Unit 1: Pre-production LO1

Comprehensively explain and present to a quality that reflects near-professional standards fully
detailed requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production
TASK
From all the pre-production you have carried out over the past year you need to pick one
and complete the following task.
You will need to show an excellent understanding of the requirements for the proposed
production and will be able to explain fully why each element is required.
You will give detailed explanations of how these requirements will be sourced and give full
consideration to codes of practice and regulatory issues.
From the table below you need to explain why each element was important to your chosen
production and detail how you would source them.
For example

Finance:
Sources of finance

Type

Equipment
Transport
Talent
Crew
Materials
Facility hire

Importance

Sourcing

Importance
It is important to have finances in place before production starts, as every producer needs to
pay for Equipment used such as Cameras, tripods, green screen, lighting and sound. For an
Advert production for example, a producer may also need materials such correct costumes,
items for correct mise-en-scene and talent in order to fulfil the desired effect. Crew will also be
needed such as cameraman, soundman lighting engineer researchers editors and runners in
order to produce a professional looking advert.
Once all is complete facilities such as editing suits and postproduction equipment will be
needed and these cost a lot of money.
Sourcing
Crew
Crew can be sourced trough websites such as Creative England
http://www.creativeengland.co.uk/index.php/portfolio/locationproduction-support/
Editing suits such as Dynamic post Production
Facility
http://www.dynamicpost.co.uk/index.php/final-cut-pro-suites/ can be
hired for 350 per day. This will include the editor and sound engineer.
Materials can be sourced from high street shops, retail outlets or studio
Materials
Props departments
Transport can be sourced via Transport for London http://www.tfl.gov.uk,
Transport
National Rail http://www.nationalrail.co.uk, hertz car hire etc..
A days travel card in London will cost the producer 12 per person.

List of all items that need detailing

You can either create your own table or upload this one to Weebly and
complete. Either ay, a table like the one below needs to be used.
Finance:
Sources of
finance

Equipment
Transport
Talent
Crew
Materials
Facility hire

Importance
It's always crucial to have finances in place before production starts as every
producer needs to pay for Equipment used such as Cameras, tripods, green
screen, lighting and sound. For an Advert production for example, a producer
may also need materials such correct costumes, items for correct mise-en-scene
and talent in order to fulfil the desired effect. Crew will also be needed such as
cameraman, soundman lighting engineer researchers editors and runners in order
to produce a professional looking advert.
Once all is complete facilities such as editing suits and postproduction equipment
will be needed and these cost a lot of money.

Sourcing
Materials - can be sourced from high street shops, retail outlets or studio Props
departments this is one of the easier parts of sourcing.
Crew - can be sourced trough websites such as Creative England
http://www.creativeengland.co.uk/index.php/portfolio/location-productionsupport/
Editing suits such as Dynamic post Production
http://www.dynamicpost.co.uk/index.php/final-cut-pro-suites/ can be hired for
350 per day. This will include the editor and sound engineer.
Transport can be sourced via Transport for London http://www.tfl.gov.uk,
National Rail http://www.nationalrail.co.uk, hertz car hire etc..
A days travel card in London will cost the producer 12 per person.

Time:

Deadlines
Availability of equipment Availability
of personnel (size of team; roles)

Importance
Deadlines - It is very crucial to stick to your deadline as It can cost a lot of
money or if it Is a Christmas advert it could all be a waste of money If the
advert isnt even ready by Christmas time and cant even be used. Also
deadlines are set by a client or company and they can sue if the producer or
director is just costing them money and wasting time.
Availability of equipment - this is very important obviously if one camera out
of the three is not ready youll either have to source the camera from
somewhere else, use a different camera company or even reschedule the
shoot.
Availability of personnel - a small minute long advert shoot still requires a
large crew of roughly 50 different personnel depending on the advert and this
Is to help stick to the deadline and make everything run smoothly so if there
are a few people missing it can either make life a whole lot more difficult or It
will just take longer for everything to be filmed and the deadline will be
missed so when some people are missing or unavailable then either sourcing
from other places or reschedule obviously if its the entire camera team
unavailable.
Sourcing
N/A
Facilities:
Production equipment
Post-production equipment facility
houses
Importance
Production equipment - without production equipment you have no
production as this includes; cameras, dollys, lighting, cranes, vehicles, radios
and sound equipment. So it is all the sort of stuff that you actually use to make
the production so sorting out these things is definitely first priority next to
personnel.
post production facilities - these are very important to source because without
it once you have finished your production your left with a piece of film which
is too long, has all the bloopers and mistakes, has bad lighting, has poor sound
and all together is rubbish until edited with post production equipment.
Sourcing
http://www.thehireco.co.uk/postproduction.html
http://uk.panavision.com/#
http://www.filmscapemedia.com/?gclid=CjwKEAjwqLWrBRC-_OaGIfL0kASJAAbzKsVc7GaAJV-GqNwYhiO4ORjlQLxfX_IxYYjZi8V7cUhhoCX_Xw_wcB

Materials:

Original materials,
Archive and library materials
Photo-library materials
Sound library materials,
Internet
Audio
Script (upload an example)
Interviews
Costumes

Importance
It is important to have original material because if you copy or use other
peoples material you are then liable to legal punishment by whoever you
basically have stolen from, so this would include researching and checking
backgrounds or stories to make sure they are correct and historically or
mythologicaly correct depending on the genre, and also arent breaching any
rules or regulations.
Archive material would be used because you cant make It to a certain location
to film something at that location so you might use other clips filming either at
that exact location or one very similar. It is essentially using other footage that
you would be unable to film yourself. This can include using similar photos or
sound material that has already been done and Is perfect for your production.
Its not always If you are unable to film or shoot it can just be because it is very
tie efficient and can help for tight deadlines as all you need to do is edit it.
Internet - this Is a very useful aspect as it is a way of researching and finding
Information for pretty much anything nowadays. It can be used to contact
people and message them and also share things you have seen. It is now a huge
aspect of productions in the sense that for pre-production research the
Internet is trawled through to find background and history on that topic or
story. before the internet for preproduction teams of people would be sat
reading books checking stories and talking to people and asking them
questions and trying to extract as much information as possible because you
couldnt find that information from anywhere else.
Audio - sound effects are a very important and thought over part of any
production. if its being recreated it has to be made and thought out in some
depth and some time and effort has to go into creating them because If a sound
effect has been used and sounds rubbish or not realistic then an audience will
instantly judge the entire film on the sound effects quality and that can give the
whole thing a bad look and can make it all unsuccessful.
Script
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Pulp-Fiction.html
the script is very vital for any type of production because either its such a long
story that nobody would be able to remember the entire thing and would have
to improvise now this gives more time to editing because theyll have to edit
out all the thinking time and pauses between conversation.

interviews - interviewing people can either be to gain information needed to

actually make a production usually for true stories you could interview family,
friends or even the person its based on depending obviously on the timeline.
but if its a documentary for example the interview could then be used in the
programme instead of illustrating the story you just show them interviews
that is telling them the story.
Costumes - a very simple thing doesnt have to be as extravagant as dressing
everyone up as dwarves and elves. Its complex enough even if the main
character is just wearing t-shirt, jeans and trainers. Because If they are in the
same clothes for several scenes this could mean filming will take several days.
So the costume department has to make sure very crease or wrinkle in shirt or
stains has to be the same day to day.
Sourcing
Original material is filmed by the director but archive footage for productions
can be found at any online video site e.g. YouTube.
Audio - http://soundbible.com/free-sound-effects-1.html
Script - this can be either be personally written or re used from a previous
script from websites like this. http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/PulpFiction.html
Interviews - can either be made by the director for the production or sourced
from online websites or other production companies.
https://library.creativecow.net/cohen_mike/Shooting-Interviews/1
Costumes - these for such big science fiction or fantasy films they would most
likely make their own costumes to be specific to their film such as; star wars or
lord of the rings they made their specific costumes. But for more simple or
current event style films its a lot easier to buy off the Internet.
http://www.next.co.uk/sale/
http://www.topman.com/?geoip=home
http://www.riverisland.com/
http://www.fancydress.com/costumes/
http://www.joke.co.uk/
Locations:
Recces (Upload an example)
Limitations and risks:
Distance, access, cost, weather
Importance
location recce's - these are very important to use not as much for the person
whos directing or producing but for any cast or crew as they might not know
the location or how to get there or what attributes it has like shelter, power or
dangers.

Limitations and risks: Distance, access, cost, weather - these are quite key to
find out for a production date because all the crew would be from different
locations and different companies. so its important to find out this simple
information for the location as it might be truly different to the places they
come from so they might not know how far away the place is how to get there
due to transportation access the cost to get there depending on distance and
the weather conditions when they get there so this information is for the
benefit of the cast and crew and when they benefit then the production
improves.
Sourcing
Location recce - this can only be done in person by actually going to the place
checking out what It has to offer any advantages or disadvantages. But local
travel can be done online if time dictates. By going online checking local bus
stations, train stations, taxi companies or even airports (for larger productions
normally).
Limitations and risks: Distance, access, cost, weather - this can all be sourced
online using google maps to find out distance routes and how many miles the
journey is then you can figure out the cost of petrol depending on the vehicles.
Local weather can be sourced from any newspaper locally or online which can
be monitored easily at the time.
Codes of
Location permissions
practice and
Clearances
regulation:
Copyright
Health and safety
Insurance
Importance
Location permissions - these obviously for much larger productions are very
Important and very different than just asking politely to film there for the day.
It involves a lot of planning and paperwork to be filled out. Also payment is
usually a large part of it. Why should someone let people film in their building
for free when they can get money for it? Not just buildings but in some
countries or cities there is a tax payment to film in that city alone.
Clearances - this would be a lot easier for romantic or comedy films as all they
will be doing is walking around and filming but proper die hard action films
will find it harder to get their clearances they need if they need to blow up
buildings and crash cars into helicopters. for us we didnt need any as we were

on private land and filmed our very small productions so we had permission to
film what we wanted.
Copyright - Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the
creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited
time. The exclusive rights are not absolute; they are limited by limitations and exceptions
to copyright law

Its important to copyright a production because if Its successful but not

copyrighted another company can make the same film under basically the
same name make just as much money but copyright it.
Health and safety - important to consider and make a big thing about
preparing and considering and this is involved in the location recce and also
risk assessment its a very thought out and concentrated on with the preproduction.
Insurance - insurance covers the cast, crew and all the equipment. With the
larger productions its a very big important legal side of a production. But with
my productions with only one camera, a tripod, three actors and me insurance
wasnt needed apart from the health Insurance that they all have and the
camera is college property so its covered.
Sourcing
Sourcing- in my productions either it was public land, college grounds or we
asked for permission.
But if I wanted to go onto private land or somewhere in London then I just
looked online found the website and It gives me the information I need on who
to contact if I want to film a production.
http://filmlondon.org.uk/get-permission-film
Clearances- for us as we were on college ground we were allowed to film our
quiet productions and if we wanted to make a lot of noise or explosions we
would have had to ask the head teacher through the school email system.
The below only requires you to discuss the importance
(Choose the one that relate to your production only)
Regulatory
bodies:

Ofcom
Press Complaints Commission (PCC)
Advertising Standards Authority
(ASA)
Pan European Game Information
(PEGI)
Entertainment Software Rating
Board (ESRB)
British Board of Film Classification
(BBFC)

Importance
Ofcom - because this Is a song that will be listened to and watched so if the
appropriate warnings havent been given for the song then I wouldve been in
trouble so instead of worrying about making more of an explicit music video I
chose a song that was clean and lacking profanities.

Trade unions:

Producers Alliance for Cinema and

Television (PACT),
National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
Broadcasting Entertainment
Cinematograph and Theatre Union
(BECTU)

Importance
PACT- Pact is the trade association representing the commercial interests of
UK independent television, film, digital, childrens and animation media
companies. Pact helps to shape the best possible regulatory and legislative
environment for the independent production sector to grow domestically and
internationally, the association has a strong record of success in campaigning
for producers rights.
Trade
Entertainment and Leisure Software
associations:
Publishers Association (ELSPA)
British Interactive Media Association
(BIMA)
Importance
British interactive media association (BIMA) - With offices in England,
Scotland, and Wales with our regional representatives spread across the
country BIMA exists to do four key things; Support and promote the British
digital industry, Share knowledge and best practice, Reward great work and
Encourage the next generation. BIMA is dedicated to serving our membership
in the UK and abroad. Locally, we are active in discussions with Government,
leading industry players and other partner associations. Globally, we represent
and champion the UK multimedia industry.