Pre-Production

What is pre-production and what is it important in the film making process?

Pre-production is a very important stage for any movie or TV show, without this stage everything during the practical stage can go wrong and end up with a terrible product to be released to the public. Every film must go through this stage as it is one of the most crucial stages of movie making and probably one of the most irritating stages.

Before a movie is made, there is a process called pre-production where the producers, the crew, the cast and the director etc have to think about all of the important subjects that will need to be discussed for the movie. These subjects that must be discussed include:

Finance:

On a high budget movie for example Avatar, money is crucial as there is so much that needs to be paid for from the equipment to the cast. These need to be discussed in detail because they need to know how much to pay each cast and crew member (cast will earn more), how much the equipment will cost, including cameras, microphones and lights etc. The set/area will have to be paid for by the staff of the movie so that everyone has a place to work during the production of the movie.

For all of these purchases to be possible and available for the making and production of the movie, they have to be able to acquire the money to be able to pay for everything. The best way to acquire this money is through sponsorships (also known as product placement) for example: Heineken paid 45M USD to be in the James Bond film SkyFall. If the movie is successful, then brands will want to work with you more often because your film has given their product and company publicity. It is beneficial because the studio will have to put up less money towards their film.

The British Film Institute (BFI) helps out film makers by offering grants (they get their funding through the national lottery). The BFI unlike any other institute, will offer grants to new/young film-makers, this is because as a first time film maker it is very difficult to receive funding and your completed film might not be good or very profitable which makes the BFI the best recommendation as they don't rely on the films success as their money comes through public funding, people who buy lottery tickets are basically sending their money to the BFI to use for loans and grants. Back in 2015, the BFI funded a film called "The Testament of Youth" which has a variety of well known actors such as Game of Thrones' Jon Snow (A.K.A Kit Harrington), Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan and Hayley Atwell and many more actors/actresses. This shows that the BFI funds some popular and well received films as 'Testament of Youth' received a claim from critics.

Shooting Schedule:

A shooting schedule, is basically a timetable for each day of shooting a film but there are a few things that need to be considered for this for them to benefit everybody involved in the movie because if one of the actors involved with the movie is also filming a part for another film, there will be days when he/she cannot make it to the shoot and could push production back ever so slightly. Another part of shooting schedules is also to make sure that even the crew is available for the times of filming or just like the cast, the film could also delay the release and completion of the film.

Location Scouting:

For every film and TV show in the world, the crew has to be able to find a location to either film certain scenes or the entire film, once they find a location/ all locations, they have to make sure that they're available during certain time periods and if the locations are not available at these times they can either re-schedule to make it possible to film in that location or, they can move on and try to find a new location to film in to complete their film or TV shows.

Recce/Risk Assessment:

There are many risks on the sets of a film, not just to the cast but also the crew who do everything to make a film possible are in as equal danger as the cast of the film. There have been many stories and cases of crew members being injured or killed due to lack of safety precautions either on the set or behind the cameras and this is why safety is one of the most important topics of conversations and meetings during the pre-production phase of movie making.

Many of the things that go bad on sets of movies can endanger everybody involved with the movie and many of the accidents happen e.g. the sets could collapse because they haven't been built properly, stuntmen could be involved with stunts that can go wrong which would put them in more danger than they're in and even the explosives expert could set up an explosion wrong and kill or injure a few people in proximity of the explosion's that he has set up for the scene. Being involved in movie making, can bring as many risks as it brings as many rewards for those involved and can also favour their career for future films.

Storyboards:

Storyboards, are used in the pre-production stage of film making because they provide a visual aid for each scene of the film so that the crew knows exactly how each scene should look. They use very basic drawings and sometimes the draw boxes around a certain part so that the cameramen know exactly which part of the scene to focus on. This will also stop confusion as to where to place everything in the scene as the sketches will show the crew where everything must go to make the scene possible and to help complete the movie.

Another part of storyboards that is used, is that the artists also write a brief synopsis of what is happening in each scene under each drawing as another way for the crew to know exactly what is happening and makes it easier as a whole. Some or most of the artists, annotate their storyboards to include a few more little detail's for each scene.

Sound is also included in the storyboard process as it will help the crew decide if the sound will be diegetic or non-diegetic sound for each scene.

The producer of  film, will need a copy of the storyboard so they can analyze the scenes and decide which scenes throughout the duration of movie will require special effects. Another reason they need a copy of a storyboard so that they can also decide, which scenes may require extras for background roles of the movie.

Shot List:

The shot list links to storyboards as when an artist draws a scene, they will make the actors and the objects in the scene smaller to make it look like a long shot and if they want the camera to zoom in on a specific area, they will draw the scene but include a box with the arrow either pointing inside the box to zoom in on that specific area or the arrows point outwards to represent zooming out from a certain area. The artists, will do this for most or all scenes of a movie to help the crew make everything the artist has done possible for the scene to improve the overall film and scene as a whole and could also mean that the film ends up with better reviews and higher box office score as well as improving everybody's career who were involved in the film.

Script:

A script is needed quite early in the pre-production stage of movie making, as it gives the crew a sense of a story and also so the artists can draw a rendition of each scene to then pass on to the rest of the crew so that each scene can be built and set up in the way that would match the story of the film. They'll also need a script for pre-production as at some early stage of the process, they will begin auditions for the lead role and smaller roles that will need to be included in the movie. A script is important as a whole as it is the backbone of the entire project as without a script, you barely have a movie let alone a pre-production stage.

Cast/audition:

During the process of the set building and storyboarding, there is an audition stage of pre-production where the producer, director and maybe some of the crew will sit in an office and will get people to come in one by one to audition for a specific role. During each audition, there will be someone who reads a a line and gets the actor/actress to respond to the line and react in the way that matches the previous line and the situation of the scene perfectly or in a way that the producer and director like for a chance at landing the role.