Unit 4: Learning Aim A Report

Pre-Production Report 

In this report I will evaluate the essential pre-production processes that takes place as part of a creative media production, explain, and evaluate all of the advantages and disadvantages of each process. The case studies I have covered is: '‘World War Z’', 'One Mile Away' and 'Monsters'. I have evaluated how poor pre-production can affect the final outcome.

Finance and Budgeting

One of the most important thing when making a media product is having a secure budget and financing. A smaller well managed budget means a larger profit, but you still need to make sure you have enough money to make the media product successful. However, usually a media product that has a bigger budget is more likely to be successful, but it’s not always the case, depending on how well managed your budget is. Media productions can get financing from following models, all models have their advantages and disadvantages. Media producers can get funding from: crowd funding, events, the government, big studios, and ‘World War Z’ used banks. It is more efficient for small community projects to get funding from places such as Kickstarters, crowd funding and small companies. If they didn’t use these methods, the products may have never been made because getting funding from a “Big 6” organisation would have been impossible.

Bigger, 'best picture' media products are more likely going to get funding from bigger organisations, the advantages to this means the producers have a much larger budget means better cast, better special effects, setting and location etc. meaning the media product is more likely to be successful because this attracts a larger audience and is more entertaining. The disadvantages of this is the more money the producers spend the less likely the producers are to make a profit depending on the success of the media product, and the organisations that have funded the media product will be wanting a bigger share of the profit. ‘World War Z’ had a budget of $190 million the media product was funded by Paramount and Skydance (Skydance co-finance and co-produce media products with paramount) Paramount funded the media product because they thought it was going to make a massive profit because Brad Pitt was one of the producers and the main character. Paramount funded the media producers with $125 million but, there were complications, which made the media producers go over budget so the producers had to go back and ask for more money, but the media product was still successful as the producers made $540 million at the box office. So, this was a good decision paramount made to give the media producers more money, and if the producers had not to have given the media producers any more money the producers would have wasted $125 million on an unfinished media product. On the other hand, smaller media productions would not have a budget nowhere near on this scale. Local media producers could get funding from various places such as kick-starters, crowd funding and small companies.

‘One Mile Away’ saurced funding from Channel 4, crowd funding, Britdoc and Kickstarter, this is efficient for small media productions as the producers can get small bits of money from various place which can add up to a large amount. More than 150 kickstarter funded movies have opened theatrically.  It would have been hard for the media producers to get any more funding from the kick starters, Britdoc and Channel 4. So, the producers had to spend their budget wisely as their main goals was not to make a profit but to send a message as it was a documentary the producers were doing rather than a movie. 410 pledges raised £21,033 to help fund the documentary. However, it was still successful in a sense of that it spread an important message among young people, the down side to this is you don’t know what amount of money you’re going to be getting and the production of your media product will revolve around how much money you get. As a result, it’s more difficult to plan out your documentary when it is uncertain if you’ll be getting a large budget or a small budget. When larger media productions can ask for x amount of money and plan their media product accordingly and even though the product won’t be as successful if they ask for more money they can if it was necessary when small media productions don’t have this option.

When Gareth Edwards created ‘Monsters’, he had a bank loan of £500,000 and he could spend the money however he wanted to on the media product. The down side of this is that he would have to pay interest, but it would only be like getting funding from one of 'The Big 6' as you would have to share the profit.  However, He would only be able to pay back the interest if he made the profit he needed, if he had not had made a big profit, he would have been in debt, but he got lucky with making $4.2 million at the box office, but this was still a very big risk he had took. If he hadn’t made back the money he needed, he would be in extreme debt. Before having the lone, he would have had to pitch his idea to the bank to see whether they think it’s good enough and if they think he’s going to be able to pay back the loan. If they didn’t like his idea, they wouldn’t have given him the money. Luckily he earned $4.2 million so he was able to pay back his loan to the bank.

 

In conclusion, there are various ways of funding a media product, but based on how big the media production is, depends on how you budget it. Bigger media productions that are expected to make a massive profit will have funding from 'The Big Six' or organisations that are owned by the media producers. If it is a smaller media production that is expected to not make a very big profit will have funding from smaller independent organisations and from crowd funding. To manage your budget, you will need to story board your media product, decide all the locations, best actors, props and costume, special effects and any other cost, think of a figure and try and get funding in whichever way is suited to your media product. A successful model of good budgeting is Gareth Edwards ‘Monsters’; Edwards had a budget of $500,000 and made $4.2 Million. Gareth does admit he got lucky but he had good pre-production planning skills, which resulted in his low budget successful media product. On the other hand, unsuccessful models of poor budgeting are ‘World War Z’, although it does have a much larger budget and did make a massive $500 million profit so it was successful, it could have been more successful if it had better budgeting. Here is an example of an effective budget plan: https://leadingyourmarriage.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/image1.jpg

Logistics

As a media producer, you need to take into account logistics (the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation) such as props, cast, location, camera equipment, special effects, stunts, deadlines etc. As a media producer, you need to have all these thought out in order to stay within budget, and meet your deadlines.  

Storyboards are extremely important for the production of your media product. They help you decide what props you need, locations, camera shots and help determine a budget. This is one of the first stages you have to take during the process of your production. ‘World War Z’ re-scripted and story boarded elements, which could be one of the reasons this media product was so successful but it could have been more successful if the producers didn’t run out of money. Gareth Edwards ‘Monsters’ was not story boarded because he believed that it was better for the actors to have a natural flow. Nevertheless, this was a huge risk, Edwards was extremely lucky, and the whole media product could have been a waste of time and money.

However, on the other hand, the ‘One Mile Away’ documentary it would have been extremely tricky to create a storyboard so depending on their footage would determine the storyboard. Storyboards can help you plan this out as you can plan what you need as and when you need it. With documentary’s, it is very limited what you can and can’t story board, the story boarding tends to come after the footage has been taken but you can organize a basic outline of what type of footage you’re looking for. Also with story boarding you can decide if these are the best for you production, weather it is watchable and enjoyable for the user. Successful examples of this is ‘World War Z’; the producers would have had careful planning of their story boards, however there was script rewrites and reshoots which delayed the production and cause them to run out of money. This would have been down to the producers perfecting their product to create the maximum movie experience. The better the experience viewers have the larger profit the producers make. As a result, the re-scripting and story boarding was worthwhile as they came out with a good result.

As a media producer of a community project, something you also need to take into account is the cost of props, costume and special effects and setting and location. These all give an impression of the media product and its budget. Higher quality makes the media product more realistic and enjoyable to its audience, you need to make sure you have the right equipment for production and take into account your budget and not unnecessarily over spend so you need to effectively plan your budget and what you're spending it on. ‘World War Z’ had to ask Paramount for money as the producers had ran out from reshoot and rewrites from not effectively planning their budget. The producers got lucky and made an extremely large profit. For some media productions, this may have not been the case.

For example, the media product 'Cutthroat Island' lost $105 million, only making 10% of its budget, after expensive props, loss of 24 crew members and expensive demolition scenes. The producers had exceeded their original budget even before the principal photography had started. This bankrupted their production company, so even though they asked for more money to finish their product it ended up not being worthwhile as they lost millions which could have happened to ‘World War Z’ but luckily they made their profit back.

 Ways you can prevent this is through careful planning and agreeing on a right budget for the type of media product you want, if you do this correctly, you can make a very large-scale profit, if you do this incorrectly, you could lose millions. If you go wrong during the production of a media product and over spend money unnecessarily there's no going back, and you can't give up on your production otherwise the money you had already spent would have been wasted, so you would have to borrow more money from your production company in order to finish your media product. If ‘World War Z’ had managed this more efficiently they may had not blown their original budget and have to ask for money giving them a larger profit.

Cast is extremely important. The quality of the acting, the actors experience, what they look like and what impression they give the media product. It is believed that more expensive, famous actors drive the best motion pictures in Hollywood, because they are much more recognizable. The most successful actors in Hollywood have combined talent, versatility and longevity. However, they will have to be paid much more money besides less famous actors, most of the budget will be spent on just showing one person’s face in order to boost the promotion of the media product; for example, actors like tom cruise or Samuel Jackson n will be paid millions to feature in a media product. When less famous actors will be paid very little. In addition to this, less known, less experience actors can be just as good quality and set just as good impression as a multimillion dollar actor would, and it could save you millions. Every new actor needs to start somewhere to build up their experience – actors such as Jenifer Lorance and changing titan were actors that landed in roles with hardly any experience and are now one of the most recognizable talents. ‘World War Z’ had brad Pitt as the main character, which gave the media product its face and gave it a good impression which could be partly the reason it made 500 million. ‘Monsters’ on the other hand had less known actors, and only made 4.2 million, but in contrast to the media products budget compared to ‘World War Z’ budget (500,000) - (190 million) ‘Monsters’ did extremely well. Subsequently having an unknown actor usually gives the impression that the movie is ‘Cheap’ when they wouldn’t get this if they had a well-known actor.

In conclusion, it is important to have good pre-production planning skills such as story boarding and spending your budget wisely, on things such as cast, props and setting and location etc. in order to give your media product and ideas its full potential. Poor planning and over spending can make it go drastically wrong. Bigger budget does not always mean a media product is going to be incredibly successful, like ‘Monsters’ for example. Therefore, you do not always need a massive budget to be successful 

  Codes of practice/ Regulations

Legal factors that media producers need to considering is whether everything the producers are doing is legal such as, if the producers had everyone permission to media product, if the producers went through a risk assessment, if the producers had permission to media product in certain locations and copy right issues. If the producers don't follow these codes and regulations the producers could possible get into a law suit and have to abandon their media product.

Risk assessment is probably the most important factor. Risk assessments will need to take place to ensure that the actors are in a safe working environment, actors will have stunt doubles to ensure that the producers are not injured during their stunts, however you still need to ensure the safety of the stunt doubles, checks will be taken place to make sure mistakes and danger is minimal. However sometimes there is mistakes and there is danger when the right risk assessments haven't been taken place, for example; A female stunt double, Joi Harris, died on the set of the new Dead pool 2 media product, she had already completed the stunt 4 times and it went dramatically wrong in the 5th attempt. She was doing a motorbike scene and lost control of the bike after there was a fault with it.  But it’s not always stunt doubles that get hurt, There was also  health and safety breaches in the production the Star Wars the force awakens when 75 year old  A-list actor Harrison ford broke his leg after getting his leg trapped in a door which lead to script rewrites and delays.

 These were extremely high budget media products; as a result, the impact of these implications could completely ruin the media products reputation and cost millions on lawsuits. The producers would have to debate whether to include the footage of the actors, weather to rewrite the scripts, reshoot and whether to release the media product at all. When people also find out about what disasters happened on the set, people are not going to be comfortable with watching the media product, which could cost the media producers millions

The best way to avoid this is to make sure you cover all risk assessments and any hazards that may occur. Do not take any risks and always play it safe.

Location is important. It is a big factor for the media product, it sets the scene and creates the atmosphere of the media product and plays a very important role. To use a certain location to media product, you will need permission from the council, especially if you want to be blocking off a road. However, in the UK there are no laws for filming on the streets. Nevertheless, if you are media filming somewhere where you need permission and you are caught it could jeopardise your whole media production so it is better to be safe than sorry. ‘Monsters’ for example did not have permission to media product in the locations the producers used, however this was not brought up and the producers did not get in trouble, probably because it was only a small media production, if their budget however had been larger, like ‘World War Z’ for example this could have been very different. If this would have happened, that means the whole media product would have been a waste of time and a waste of money, but getting permission from the council takes time and would delay production schedule, when you could just do it without permission without anyone ever noticing. Nevertheless, to stay safe it would be better getting permission just so your media product that you have spent a lot of money and time on does not get jeopardised.0

Public liability insurance is the most common type of insurance taken out by small businesses, but with a range of cover options available, it is just as well suited to larger firms. While public liability insurance is not a legal requirement for some businesses, you should be considering it essential if members of the public will be interacting with your production in any way, public liability insurance policy covers your production if someone is injured in some way by your business, or if you damage third party property when carrying out work.  In a working environment, such as media production, it is best to have liability insurance, because there are so many dangerous hazards when working on set, like when getting hurt during stunts or get hurt by props or equipment. If you do not have liability insurance and someone during the production of your media product in hurt, or even something as little as a third party's property is damaged, you could lose thousands.  You could take the risk and save some money on the insurance, as it's not a legal requirement, and there is the chance of nothing getting damaged or getting hurt, but there is always that risk if what if some doesn't get hurt, or so me property does get damaged, it's not worth losing thousands.

In conclusion; in order to produce your media product in the most effective way is to follow the regulation to a T. always have permission to media product and always check for health and safety concerns, always have liability insurance despite it not being legally required just in case any property broke or any one is hurt. All of these factors take risks and you could lose thousands or millions if anything goes wrong, so it is always best to follow the codes and regulations for the best intentions and benefit for your media product. Here is an example of a risk assessment plan: https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/images/ase-rm-riap-table1.jpg

Pre-production documentation

 Pre-production is essential to media product making, without it you can run over time, go over budget, and even have missing content. Story boarding, looking for location, looking for cast etc. these are all crucial step to the success of your product

Script is very valuable to the documentation of the pre-production. Script breakdowns are essential to make sure you have all the right locations, cast, props etc. In addition, you can decide whether your creative ideas and thoughts have a good impression and are good enough to actually make a media product out of, because you don't want to make a media product that doesn't have a very good impression despite having all the good pre-production skills. It is very important to go over every single detail in the script to determine a budget and schedule. ‘World War Z’ had a script rewrite because of "creative issues" which pushed the budget from $120 million to $190 million. The result of this also delayed there production process, if the producers had got it right first time, the media product would have been done quicker and the producers would have had a bigger profit, however the media product still made 500 million which is an outstanding amount. If you do not cover all the details and breakdown your script, you could have delays and over spend unnecessarily.  It’s important to go over and check everything so your media product reaches its full potential. Mistakes such as delays in scripting and creative issues could cost you millions. However, for documentary’s it is a different case. You cannot script our documentary as its real life people with real life events. You need to get your footage first then story board it, but this could be at an advantage to the producers as the footage would look less fake and more unexpected which could grab the viewers’ attention more.

Shot list is when you shot by shot break down every single scene and create an analysed and detailed description of it. You will write down details such as framing, camera movement, focal length and location. This will give your media product a sense of direction, the shot list describes the shots that will be used in principle photography. The purpose of shot listing is to make sure every single part of the script is assigned a shot. Shot lists are just brainstorms between the director and cinematic photographer where the producers make a collaboration of images and decide on the best way to visualise the shots. Shot listing is important as it is an effective way of determined what is the best camera shots and angles, locations and props for your visualised scene.  ‘World War Z’ started their pre-production back in April 2011, and principal photography began in July 2011.  This only took a couple of months and it would have only run so smoothly because of shot list determining the best shots for the principal photography to happen. If you do not create shot list. It would be muncher harder to get the right locations, props and shot types etc. if there is no shot list you might not get your media product to its full potential so shot listing it very effective.  More successful media products would have had careful shot listing skills, media products that had poor shot listing skills or did not bother to are more likely to be unsuccessful because scenes, props, camera angles and locations would not have been as well thought out.

Pre-production process

The pre-production process is the order everything goes in such as schedule, shot listing, principle photography, budgeting and finding a location. Pre-production begins once the product has been green lit. This is the stage finalising preparation for the production go into effect. The financing will be confirmed and all the key elements will be put into place such as cast, principle photography, director and cinematographer.

The cinematographer or (Director of photography) is he chief of the camera and light crews that are working on the media product. They are responsible for the artistic decisions made on an image. In some media productions, the cinematographer has full responsibility in relation to the director but in some, they have little to none. Getting the right images for your production is vital. It creates the entire production.     

During pre-production process the script is broken down into individual scenes, storyboards are made and all the props, locations and identify the media producers. Then an extremely detailed schedule is processed. This is a key point in the pre-production process. This help to identify that you have all the props that are needed, perfect location for the scenes and right cast. Story boarding also helps this as it visualises it. For example, Brad Pitt secured the rights for the film back in 2007 with his production group Plan B entertainment. The script was re-written in 2009, filming began in 2011 and the movie was released June the 2^nd 2013. So there was a total of 4 years of production.

Conclusion

 I have identified why you need to take steps such as story boarding, shot listing, principle photography and scripting etc. Key features that are vital to a small community project is getting your budget from the right places. Funding from Kick starters and small companies can contribute little but can be combined to make a large budget. Kickstarters a good for small community projects as it’s made up of donations, and doesn’t require a shared profit. But the downside to this is that it is unpredictable how much money you will get this, you could get a lot of money to little to none. But I would recommend this to small media productions that won't be able to get funding from big organisations. The key to getting a sufficient amount of money from your kick starters is to promote your product efficiently like ‘One Mile Away’ for example.  Your key priorities during the pre-production should be: scripting, story boarding and risk assessments. Storyboarding puts all the shots in place and helps you identify what cast you need, props, and helps you develop a script. A script is vital to your production and helps you identify the key elements of your production. Script break downs help you identify you have everything that’s needed for your product and helps you identify a budget.  Risk assessments are vital. If anything goes wrong during the production of your product you could potentially be sued millions and ruin the reputation of your product, therefore it is important to check for any hazards that could be harmful to you, your cast or stunt doubles.  Overall you should take into my account my recommendations from this report to get your media production to its full potential. However, some media producers don’t always follow the codes and recommendations and still come out successful – like Gareth Edwards ‘Monsters’ for example, overall it’s better to be safe than sorry rather than relying off luck because it can always go extremely wrong.

Reference list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_(2010_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_(2010_film)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/313414227/one-mile-away
http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/industries/tv-film/tv-film-case-studies/tv-film-case-one-mile-away