LO1-Understanding the requirments of pre-production

Pre-production is the phase of further developing ideas and planning prior to the process of production. In a live action movie sense it is the period before filming starts. In an animation sense it is the period before any real animating takes place.

Pre-productions gives an overview of the different steps involved in the Pre-production process and how each step helps to develop the final product on which to base the further production stages.

Although there is a general sequence of events to Pre-production it's normal for the various stages to be revisited more than once.

This is because each stage may either reveal a flaw in the work to date or highlight how an aspect of the project could be further developed. Having the insight, discipline and patience to recognise and make changes when appropriate is a key quality for anyone working with animation.  

For feature films, pre-production is more specific and only begins when other milestones have been met such as financing, screenplay, casting and major staffing. In this case pre-production includes:

• Location scouting
• Prop and wardrobe identification and preparation
• Special effects identification and preparation
• Production schedule
• Set construction
• Script-locking (semi-finalisation of the script)
• Script read-through with cast, director and other interested parties

Elements of Pre-Production:

Production schedule: You plan out where you are going film your footage, when you will film if and who you will be filming.

Project concept: You need to fill in a project concept sheet (a brief) in order to sell your production.

Release Form: Once you have finished filming and editing you need to get the actors to sign a release form to say it can be broadcasted.

Risk assessment: Find out what dangers surround where you’re filming, it may be busy traffic or even just an electrical issue either way you must record of risks of where you are shooting.

Running order: this is the running order of a programme how it’s going to plan out.

Single camera shooting script: this is basically a script of all the different camera shots you’re going to use through filming and why.

Tape logging: Time in and time out codes of rough footage.

Legal requirements for Pre-production:
- The right to film
- Actors to sign release forms
- Your footage is not offencive to anyone in anyway
- Making sure you content is authentic
- The right to film on location
- Model releases
- Local permissions
-Legal e.g copyright
- Health and safety
- Insurance
-Advertising Standard authorities.

Different types of production

Documentary: Consisting of, supported by, contained in, or serving as a document or documents. Also designating or of a film, TV program, etc. that dramatically shows or analyses news events, social conditions, etc., with little or no fictionalisation.

News Programme: A subject that's reports on local recent news.

Factual Programme: A subject that is full of information; facts, statistics.

Finance: You have to think about the cost for equipment, transport, talent, crew, materials, facility hire and clearances.

Time: A deadline is the lasted date or time something has to be completed by. Deadlines are important for documentaries, as you need the current information on that topic, this is also important with the news as if all the other news broadcasters have the story and you couldn't as you didn't meet the deadline it will make a bad word for the news team. Availability of equipment is also important for both news and documentaries, as for example in a documentary you saw something that would really make a difference to the documentary and you didn't have the right equipment you would miss out on a opportunity, as well as in news if you didn't have the right equipment and a bomb scare or something along those lines had happened you would also miss out on the opportunity and people watching would change and watch another news channel as you didn't have the information.

The phrase "timescales for clearance" means waiting for clearance from councils.

Personnel:

The Director - The main responsibility of the Director is to come up with the overall vision for the documentary. This should largely be decided at the pre-production stage. It then requires the director to translate this vision into actual shot material. It is their job to ensure that the material the director and his/her team shoot is technically and creatively of a high standard, is truthful, fair, entertaining and is of interest in terms of subject matter or narrative. [£65/hr based on standard per day rate]

Camera Man- films or takes still photos £30 per hour.

Accountant- keeps track of budget, costs. £20per hour. 

Actor- performs in front of the camera. £15+ per hour. 

Audio Technician- records sound and edits it. 

Musician- plays or chooses music to be used. £15 per hour

Narrator- does voice over of content £10 per hour.

Planner- develops production schedule, rents equipment (if necessary).£30 per hour.

Producer- oversees the whole process, procures releases and handles copyright issues. £65 per hour.

Product Editor- edits film, recordings, looks for programming bugs, etc. £100 per hour.

Publicist- creates press releases and the announcement for the Premiere.
Site Coordinator- scopes out and coordinates location(s) for filming, recording. £20 per hour.

Writer- writes all content, scripts, presentations, and accompanying documentation. £30 per hour.

Facilities: Production kit needed is things such as cameras as you will need them to film footage. Also tripods which are stands for the camera helps to film a steady shot, by this I mean it stops a shot being wonky and shaky.  The Computer is used to edit the footage from the camera and edit the audio from the tape recorder and then it is used to edit the whole production and to bring it together.  

As well as them two pieces of equipment you need microphones to record non digenetic and digenetic sounds and things such as background noises. Last of all editing studios and sound studios. Editing studio are needed to edit footage and sound studios are needed to create sound to go with footage they may record voice over’s, add music etc.

The average size of a factual programme production team can vary depending on how big the documentary is. The cost of an average production team can also vary depending on the size and if its an independent or if it’s a big production. 

Materials: Original materials film material. Archive and library material is live footage. Photo library materials pictures taken, sound library is the music we use in our documentary. Script is what we say in our documentary in order from start to finish. Interview is when we will talk to people to see there personal opinion. Recorded music is music we recorded to go in to our documentary.

Contributors: Specialists are people that specialise in a certain area; experts are people that know a lot about a subject, example doctors knew a lot about swine flu. Public is where the public have their own opinion. These are all needed to make a documentary successful,  its more interesting to see a wide variety of views from different people then just one group of the same views.

Locations: A Reece is where you go to the location and find out whether it is suitable for your documentary. The limitations and risked of a production are things such as access, distance, cost, weather these are risks as if you needed to film a action packed car scene but the roads were really icy that would be too dangerous to film. Distance is important you need to know where you need to go to film what and if it’s a realistic idea. Cost, can you afford to pay the cost?

Codes of practice and regulation: Its important to have clearance before you show goes live because it makes sure everything is legal and follows OFCOM regulations.

"Ofcom officially the Office of Communications is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003. Ofcom's focus no longer includes some of the technical standards issues overseen by the previous regulatory"