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 metal pole 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

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

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.

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.