Understanding structure and ownership in the creative media sector

Understanding structure and ownership in the creative media sector

The Creative media sector is made up of Film, TV, Radio, Publishing, Advertising and Marketing, Interactive Media, Games and Photo Imaging. This blog is to explain the structure and ownership of each of these sectors.for anyone interested in following a work path towards one of them.

The media sector is mainly built up on 6 major conglomerates. A conglomerate is a large corporation which owns many smaller companies. The 6 conglomerates together share 1500 newspapers, 1100 magazines, 9000 radio stations, 1500 TV stations and 2400 publishers between them. Conglomerates often build up by merging or taking over smaller companies. When two companies merge they are putting their work together to make one larger company and then equally share the profits. When a company takes over another it usually buys the other company so it earns any money from its business or will convert it into their own business.
The 6 conglomerates are:
Comcast
Newscorp
Disney
Viacom
Time Warner
CBS

Film

Film is a large industry which has around 27,000 employees. Film makes it's money from customers who go to the cinema to see the films, buy the DVD's and buy film merchandise. The money then made is paid out in fair shares to the theaters showing the film and shops selling merchandise, the film crew involved in making it and the distributors. Warner Brothers are currently the richest distributor by making $27,147,331,454 from 1995 to 2011. Some of the most popular Warner Brothers films are 'The Exorcist' and 'The Dark Knight'. Walt Disney follow them as they are only around $1 billion behind them. Big companies like these make their money by investing in the films. The distributors will have to help pay for the film production and then show the film to theaters who will want to play the film. The theaters will then make money from the tickets they sell and the other services like food and drink. They then give a lot of this money back to the film company.

Image from: http://www.projectcasting.com/tag/warner-bros/

Some films can be independent. These are films which have not been produced by any major film company such as Disney. Independent films are quite often low budget as the company funding it is not as big as the major names and therefore does not have much money to put into it. This is not always the case as independent films with good ideas can attract wealthy investors who do not own  film companies and sometimes major film companies can distribute it. Some independent film companies are Miramax Films and Icon Films. There are some independent films which have become extremely popular and well known. These include Pulp Fiction and Slum Dog Millionaire. Pulp Fiction had a budget of around $8,000,000 and by 2012 had made around $107,928,762 in America alone.

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/82/Pulp_Fiction_cover.jpg

TV

The Television industry is the second largest of the media sector with 55,800 employees. In the UK, there are 4 broadcasters that dominate the TV industry. These 4 are: BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

The BBC is the only publicly owned company out of the four. Public ownership means that the company does not make money as it is all put back into running the company and paying employees. It is funded by the TV license. This is paid by anyone who wants to watch TV broadcasts. This does not only apply for television's. A TV license is needed to watch broadcasts on any device such as computers. The price of the TV license is £145.50 for colour broadcasts and £49.00 for black and white. The TV license has been frozen at this price meaning it is not going to change and it is the same for everyone. The £145.50 is roughly split between the BBC by giving £95.52 to TV, £25.32 to Radio, £7.92 for Online and £16.80 to everything else. The advantages of having the TV license is that the BBC do not need to take money from advertisements therefore there are no advert breaks during programmes. This is an advantage as the programme you are watching is not constantly being interrupted with breaks every 15 minutes or so. Another positive is that due to everyone paying the license, the BBC have multiple channels for every different kind of person. There is programmes shown which everyone can enjoy. For example BBC three play shows which are aimed at teenagers and younger years as they show things like 'Family Guy'. BBC Two on the other hand is aimed at more middle aged viewers as they show programs like 'Homes Under The Hammer'. Something that younger viewers may not be interested in. The TV license is not all good. Many people have problems with the price of it. Although it has been frozen and will not raise in price, the cost of living is rising. This is a problem as people will have less money to pay for the license as they are paying for living costs, leaving them with less money at the end of the day. Also, not everyone earns the same wage yet everyone pays the same price. Someone who is earning a low wage may think of a TV license as a luxury as it costs too much to pay for and still buy essentials like food. Some people think a better way to handle this is a discounted price based on the household income. Another change that can be applied to the license is to have a limit on the amount of TVs that can be paid for under one license. One person can own 100 TVs and still pay the same as someone with 1. If someone can afford to pay for a lot of TVs then they can surely afford to pay for more than one license.

Image from: https://twitter.com/BBC

The other 3 broadcasters are all privately owned companies. This means they show their programmes to make money. They make their money through advertisements. This is other companies who pay the TV broadcasters money to advertise their business or product on television. ITV is the biggest competition to the BBC. Both channels play similar programmes at similar times so that they can battle for viewers for example, BBC shows 'Eastenders' and ITV shows 'Coronation Street' and 'Emmerdale'. All 3 are soaps which each earn millions of viewers every time they are aired.

Image from: https://twitter.com/ITV

In the UK we have such services like Sky, Virgin and BT. By paying for these services, we are provided with more channels than the original 5 and Freeview. Sky works using a Satellite which transmits a TV signal to our TV's and is one of the most popular television providers in the UK, its main competition coming from Virgin. Since these have been introduced, there has been advancements in television such as being able to record programmes and have high definition channels.

 Image from: http://www.world-of-accessories.co.uk/with-remote-control-p-898.html

Radio

Radio is one of the smaller industries compared to others with only around 22,000 employees. Radio was once one of the biggest industries however advancements in technology have increased the demand on things like Internet. For this reason many people believe that the employee count will decrease within time. With Internet around, many people would rather use that to, for example, listen to music or watch sports than tune in to a radio. Internet and television provide a visual image which a radio cannot do. For that reason, less radios will sell and radio stations will get less listeners therefore going bankrupt and letting go more employees. This is not necessarily the case as radios will always be wanted for vehicles. A driver cannot watch a broadcast when driving therefore it is handy for them to have some noise in the background. Another positive of the radio is that it is a continuous broadcast therefore it does not take effort to play one which is why radios will always be in demand,

Like TV, the BBC own a lot of radio stations. Being a publicly owned company, £25.32 of each TV license goes into the radio stations they own. Also like their TV channels, they do not play advertisements as they are a non-profit network. The BBC have many stations for all different people. Radio 1 aims at younger viewers and plays music that is popular at the time. Radio 2 on the other hand aims at a slightly older age group and plays music from the past few decades. The BBC also have local radios. These are all set for certain regions in the UK and they discuss local news and events as well as playing music. An example for a local radio is BBC Radio Newcastle or BBC Radio Derby.  The BBC is not only focused on radio as they work on TV as well however there are some other non-profit stations which do focus on only radio. These are usually run by volunteers and the station itself does not often cover a wide area. An example would be a hospital radio.

Image from: http://www.tvforum.co.uk/thegallery/sick-tired-bbcs-branding-v3-39415/

There are two different types of radio station, commercial and non-commercial. The BBC is a non-commercial station as it makes it's money from the license and subscriptions. A commercial radio station is a station which earns from advertisements. The advertisement companies choose the station they want to advertise on by the target audience of the station and the amount of listeners. If a product is aimed at younger viewers then the advertisers will choose a station aimed at a younger audience. They would also want to choose a station with a lot of listeners so there product or business is shown to more people. The more popular stations generally charge more so it is usually rich businesses who advertise on these. Commercial radios include Capital FM and TalkSport.

Image from: http://www.utvmedia.com/

Radio channels are now available on more than just radios. They are now accessible on other devices like smart phones and computers. There are radio apps for phones and you can catch up on radio programmes you have missed on the Internet. BBC Iplayer allows you to listen to all the BBC stations.

Games

The games industry has employed around 10,000 people. This is one of the smallest in terms of employee size. The first ever game was a game called 'Tennis For Two' or 'Pong'. This game was very basic. It involved two lines hitting a ball from side to side. Like Tennis. This was developed and created in the 1950's. Games have come along way since then. They are a lot more complex than they were. Not only have games become more meaningful and interesting, there is also new technology that allows the user to have maximum entertainment from their video games. For example, the Nintendo 3DS allows the user to view games in 3 dimensions and the Xbox Kinect allows the player to be the controller.

The oldest gaming industry and now the largest is Nintendo which is based in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo was originally founded on 23rd September 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, originally creating handmade playing cards. Before they became a video game company, Nintendo had tried to run many smaller businesses such as cab service and love Hotels. In the 1970's, Nintendo decided to focus their business on video games. Nintendo released many games to start but their company got the most luck when they released 'Donkey Kong' in 1981. This proved to be their most popular game which also helped them in the long run as it introduced the character 'Mario' (then known as JumpMan) who later became the company mascot. Nintendo also introduced the first handheld gaming device. This was called 'Game and Watch' which was distributed worldwide. The iconic d-pad was also later developed on this as a new Game and Watch was created for a handheld Donkey Kong game.

Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo#mediaviewer/File:Nintendo.svg

Sony, also a Japanese company, have become the closest rival to Nintendo over the years. Sony are responsible for the PlayStation. They first started with video games when they released the first PlayStation in 1994. The original PlayStation was the first games console to sell 100 million units. It achieved this after 9 years and 6 months after it's release. Another contender to Nintendo is Microsoft's video game brand of Xbox. This is the youngest video game brand as they didn't release their first console, the xbox, until 2001. Although they were the latest to create a games console, Xbox made a breakthrough as the Xbox was the first console that used an online service by the name of 'Xbox Live'. This allows players to play games with other people who own an Xbox and any game with online compatibilities. Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo have all been battling for customers since the Sixth generation of consoles.

Sixth Generation:

Sony PlayStation 2-2000

Nintendo GameCube-2002

Microsoft Xbox-2002

Seventh Generation:

Microsoft Xbox 360-2005

Nintendo Wii-2006

Sony PlayStation 3-2007

Eighth Generation:

Nintendo Wii U-2012

Sony PlayStation 4-2013

Microsoft Xbox One-2013

Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console#mediaviewer/File:PSX-Console-wController.jpg

Publishing
Publishing is currently the largest industry in the media sector. It has 148,000 employees. The publishing area mainly consists of newspapers, magazines and books. The Industry generally earns their money by actually selling their created products and other ways such as advertising. In a newspaper you will often see advertisements from different companies and individuals who are looking to promote something like a product or a business. They will have to buy a section of the newspaper to advertise in it. Anyone is allowed to advertise in a paper, many people use the paper to advertise peoples birthdays or remember someone who has passed away by adding an obituary.

One of the most popular newspapers in the UK is The Sun. This is a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. In 2013, it was the most popular Saturday newspaper with a daily readership of 5.5 million between July and December. By the end of the year, it had been overtaken by Daily Mail. In March 2014 The Sun had an average daily circulation of 2,069,809 copies. The Sun has also recently made a new version called The Sun On Sunday. This was created on 26th February 2012 to replace the News Of The World which had to be shut down due to the information leak of the phone hacking scam. The Sun On Sunday had an average circulation of 1,686,840. The Sun has become well known for being involved in so many controversies. One of it's most famous is the cover of the Hillsborough disaster on the 15th April 1989. The Sun posted a front page article named 'The Truth' where they made statements given to them from certain individuals. This sparked outrage in Liverpool and The Sun lost three quarters of it's 55,000 daily sales in that area. Even today some newspaper stores refuse to sell it.

Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(United_Kingdom)#mediaviewer/File:Hillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg

As well as the well known mainstream publishers, there are also independent publisher companies. One of these is Cillian Press based in Manchester. This company mainly focuses on books. There job is to take authors books and publish them in an attempt to make them successful. They use different marketing strategies for each piece of work to aim to sell the book as much as possible and spread the name of the author and their titles. This is useful for new authors who struggle to sell their books to the larger companies.

Image from: http://cillianpress.co.uk/

Advertising and Marketing
Advertising is a very important part to media. Although it only has 17,000 employees it is still a large industry. Companies come to the advertising and marketing industry when they are looking to sell a product or get a message out. By advertising, companies can increase their popularity or spread the word of a new product. This is generally to increase their sales. One of the main sources of advertising is on TV. The advertising companies that work with TV create adverts for companies that will be aired on different channels in between programs. 

WPP is a British Advertising and marketing company that is located in London. It is currently the largest advertising company in the world. As of 2013 it had a revenue of £11.019 Billion and currently has 3000 offices in 111 countries. It's aim is to use different marketing techniques to make clients as successful as possible. An example of one of the marketing techniques is to handle any money problems a company may have so they can give their time to focusing on their main ideas. They would also help to advertise the company when their ideas are perfected to try and get people interested in buying in. After the company has made money, they would then give some of it to WPP which is how they make their money.
 Image from: http://www.wpp.com/wpp/

There are also independent marketing companies. These do the same jobs as the more mainstream companies however may focus on smaller business as they do not have much money to spare. One of these companies is Active Independent Marketing located in Northampton. They look at ideas from peoples, decide whether they have potential to do well and then if so, discuss with the client how they can get them where they need to be in terms of business.



Image from:http://www.activeindependentmarketing.co.uk/

Animation
Animation first came around in Britain in the late 19th Century. It employs the least amount of people out of all the media sectors with only 4,700 employees. The animation company earns it's money in a similar way to films. A lot of animation are actually films and therefore earn money from ticket sales and merchandise. Animation covers a lot more than just films. Animation can be seen in other things like advertising and TV. Animation has been around for a while now but has seriously developed over time. It has got better in terms of quality as the technology used to make animations has seriously developed. The first animations came around in the early 20th century. One of the most well known animated characters, Mickey Mouse, was first introduced in 1928 in a episode named Steam boat Willie. Since then Disney have then moved on to become one of the biggest companies in the animation sector. They are also considered to have created the first ever animated feature film which was 'Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs' which was created in 1937. This is considered the first as it is the first to have been created using completely hand drawn images. The ones that came before this used silhouettes, cut outs or stop motion.

Aardman is a private animation company located in Bristol. They are famous for using clay models to make stop motion animation. The company was founded in 1972 and has made many TV series and films since then. A lot of these have become well known such as Morph and the Wallace And Gromit series. The Wallace And Gromit productions are probably the most well known work from Aardman and have led to the creation of short films, one feature film, TV programs and even a spin off show. Aardman have even won oscars for some of their Wallace And Gromit productions. Aardman earned £53.5 million in december 2010, this is a 68% increase from the previous year where they made £31.8 million.

 Image from: http://www.slideshare.net/KristieCheng1/aardman

Interactive Media
Interactive media involves computer based items which allow the user to control things such as videos, games, music and more applications. It has around 50,000 employees. Interactive media is usually on handheld items such as smartphones. The industry aims to give people the freedom to use their digital items as easily as possible. A good example of where interactive media comes in to place is using a touch screen so the user is not restricted by buttons and can instead use their device how they want. Interactive media can be found everywhere nowadays. Most up to date technology has some sort of interactive media in it. Things like TV's even involve interactive media. TVs that have big satellite providers like Sky or Virgin allow the users to record programs they like and even do things like play games using their remote. Anything that allows the user to get involved with their technology is classed as interactive media.

Mentor Digital is an interactive media company located in Bristol and London. They mainly work on web design and software development which involves interactive media. One of the projects they worked on was English Heritage-Stonehenge. The company were approached to make an interactive resource which would help viewers learn the history of Stonehenge. To do this they used pictures and videos that the user could interact with so that it would seem like a more fun and interesting thing to learn about. They also worked on a Bloodhound project. This was based on the bloodhound car. The interactive side allowed users to look at how the car was made and see if they could change it to make it faster.

 Image from: http://umbraco.com/certified-partners/browse-solution-providers/mentor-digital


Photo imaging
The photo imaging sector has 44,000 employees. The whole business focuses on taking images and editing them. There have been many different computer programmes created to help with editing images. The main one would be Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is a large product which was introduced on 19 February 1990. It allows the users to take photos and images and edit them with a wide variety of tools. Photoshop is used in many companies. One of the most popular ones is in the magazine industry. These companies edit images in their magazine to make them look appealing to the customers. Advertising uses a lot of photo shop also for the same reason. This helps as viewers would see the edited image and would be more attracted to buy the product. For an individual, the regular Photoshop costs around £8 a month or around £105 a year at the this time. There are also other versions of Photoshop which come with different prices such as Photoshop Lightroom and Photoshop Elements.

THP are a photo imaging company based in London. They mainly focus on using photo imaging to advertise. Other companies will come to them with a product they want advertising and then THP try and take the best images and edit them to make them look as attractive as possible by using high quality cameras. They mainly work on advertising businesses themselves rather than the products. They have worked with well known banks, lawyers, insurance companies, events and more. Some of the photo imaging techniques they use are: using natural and artificial light, balancing room colour temperature and lens adjusting.


image from:http://aveley.cylex-uk.co.uk/company/thp-photo-imaging-16613275.html



In conclusion, the media sector contains many more industries than you would think. Some of the less well known parts are actually larger than the more popular industries. For example Interactive media is not heard of much yet has 50,000 employees whereas everyone knows of the games industry yet it only has 10,000. From this it is important to consider each industry when looking into media as there is something for everyone's interest meaning there is always a path to go down for future work.
 



Pre production theory

Pre-production theory

Pre-Production is a complex process involving many stages. These include: A film script, a story-board, a script breakdown, a budget, risk assessment, clearances and an outline of any legal considerations. When all of these stages have been completed the making of the film can then begin.

Film Script

The film script is a document which contains the whole story of the media production. This is the first document required for the making of a film however this usually follows a mind map or brainstorm of ideas from the screen writer. The script is used to tell a story. They are used for Films, TV programmes and even video games. A script basically reads everything that the viewer will see or hear. This means it has sets, dialogue and actions. This is written down because the directors need to know what exactly they are aiming to achieve and how it should all look by the end.

This is one of my own scripts. To start it i have pointed out my setting. This is shown where it says 'INT. STAIRS DAYTIME' . By writing this I am showing that the setting will be interior (INT) and will be based on some stairs at daytime. Beneath that I have introduced the character which will be in the scene. I have mentioned their age and what they look like so that the director will know what kind of person to look for to play the part. Following this i have written what is actually happening in the scene. This is for the directors and the actors. This is because the director will be able to decide how he wants this action completed for it to look its best and the actor can read over this so they know what needs to be done. I have repeated these every time there is a new setting character or action needed.

Image from: http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/pulp_fiction.html

This is a different section of script taken from the film 'Pulp Fiction'. This shows part of the opening scene for the film. Here the script writer has also set the scene with the characters in it and has followed this up with dialogue. To start the dialogue, the writer has wrote the name of the character talking in the centre and underneath the actual dialogue. This is useful for the actor and director again as they now know who is saying each line and when to cue in.

"With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can't possibly make a good film."-Akira Kurosawa.
Here the film director, Akira Kurosawa, is explaining how important a good script is. If a script is bad then everything about the created film will be bad and no one can change that except the script writer.

Story board
A story board is the second document required for a media production. Like a script, a story board also tells the story of the production. This is done with images that show the action in each shot of the production which is usually accompanied with text showing what is being spoken and sound effects. The story board is shown to both directors and producers so they can understand how the production should look in the end. The story board artist would pitch their drawings to the director to try and give a feel of what the film will actually turn out like.

image from: http://screencrush.com/movie-storyboards/

This is a picture taken of an official storyboard from the film 'Green Hornet'. Here we see 3 different images which display some of the action in a scene. From the first image we can tell one character is punching another. The second drawing shows the punch has caused that character to fall backward. The last drawing displays the same character talking to a different person. This is taken from a scene halfway through the film so the characters will have been introduced earlier in the storyboard process. The drawings also have text underneath them. The text in this storyboard describes what would be happening at this point in the film. The text on the last drawing is different as it shows what the character is saying. To show this,m the artist has wrote 'Kato', the characters name, and then the dialogue. This then shows the reader who will be saying this line.

These 4 drawings are my own. I have drawn them as part of a storyboard I need for a short film i am making. They are all in descending order. They show the very beginning of the film. The drawings show that there is a tunnel and a masculine figure then appears in the tunnel. It then shows a different angle of the person in the third drawing. The last drawing here shows the same tunnel with a darker surrounding. In my last drawing i have added a box with text in it. the writing shows what sound i want to include in this specific shot. In this case it is the sound of fans cheering. By doing my storyboard I now know what the shots should look like when i come to shoot my film. 

"I will never let something go into production unless it is working fantastic in that version with the still drawings. Because no matter all the great animation you can do will never save a bad story. We will work and rework and rework and rework these reels — sometimes thirty times before we let it go into production. We’re really adamant. We’ll even slow the production down or stop production to get the story right because we believe that it’s the story that entertains audiences. It’s not the technology. It’s not the way something looks. It’s the story."-John Lasseter

John Lasseter is the chief creative officer at Pixar. He is also explaining the importance of having a good storyline. This is why the storyboard is important as a visual of the script can show where the script might need improvements and how they can make it look it's best. 

Script Breakdown

A script breakdown is used after the script and storyboard have been made to perfect the story line. A script breakdown is useful as it allows the film to be categorised and sorted into lists. This is helpful as the director can then sort out their schedule and most importantly their budget. With the script breakdown everyone can see which part of the script they should be taking notice of. 

Image from: http://becomingproducer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/production-script-breakdown.html

This is a key for a script breakdown. It shows all the different colours and shapes that will be applied to a script. This is useful for all different jobs involved in film making. For example an actor will know to pay attention to the red sections as that is any speaking role. Actors would also need to look at the purple section as that shows props which actors would need. The script breakdown would help with the budget as it allows the director to section off everything that they will need to pay for and then go on to work out the costs individually. 

Budget

The budget is how much money  the company is aiming to spend on their film. The company provides the director with a certain amount of money. They are given an amount of money based on how well they think the film will do. For example if the film is expected to do well then they might have a higher budget as the distributor expects to make a lot of profit for the film. A low budget film will be a film not expected to make much money or is being provided money by a company with not much to spend and therefore have no choice but to give a small budget. A director would usually decide what they are going to buy after they are given their budget. They have to buy everything they need without going over their budget which can mean in some cases that certain parts of film may have to be cut out or redone. Also, film makers usually leave around 10% of their budget spare in case of unexpected accidents. An example of this could be if cameras get damaged and need replacing or repairing. The 10% is left over so they can be paid for and still not go over the budget. 

Image form: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/16953963/Sample-Independent-Film-Budget

 This is an example of a film budget. It is categorized to show quantity, units, fee, cost and total. It has also been sectioned off to show the different aspects of the film that need paying for. It is important that everything here is listed as if the director goes over the budget then they can easily find where they need to cut down. Adding the Fee and the cost here is useful to the director as they can see how much the individual item or person would cost. This helps as if they did need to cut down they could easily see how much money they would be taking back. For example on this budget, if they wanted to take away an Audio person they would deduct £75.00 from the budget. 

Image from: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/hollywood-numbers

This is a section of a professional budget of the film The Village. The actual film budget will have been pages long. This is a film directed and produced by M. Night Shymalan who is most famous for his film, 'The Sixth Sense'. This is a much more advanced budget as they have added detailed costs for each individual asset to the film. The budget for this film will also have been a lot higher as this followed other successful films by the director therefore the distributor will have had faith in him to make a profit.

"My friend James Cameron and I made three films together- True Lies, The Terminator and Terminator 2. Of course, that was during his early, low-budget, art house period."-Arnold Schwarzenegger

From this quote we can see Schwarzenegger is trying to state that even a low budget film can turn out to be a classic. The Terminator films have become extremely popular and well known over the years and these turned out to be low budget. 

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is a very important part to the production of a film. Without a risk assessment, anyone involved in a film could be in danger. The purpose of the risk assessment is to identify all of the possible dangers that could occur to anyone involved in making the film. When identified it is then important to assess how likely it is for this risk to happen. It is useful to know the likely hood as there is no point in changing location of a film for a high risk even though the chances of it happening are extremely slim. A risk assessment is necessary as anyone involved with health and safety and the directors can look at the risks and see how they can insure they are not a major issue to the film. In some cases the director may have to stop the film or rethink a lot of what has been done if there is a likely chance of a very severe risk.  There are 5 different measurements for risk. Negligible, low risk, moderate risk, severe and very severe. Negligible is a risk that is nothing to worry about such as someone hurting their arm on a piece of equipment. Very severe is the biggest hazard as this is a risk which can kill someone. If there is a likely chance of a very severe risk then drastic changes should be made to that aspect.

Image from: http://rachaelrayner-portfolio.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/film-production-risk-assessments.html

This is an unofficial risk assessment. It shows the basic risks which could take place on a film production. On this assessment it shows risk controls already in place. This is what is being done to ensure that none of these risks occur or what will be done in such an event. There is also a further section on more things that will help to prevent any danger. In this risk assessment there are two columns for people who would be put in danger and equipment that could get damaged. The equipment is also important as if that gets damaged then it will cost money to replace and therefore taking more out the budget. However, it is a higher risk if a person will get harmed as they could have their life in danger. The basic 3 steps to making a risk assessment are: identify all the risks, measure the likeliness and identify all control measures to prevent the risk. 

Clearances

Clearances can be very valuable in a film production. Clearances are like contracts which are used to ensure that no one involved in the film can take money away from the director or film company by suing them. An example is an actors contract. This is a clearance that all the actors must sign to show that they are agreeing to do what is expected of them. It is also a contract for the film producers to make sure that they treat the actors well and provide them with what is expected such as catering.

This is the actors contract I will be using in my own short film. This is a contract that covers low budget films which is what mine is as I am not backed by any major company. On this contract i am making sure the actor is agreeing to the date of filming, the location I am filming at and ensuring I keep all the rights of the film. It is also helping the actor as by signing this I am telling them all the terms of their service and if I do not follow these terms then I am breaking the contract and the actor would be able to then take legal action. This is likewise if the actor does not follow the contract and if they do not do their duty I have the right to replace them.

Image from: http://halfwaythere10.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/screen-shot-2010-11-13-at-20-04-50.png

This is a section of a professional writers contract. It lists the rights the said writer has by working on the film and the terms in which he must work by. Like this there will be different contracts for each different member of the film production company. Everyone will be made to sign one when they are hired. This helps stop any delays from individuals during the production process and makes sure everyone follows the set rules.

Legal considerations

The final stage of pre-production is to look into all the legal aspects. There are a few legal considerations that must be taken into account before you begin shooting your film. The first and possibly the most important is copyright.

Copyright-It is important that all your work done in the pre-production stage is copyrighted. When copyrighted, you are protecting your work from being taken by any one else. You cannot copyright your idea therefore it is important that you copyright your script. This is because it shows your film idea and is therefore proof that you thought of it and stops anyone else using your idea or script without legal action being taken. As soon as you create the document, such as the script, it is already copyrighted however it is important to prove that you came up with the idea first by showing when you created it. If it is a script that you are wanting to protect then remember to include the date of when you have published it so if someone does take the script then you can prove that you created it first. Almost everything you will create in the pre-production stage can be copyrighted, another important element is to copyright characters. This is so people can't use different stories with your characters in them. When beginning your film it is important to check that you have not taken anything copyrighted. Do not remake an existing film as this can cause legal action against you. It is important to know that the first copyright owner of the film will be the producer. If an employee hired by the producer creates the film the copyright owner is still the producer as they hired the employee.  You can tell if something is copyrighted as it will be marked with the copyright symbol. 

 Image from: http://www.copyrightauthority.com/copyright-symbol/

"I own all the characters I created, thanks to the Writers Guild, so nobody can do anything without me. The way it works is: if the copyright owners instigate a project, like the movie, then i get a fee as creator. If i instigate a project like the musical, i pay a percentage to the copyright owners."-Sherwood Schwartz

Here we have been described how copyright works. We see that he has copyrighted all of his own created characters and by doing so he makes money every time the characters were used. 

Public domain-The Public Domain consists of created works, such as film, that do not have a known owner. This means it is available to anyone who wants it. An item can go into the public domain if it's copyright has ran out. Copyright lasts the entire life of the author and then an extra 70 years after their death. If the work was owned by more than one person then it lasts for the lifetime of the longest living writer and then the 70 years are added on. There are other ways that work can go into the public domain for example the write can decide to get rid of the copyright and share it with others. The works of Shakespeare is a very popular item in the public domain. This is because all of his work is well known and popular and Shakespeare himself has been dead for more than 70 years now. Film makers often recreate his work as they know that Shakespeare fans will want to see the film. A more recent example is the character of Sherlock Holmes. The copyright over Sherlock Holmes recently expired and therefore has spurred on the creation of new television series and a new line of films. 

Image from: https://storify.com/shimjung/sherlock-holmes

Image from: http://oneonethreeeight.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/romeo-and-juliet-poster-campaign/

Creative Commons-This is a non-profit organisation. They provide people with another license which works alongside the copyright license. It is free of charge and it allows creators of work to changes the terms of their copyright license. It allows them to share their work with everyone under their own conditions. For example, the creator can allow others to use their work as long as they share the credit. This is useful for film makers as it means they can help spread their name through other peoples work. There is still a legal side to creative commons as if someone uses your work but does not follow your conditions then you can use your creative commons license to take away the work from them or even take them to court. 

Image from: http://infojustice.org/archives/category/positive-agenda/licensing-protected-materials/creative-commons

Insurance-Insurance is another legal consideration. This is not necessary however it is very useful. Insurance provides financial protection. Film makers often insure their film equipment in case they get damaged. By getting the equipment insured you are making sure that the equipment can be fixed or replaced if they are damaged beyond repair. This is very useful for film production as  it means that if, for example, a valuable camera is dropped and broken, the producer does not have to eat into their budget to replace it, instead they tell their insurance and they will replace or fix the camera. Insurance does cost money to get however it is cheaper to pay for then to have to pay for a whole new set of filming equipment.

This concludes the pre-production stage of film making. By taking into account all these steps in order then you should be ready to create your own film. 

tracing

Tracing

 

 

 

Penny animation

Penny animation

This is my drawing of Penny. To do this I used Adobe Flash. I used tools on this including the paintbrush and fill bucket tool so i could draw and colour her in. When the drawing was finished I then drew the letter L on the 5th frame. I then inserted a key frame 5 frames along and wrote the letter O. I then did the same for the last letter L and when I played my video it showed up with the letters appearing one by one.