The document discusses various pre-production techniques for a student media project, including defining different types of financing options like self-financing, employer financing, and crowdfunding; identifying necessary roles for a small production team; and considering location options and their limitations or risks. Proper planning of financing, personnel, equipment needs, and locations is emphasized to ensure successful completion of the project within budget and deadline.
2. Finance
Definitions for each of the term:
• Self Financed
This is when you finance yourself with your own money to start your business or project
off. There is no external grants or aids included. An example of a self-financed company
would be a freelance photographer or director, they would pay for their own equipment
and organise the release forms for the location and model.
• Employer/Client Financed
This is an employer/client who provides the money for a project in which they get
benefits from. This allows the hired company to complete the briefed product. A
employer/client financed company would be a catering company who will be given a
brief and they will be given the money by the client to complete the project.
• Kickstarter
This is a world wide website that allows media companies to request money from the
public to make a specific product. For example, Pickup Films who are a third year crew
studying Film & TV Production at York St. John University. They have already run a
successful Kickstarter campaign for a previous film called Project Venture and this time
they are using the website to help fund a pilot for a crime drama web series. This is
successful, you can see on the website their goal and their achievements. Pickup Films
have reached their goal of £1,000 and have currently been backed £1,090.
3. Finance
Which source of funding will be most likely for your production and why?
The source of funding that we would most likely be using would be self-finance. It
is not a huge project as we do not need to spend finances on hiring experts to
cook the food or hire a specialist to decorate/prepare the food to be
photographed. Being a self-financed company for this project will be enough for us
to get all our equipment under a low budget. If the project was to grow and more
people were needed to be hired then client/employer finance would be the next
financial way of producing the project.
Advantages
More independent, and if the project is successful more of the profit goes to
yourself. It is a good way of financing yourself if it is a small project as not a lot of
money will need spending to get you started. No fees need to be paid to other
experts.
Disadvantages
Uses your own money, if the project fails you could have lost out. You do not have
as many connections to investors and people with skills you may need.
4. Finance
Explain the aspects of your production that could require finance.
An aspect of the project that would require finance would firstly be the ingredients
and equipment to cook the recipe to show the audience on the card what they can
achieve when cooking from the recipe cards. This could be one of the most
expensive aspects in producing the recipe cards. The option of bringing in a
catering expert would boost the finance up a lot, maybe more than needed, so
when producing the recipe cards we will need to think if it is worth it.
Another aspect of the project that will require finance will be from printing the
recipe cards. The cost can go up depending on the card used and if the cards will
be laminated or have a glossy or matte effect to them. Because we are a self-
financed company it will have an effect on what we can afford and the connections
to equipment we can use to produce different effects.
5. Time
What methods could you employ to ensure you stick to your deadlines and why
would this be beneficial to your project?
Using examples from your own experiences can help you add detail here.
A method which which you can employ to ensure you stick to deadlines is a schedule. With
a schedule this allows you to write down by date and time what you will be planning to
do and when. You are able to list each task that needs to be done, and stick to times
which tasks need to be finished by this allows you to stick to deadlines. This is beneficial
to this project because I will be able to note down what tasks I need to do by when.
This is a very fast moving project and sticking to deadlines is important so I don’t get
behind in the work and I will be able to keep up with tasks. This way will allow
organisation so work I can complete tasks on time.
In the last few projects that we have completed I have used a schedule to guide me
through. This made work easier to complete because I could follow what task and did
and when I should of finished what task and move on to the next one. Particularly in
the Graphic Narrative project I found a schedule most useful in this. It give me an idea
of what I needed to do each day and this organised my work and made it run a lot
smoothly in production as I knew that I needed to finish a page six by the end of one
lesson and start another page by the next lesson etc…
6. Time
What is contingency time and how might this be beneficial to your project?
Considering some general risks to your project could help you give a more detailed
response.
Contingency time is when you give yourself time to sort out problems if something in
your project goes badly wrong and it needs to be sorted out. This is beneficial to
my project because if I give myself time at the end of the production for example a
few spare days right at the end these days will be there for if anything goes badly
wrong and this is giving me the time of a few days to get this sorted. Problems that
could occur could be like losing a memory stick with work on which I have not
uploaded to my blog yet. This has been an issue with people in the past so if this
happened I would need to give myself contingency time to sort this out and redo
the lost work. Another issue that could occur is that if I am using a model they
could not turn up on the day and this would be an issue as then I wouldn’t have a
model for my images and we wouldn’t be able to shoot. I would need to create
contingency time to sort out this problem which would mean me needing time to
find a new model and giving myself more time to shoot the images.
7. Personnel
What size team will you use for your production? How many people will you have in
your team? Think about the advantages and disadvantages of your team size.
The team that will be involved in the production will be small, two or three people
at the most. This will lower the cost of finance and personally I feel the project will
not need more than a designer, photographer, copy writer and possibly a chef. One
single person can do more than one of these jobs to cut down finances too. A
small team will mean resources will be cut down and it will ease the cause of
origination. The disadvantages of having a small team could slow the project down
if someone if not there and it could add more stress to the team.
8. Personnel
What job roles would you have in your production and what skills and experience
would be required?
Photographer- They will need to be experienced in lots of different areas of photography,
including food/catering photography. They need to be creative in what they do and have skills
on editing programs to fix any lighting etc. They also need to have specific equipment or in
touch with someone who they can hire it from.
Cook/Expert- They should have experience in the catering business and have achieve at least a
level 3 in food/catering. The food should be presented well once cooked to look appealing to
the audience.
Graphic Designer- A graphic designer should be able to show examples of their existing work in
designing web pages, magazine pages, brochures, adverts etc. They need to be creative and
be able to work on programs such as Photoshop and InDesign.
Copy Writer- They need to have experience in copywriting such as advertisements, brochures
etc. And have the equivalent of a level 3 in journalism or equivalent.
9. Personnel
How could you find people to be in your production team?
There are many way in which I can find people to be in my production team. From
my own network of friends and peers and pervious employers/production team I
have my own knowledge of people I could ask to be in the production team. But if
I needed to find people with more experience I can always post an advertisement
or look at advertisements from local newspapers such as the York Press or
Pocklington Post. If I wanted to go more specific I could look at publications such
as Digital Camera Magazine and media job websites. This would bring up people in
specific media areas in which I will be needing, but it would probably cost more to
hire their skills.
10. Facilities
List the equipment, resources and facilities you need for your production and its source
Equipment/Facility/Resources needed for
production
College Self Client
Computers
Photoshop
Cooking equipment
Camera
Card
Printer
Kitchen
11. Contributors
Contributor Type of Contributor
Team member Expert
Client Expert
Tutor Expert
Photographer of Sourced Images Expert
Public public.
Model Talent
Cook Talent/expert
12. Locations
What method could you employ to identify locations needed for your production
(production/ post production facilities) and how could this be useful?
A recce report should be taken on first to see if the location is safe and suitable as
safety is important and we need to ensure all locations are safe and suitable for
photography. It needs to be suitable and these elements need to be taken into
concern:
• Health and Safety concerns
• Parking or equipment access
• Electrical outlets/power supplies
• Available lighting sources (natural and artificial)
• Area for shooting, cast, equipment
Going to the location before taking the photographs or cooking the food is always
good as it makes you aware of where you can go, how big the location is and if you
need to bring anymore equipment.
13. Locations
Are there any limitations or risks you would need to consider for your locations?
Location Limitation/Risk
Home Kitchen Hot appliances, wet floors and sharp knives.
Restaurant Kitchen Hot appliances, wet floors, sharp knives and slippy surfaces.
Restaurant Sharp objects, disturbances.
Classroom Wires from computers could cause trips.
14. Codes of Practice - Clearances
What is a model/location release form and why is it important to your production?
A model/ location release form is a form that is a legal release and is signed by the model
and the photographer giving permission to publish the photograph in one form or
another. When a photographer takes pictures of a model they have to make sure they
have a model release form so they have permission from the model that they can
publish the images. A location release form is similar to this as it’s a binding contract
between the photographer and the owner of the land that the photographer is
shooting on. The owner of the property grants written permission to the photographer
to take images on the land and use it for commercial use and for it to be published. This
agreement includes provisions regarding forgoing the owner’s right to sue for specific
types of claims, allowing producer and team to enter property. This is important with
the work I will be doing because we may be needing to use a model in which then we
require to fill out a model release form that will allow us to be able to publish the
model that will be on our recipe cards. For legal reasons when we come to publishing
the recipe cards the model can not say that we can not publish them because they have
signed the release form. Then the location release form will be important to our
production because if we want to shoot anywhere which we don’t own like a studio
kitchen we will need a location release form for legal reason to have permission to take
photographs at this location. The both forms are important to the production because
they legally give us permission to use that person and location and nobody will sue.
15. Codes of Practice - Legal
What legal requirements will you have to consider in your project and what aspects do they
relate to?
Aspect of Production Legal Consideration
Images The images can not be copied and taken then used for publication
without having permission from the person who owns the images. It is
copyright and the person could who owns the images which you may
steel and use can sue you for copyright.
Recipe cards The recipe that used on the recipe cards can not be stolen and they
need permission off the owner of the recipe to use them for publishing.
It is copyright if you use the recipe’s and you do not have there
permission then that is copyright and there is a possibility that you could
get sued.
Production work When creating the recipe cards you need to think about the health and
hygiene act of 1974. This is when creating the recipe’s and if you was to
make them before hand. This is so no body gets food poisoning from the
food that they are making.
Production work We need to make sure that work is our own and not copied from other
recipe cards because this will be copyright which is illegal and could end
up with us being sued.
16. Codes of Practice – Regulatory Bodies
Which regulatory body’s guidelines would you need to follow when creating your
production? Where could you source that information from. Be specific.
When creating our product in production we need to think about following guidelines
which are regulating our work. One of the guidelines that regulate our work is the
health and safety act of 1974 is a primary piece of legalisation that covers health and
safety with food and hygiene within Great Britain. In production we need to follow
these guidelines if we are creating food to take pictures of. Another guideline we need
to follow when creating in production is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
we need to follow this guideline to make sure we are not copying anyone else's work
and it is all our own and original. This act stops people copying any type of publication
or media that they create. We have this act to regulate our work so that we either get
permission when using other peoples like images and recipe’s or use our own images
taken and making sure no one else can steel them and pass them off as their own.
Another regulatory body is the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority.) We have this to
follow as a guideline so when advertising our product we don’t include any offensive
material in our adverts that will offend people. Also we need to follow this to make sure
we don’t false advertise like the KFC advert which the ASA made to stop broadcasting
because it was promoting that KFC prepared fresh chicken which was not entirely true.
We have this to follow so nothing like this happens when advertising the recipe card’s