We created a low
budget 90 second short film. This film was set as one of our assessments. We
are sending this in for Depict. Our video is a mixture of playing on games and
comedy. We will present our work by uploading it on Youtube and Depict website
however professional companies will present their films through various
different ways; for example through the cinema, in shops on DVD, on Netflix and
on television . We could have chosen various types of genre; for example
horror, romantic, chick flick or documentary.
There are hundreds
of grants that can give you money to produce a film. If you already have an
audience and know your demographic you can gain your funding through them. An
example of this type of funding is a film which is currently in production
called The Drowning of Arthur Braxton.
This film is being produced by Luke Cutforth, who created his audience by
uploading videos to YouTube. He then asked the audience to donate money to him
via a crowd funding site. This means he is able to create a film which will be
aimed at that audience. In return for donating the fans got rewards, such as
him following them on Twitter and the chance to meet him. What they receive
depends on what they donate. Other ways of gaining enough to create a film is
by going to grants for example there is one called Independent Lens, which is a
grant for documentary films and is a limited time grant.
This photo shows the producer of the film mentioned above
whom I met at summer In the city, London. Which was a YouTube event.
Even with a grant it is still extremely difficult to gain
this amount of money. To create this film we didn’t use any money. If we were a
professional company we would have had to spend a lot more even if it was a low
budget film. In order to create a film you are required to spend a lot of money
on a lot different jobs, software and equipment. You will require to employees
to work with you. You require someone to help with the drawing of the story
boards, editors and camera operators. How much of the production you want to do
yourself will dictate how much you will need to spend on hiring people. You also need to pay a lot of money for
equipment. You will need a digital editing
workstation, which is basically a laptop or computer which has the correct
editing software on it. You can use a
cheaper computer for this, however the computer may struggle with the size of
the software which is required. There are hundreds of editing programs; some are
free, for example Windows Movie Maker. However, Windows Movie Maker is not as advanced
and it is extremely simple compared to software which you can pay for. Some
examples of paid software is Premiere, which is the software we used to create
our film. The BBC occasionally uses this software to edit. Another example is
Final Cut Pro; this is the software in which BBC mainly use.
Secondly,
you need a camera to film. You can use a cheap camera, however your quality of
footage won’t be very good. For the camera you will need a memory card and how
much footage you need to film will dictate the size of the memory card that you
will need. The bigger the size of the memory card the more expensive it is. You
will also need a microphone because the ones which are inside a camera don’t
have the best quality, especially for long distance recording or if you are
recording outside. This was an issue we found with the microphone we were using.
You could not hear the dialogue over the sound of the wind. The microphone
which is normally used in the industry is a shotgun microphone which is on a
boom pole. The shot gun microphone records the sound which is coming from the
direction its pointing in. This can still give you the problem of picking up
noises which you do not want in the film. For example when I was being filmed
for the One Show we kept picking up
the noise of my mum’s guide dog snoring next to my mum when they were trying to
interview her. This is because this microphone is very sensitive to noise.
Using this microphone you have to watch that you are not creating shadows of it
with the amount of lighting which you are using. The boom pole which the mic is
held on is expensive, however you can create a cheaper one by creating your
own. To solve our problem of the wind we could have used a muff/windscreen
which is like a cover for the microphone to help stop the scratchy muffled
sound of the wind allowing other sounds to be able to reach the mic. Another
part of equipment is a Steadicam which is very expensive however is not an
absolute must have. Instead of using one of these you can use a tripod however
a tripod is stationary. A Steadicam sits on the camera person’s shoulder and
keeps the camera steady. The camera operator can move around a lot (for example
jump up and down) and the camera will still be in the same place. A cheaper, less effective way to do this is
by folding all three tripod legs in and holding it by the legs. 
You need a
lot of lighting to film, which can also be very expensive. Lighting helps set
the mood. There are hundreds of different types of lighting which you can
use. A common one people use is a soft
box which you can buy online from about £20. You can also use a ring light
which is a light which goes around the camera; these are more expensive than
soft boxes. Lastly, some of your viewers may find it difficult to access your
film. It a good idea to make it accessible by paying for your film to have
subtitles and audio description. This will help widen your audience, because it
makes it accessible to more viewers.
For our depict film we used a DSLR camera to film on with a
memory card to store the footage on. We used a tripod to keep the camera still
in shots and between shots. It could have been better if we had got a shot gun
microphone or at least a windscreens. We didn’t have to use lighting as we
filmed outside meaning we used natural light. This however meant that the
screen kept going lighter and darker as the sun kept going in and out.
In low budget films you would only have the crew necessary to
create the film, however there is still a lot of crew members. For example the camera man who is in charge of
the camera and does all the filming. Editors who do all the editing, production
secretary who is like the receptionist for the production, story board artist,
line producer, lighting assistant, sound editor, props designer/producer,
special effect crew, cast director and location manager. These are the most
important roles when you’re filming, which are the roles you probably wouldn’t
be able to produce a film without. You only use the roles that are necessary,
because you only have limited money.
For a television program the crew members are very similar to
a low budget film. You need a producer who co-ordinates and supervises all the
processes in making the show. A director who directs everything from actors to
lighting to where the show will be shot. You need someone to decide what is
going to be said even for a TV show this is the screenwriter job. To create a TV show you may need to use
different locations depending on the show therefore you need a location manager
who works with the director to decide the locations. The location manager then
has to gain the permission to film on that location. The boom operator (boom
swinger) is the person who is in charge of operating and positioning the
microphone. The make-up designer designs and applies the makeup for the people
who are going to be in front of the camera.
This does depend on the type of TV program.
A Hollywood feature film has a lot more roles, this is
because they have more money meaning they can have more employees. This means
they have jobs which are not as important to have. For example a chef or a
cleaner. In Hollywood feature films they tend to have a lot more celebrities
and less unknown actors which means they need to also hire a lot more stunt
doubles.
To choose roles we discussed what sort of actors we would
need and who out of us wanted to do which role. For example, I decided I wanted
to be in front of the camera, however didn’t want to speak a lot of
dialogue. We decided this meant the
guard was the perfect role for me. I have had similar experience of this at
high school because I studied GCSE drama. I have also had experience of being
behind the camera because the media find me and my family extremely
interesting. In the pre-production work we decided for me to do the risk assessment.
This was because I had to complete a risk assessment at my work experience. We
also chose me to write the script, because I did GCSE drama meaning I have had
experiences with scripts before.
There are many different contributors who work alongside the
crew. This includes people who have to set up the equipment and the props ready
to film. Also there are also people like the chef or the outfit and make up
designers.
Our time frame was two weeks for filming then we had two
weeks to edit. We struggled to stick to this time frame, because we were
filming in the winter and we needed it to be sunny. This became a problem as it
was constantly raining. We also had difficulty arranging a meeting time that
all of us could make. This is because we all had different free time at
college. This meant filming took slightly longer than anticipated. In the media
industry deadlines can be very close.
Reference:
Film.vic.gov.au/_data/assets/pdf_file/0010/4897/crew-roles-and-department
Bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/production/cast-and-crew#role
