much money you need to raise and if people like it they can give you donations. Another way you could get funding is from mega corporations for example Warner Bros. studio will receive $450 million in funding from RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC to finance as many as 75 films as this may be a lot harder to gain funding from for a small production, investors may be a more achievable option. For example Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures has backed not just its pair of Oscar contenders, that reportedly cost $80million (£52million) combined, but a raft of films involving well known actors like Brad Pitt and Gary Oldman, these are just a couple of examples though you could get grants from private properties, lottery funding or even competitions.
The production team that work in media production can be as little as a five person crew otherwise known as a skeleton crew for a low budget short to over 200 people on a television program and then several hundred people working on a Hollywood feature film although the general framework is about the same with different sections being worked on by either a single person to 500. For example visual effects or special effects on a short film man be as little as one person doing all the work or the crew for a TV program may only need about 5 people doing the same amount of work yet on a feature film because of the length and popularity they would need a lot more people working on it to get it done the same could be said for the art department, costume and wardrobe, sound department, camera and electrical although for a television program or a Hollywood feature film you may have this basic setup and many more as they are producing something bigger in numbers so a low budget short may not have this but an ambitious television program or feature film would have a cast focused on transportation or even stunts. The following are links to lists of the full cast and crew of a low budget short; called Dear Albion, A television program; Ashes to Ashes, a Hollywood feature film; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
There are various people that may contribute to the production of a media text in addition to the crew for example you have Production accountants who manage the money ensuring everybody gets paid and that the production comes in on budget and even they are usually assisted by other people such as clerks (assistant accountants) so they have quite a big and very important role withing the crew as without them the production could go well over budget and be unable to pay the workers what they should be earning. Another example would be people who deal with locations such as location managers, location scouts or on larger budget productions you may have location production assistants between them these people guarantee the permission of using the location for filming by getting in contact with the appropriate people, do most of the research, footwork and photography to document possibilities within the location as well as prepping the set days in advance to get it set up ready for the following days of recording. another very important role would be the scrip supervisor who keeps track of what parts have been filmed as well as producing notes of shots and scenes and makes ensure continuity between shots, if there is a problem they address it immediately. This just shows how important people ,other than the production crew, who might not get as much acknowledgement really are in order to make a product of media text.
With any media production you are going to be given time frames and deadlines to stick by and for my DepicT project I was given a maximum of three weeks to have the final piece produced for the recording we took a week and a half to get it done and the remainder of the time to edit it together successfully meeting the deadlines that were set in class. When you do not meet these deadlines in the professional media industry there can be some bad consequences and throwbacks for example if you are out of time to produce an episode of a television show then you wont be able to fit into the schedule and get the episode aired when planned not only that but this can also have damaging effects on finance as in an extreme case there is the possibility of being sued if you signed a contract and was unable to keep to deadlines another way this would impact money is because you would have to keep actors for more days costing you more money that you have to pay them as well as money for the filming equipment, if the script is not meeting the deadlines then they may have to hire more people to get the script writing process done faster as well as having possible personal effects like you getting fired and it possibly effecting you reputation making it more difficult to get hired again.
When obtaining equipment in professional moving image productions you can either buy or rent it from a professional media facility house, which can provide all sorts of services such as: studio hire, film crews and kit, promotional video production, live and event video production, web video encoding, DVD authoring, DVD duplication, web publishing and rich media. These can all be found on the online rate card of the company you choose for example Video Production London which is linked here : http://www.videoproductionslondon.com/rates
For the company Video Production London some of their non-package rates include: a camera man for £295 working half a day or £395 per day, an editor for £195 for half a day or £295 per day, an encoder for £50 per hour or £295 per day
Some costs for the equipment you may want to buy or rent can be seen on the right and is from the website BECTU where you can obtain equipment for all sorts of productions (linked below)
When making any production there are certain requirements that money should be spent on like the cast and crew, transport, props, costumes, studios, filming equipment, editing software, locations cost and insurance. when making my Depict project I did not have to spend much money on or obtain many things to create the short as we didn't have any funding although in order to get the funding like many others do for their film, television or other moving image productions I could have tried multiple sources for finance.
I could have started up a kickstarter, which is a public-benefit corporation that has built a global crowd funding platform focused on creativity the company's stated mission is to help bring creative projects to life, you put out your idea and say how much money you need to raise and if people like it they can give you donations. Another way you could get funding is from mega corporations for example Warner Bros. studio will receive $450 million in funding from RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC to finance as many as 75 films as this may be a lot harder to gain funding from for a small production, investors may be a more achievable option. For example Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures has backed not just its pair of Oscar contenders, that reportedly cost $80million (£52million) combined, but a raft of films involving well known actors like Brad Pitt and Gary Oldman, these are just a couple of examples though you could get grants from private properties, lottery funding or even competitions.
The production team that work in media production can be as little as a five person crew otherwise known as a skeleton crew for a low budget short to over 200 people on a television program and then several hundred people working on a Hollywood feature film although the general framework is about the same with different sections being worked on by either a single person to 500. For example visual effects or special effects on a short film man be as little as one person doing all the work or the crew for a TV program may only need about 5 people doing the same amount of work yet on a feature film because of the length and popularity they would need a lot more people working on it to get it done the same could be said for the art department, costume and wardrobe, sound department, camera and electrical although for a television program or a Hollywood feature film you may have this basic setup and many more as they are producing something bigger in numbers so a low budget short may not have this but an ambitious television program or feature film would have a cast focused on transportation or even stunts. The following are links to lists of the full cast and crew of a low budget short; called Dear Albion, A television program; Ashes to Ashes, a Hollywood feature film; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
low budget short
a television program
Hollywood feature film
We allocated work in our very small group based on how much experience or knowledge they had in that area, for example we had one person who did a large amount of editing for photography previously so was already familiar with the editing software we were going to used so he did the main editing and was also assigned as the main actor as he was comfortable taking on multiple tasks, we also had another person in our group who had previous experience working with cameras so he took control of the recording and I did a lot of planning and pre-production work focusing on continuity, I also worked with the cameras to gain more experience with them.
There are various people that may contribute to the production of a media text in addition to the crew for example you have Production accountants who manage the money ensuring everybody gets paid and that the production comes in on budget and even they are usually assisted by other people such as clerks (assistant accountants) so they have quite a big and very important role withing the crew as without them the production could go well over budget and be unable to pay the workers what they should be earning. Another example would be people who deal with locations such as location managers, location scouts or on larger budget productions you may have location production assistants between them these people guarantee the permission of using the location for filming by getting in contact with the appropriate people, do most of the research, footwork and photography to document possibilities within the location as well as prepping the set days in advance to get it set up ready for the following days of recording. another very important role would be the scrip supervisor who keeps track of what parts have been filmed as well as producing notes of shots and scenes and makes ensure continuity between shots, if there is a problem they address it immediately. This just shows how important people ,other than the production crew, who might not get as much acknowledgement really are in order to make a product of media text.
With any media production you are going to be given time frames and deadlines to stick by and for my DepicT project I was given a maximum of three weeks to have the final piece produced for the recording we took a week and a half to get it done and the remainder of the time to edit it together successfully meeting the deadlines that were set in class. When you do not meet these deadlines in the professional media industry there can be some bad consequences and throwbacks for example if you are out of time to produce an episode of a television show then you wont be able to fit into the schedule and get the episode aired when planned not only that but this can also have damaging effects on finance as in an extreme case there is the possibility of being sued if you signed a contract and was unable to keep to deadlines another way this would impact money is because you would have to keep actors for more days costing you more money that you have to pay them as well as money for the filming equipment, if the script is not meeting the deadlines then they may have to hire more people to get the script writing process done faster as well as having possible personal effects like you getting fired and it possibly effecting you reputation making it more difficult to get hired again.
When obtaining equipment in professional moving image productions you can either buy or rent it from a professional media facility house, which can provide all sorts of services such as: studio hire, film crews and kit, promotional video production, live and event video production, web video encoding, DVD authoring, DVD duplication, web publishing and rich media. These can all be found on the online rate card of the company you choose for example Video Production London which is linked here : http://www.videoproductionslondon.com/rates
Some costs for the equipment you may want to buy or rent can be seen on the right and is from the website BECTU where you can obtain equipment for all sorts of productions (linked below)
Video production London is the closest facility house to me (the website is already linked in the third paragraph above this) although for my short we had many pieces of equipment available to us for free which was provided by the college. For filming I acquired a tripod, camera and a shoulder mount and if needed we had available to us a filming studio, lighting and a small array of props.
For my short film we filmed on Gorleston recreation ground, the inside of the forest next to it and on the path of Church Ln we picked these three locations by seeing what places would be fitting to the story we were trying to tell and these were decided on as we thought they would be the most convenient to film on as everyone needed for the film was able to get to them easily not only that but they were close to the college which is were we borrowed our equipment. We got these locations by doing a location recce, which is where you visit a location and asses the suitability of shooting there, and then we completed location release form, which states the dates of when a location will be used, and is an acknowledgement of liability, we went about securing these locations legally by contacting the police through our teacher, although other times you may have to contact the council of the local area to gain permission to film there. We faced a few logistical issues such as audio being muffled by the sound of wind and passing cars although this could have been overcome by filming the audio separately to the film and editing it in afterwards, another logistical issue we faced was the absence of the main actor on a few occasions but to overcome that we focused on our pre-production paperwork so everything would still be able to be done on time.
In addition to crew and cast there are various types of materials that may be needed in order to create a production like props, costumes, visual footage, graphics (titles), script, sound - creative commons. when using certain materials there are a few financial things that you should be considering one of these is copyright 'the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.' another thing you should be careful of is insurance if you have this then if there are any accidents or breakages then it will be paid for but if you do not have insurance then you will have to pay out of pocket and lastly cost of making material.
There are legal considerations when using certain materials in a media production such as not infringing copyright, if you infringe copyright you have to pay the actual monetary amount of damages and profits as well as all attorney fees and court costs however you can ask for permission to use or purchase the rights to use the property this effected my Depict! production as I was then unable to use any copyrighted material. When you wish to use copyrighted material you can get the permission to use it with a licence (which usually gives you limited right) or gain complete right over the the material through a transfer, this is called clearance. Another thing you will need is public liability insurance, this protects you if a member of the public of someone you are working with gets personally injured of if property is damaged due to your company should this happen the insurance can take care of expenses that can be caused by the damage. Another type of insurance you may want to obtain is a completion guarantee this is offered by a completion guarantor company that is often used in independently financed films to guarantee that the producer will complete and deliver the film to the distributor.
Regulatory body is a government agency and what they do is monitor what is being broadcast on media networking and removing anything that is considered sensitive material and protecting the public from seeing it. Ofcom is the uk's communications regulator and its function as said by them is as follows "We regulate the TV, radio and video on demand sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate." you can find more information on this with the following link: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/what-is-ofcom
For my short film we filmed on Gorleston recreation ground, the inside of the forest next to it and on the path of Church Ln we picked these three locations by seeing what places would be fitting to the story we were trying to tell and these were decided on as we thought they would be the most convenient to film on as everyone needed for the film was able to get to them easily not only that but they were close to the college which is were we borrowed our equipment. We got these locations by doing a location recce, which is where you visit a location and asses the suitability of shooting there, and then we completed location release form, which states the dates of when a location will be used, and is an acknowledgement of liability, we went about securing these locations legally by contacting the police through our teacher, although other times you may have to contact the council of the local area to gain permission to film there. We faced a few logistical issues such as audio being muffled by the sound of wind and passing cars although this could have been overcome by filming the audio separately to the film and editing it in afterwards, another logistical issue we faced was the absence of the main actor on a few occasions but to overcome that we focused on our pre-production paperwork so everything would still be able to be done on time.
In addition to crew and cast there are various types of materials that may be needed in order to create a production like props, costumes, visual footage, graphics (titles), script, sound - creative commons. when using certain materials there are a few financial things that you should be considering one of these is copyright 'the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.' another thing you should be careful of is insurance if you have this then if there are any accidents or breakages then it will be paid for but if you do not have insurance then you will have to pay out of pocket and lastly cost of making material.
There are legal considerations when using certain materials in a media production such as not infringing copyright, if you infringe copyright you have to pay the actual monetary amount of damages and profits as well as all attorney fees and court costs however you can ask for permission to use or purchase the rights to use the property this effected my Depict! production as I was then unable to use any copyrighted material. When you wish to use copyrighted material you can get the permission to use it with a licence (which usually gives you limited right) or gain complete right over the the material through a transfer, this is called clearance. Another thing you will need is public liability insurance, this protects you if a member of the public of someone you are working with gets personally injured of if property is damaged due to your company should this happen the insurance can take care of expenses that can be caused by the damage. Another type of insurance you may want to obtain is a completion guarantee this is offered by a completion guarantor company that is often used in independently financed films to guarantee that the producer will complete and deliver the film to the distributor.
Regulatory body is a government agency and what they do is monitor what is being broadcast on media networking and removing anything that is considered sensitive material and protecting the public from seeing it. Ofcom is the uk's communications regulator and its function as said by them is as follows "We regulate the TV, radio and video on demand sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate." you can find more information on this with the following link: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/what-is-ofcom
Some aspects of the BBC are regulated by outside bodies Ofcom also regulates some other aspects of the BBC, for example the BBC is covered by Ofcom's Fairness Code although this is different to ofcom as they are being held to a different standard on accuracy and impartiality. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is an independent, non-governmental body and its function is to classify cinema films and videos/ DVDs (since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984).
When distributing moving image products via the internet there are no legal regulations although things that are already illegal in the UK are still illegal online but due to the large amount of created content (from all areas of different countries) it is extremely difficult to monitor them. Ofcom have set regulations for products distributed which are broke down into different sections these are: protecting the under-eighteens, harm and offence, crime-disorder-hatred-abuse, religion, due impartiality and due accuracy, elections and referendums, fairness, privacy, commercial references on tv, commercial communications on radio for more information on these different sections click the link to the right: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code
The bbfc also have a number of regulations but there are two key principles, laid out in the Guidelines, under which they operate: to protect children and vulnerable adults from potentially harmful or otherwise unsuitable content and to empower consumers, particularly parents and those with responsibility for children, to make informed viewing decisions. Again for more detailed information on these guidelines click the following link: GUIDELINES
The bbfc also have a number of regulations but there are two key principles, laid out in the Guidelines, under which they operate: to protect children and vulnerable adults from potentially harmful or otherwise unsuitable content and to empower consumers, particularly parents and those with responsibility for children, to make informed viewing decisions. Again for more detailed information on these guidelines click the following link: GUIDELINES
It is clear to see there are many regulations in place but due to the fact there is so much media out there it is very hard to monitor them all for example in my Depict project there is a short scene where on of the actors swear, this could go against some of these guidelines and regulations as people may find it offensive the extent of offence may vary according to age, gender, race, background, beliefs but because of that it may be taken down in some countries and not in others.
A trade union is an organisation made up of members and its membership must be made up mainly of workers one of a trade union's main aims is to protect and advance the interests of its members in the workplace they are important because unity is strength and unions negotiate better terms and conditions as well as this there are 50% fewer accidents in unionised workplaces local safety reps deal with issues ranging from stress and mental health issues to hazardous substances. PACT and BECTU are both trade associations that support their members with legal and business affairs advice and support, as well as a wide range of services and campaign work. BECTU specifically provides a wide range of services to its circa 25,000 members, including:
- Negotiating pay, conditions and contracts with employers
- Personal advice and representation for individual members
- Advice and representation on health and safety
- Benefits and services for BECTU members
- Training support and courses
- Networking events and career development opportunities
- Union journal, Stage Screen and Radio, published six times a year.
- Website designed to improve access to the union's advice and support.
A trade association is an organization backed by businesses that operate in a specific industry they participate in things like advertising, education, political donations, lobbying and publishing, but its focus is collaboration between companies they may offer other services like producing conferences, networking or charitable events or offering classes or educational materials. Many associations are non-profit organizations governed by bylaws and directed by officers who are also members.
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