Welcome Message

Hello and welcome to my blogger page for my Research unit 3 and Factual unit 46. In my blog I will be sharing all the work I have done for this unit. All my research will come under the name 'Unit 43.2' followed by what that piece of work is. For example, all my research that comes unit 43.2 will be either: secondary research, primary research, audience research, market and production research followed by the results I got from the questionnaire I had given the general public. Other work I did earlier in the unit will come under a slightly different name. For example, my research techniques essay will come under unit 3.1 and my presentation which has been embedded to slide share is under unit 3.3.

Pre-production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

Pre-production Techniques for the Creative Media Industries

Understand requirement for a specific media production

Type of production 

TV factual has specific needs as to compare to other productions; these types of programmes are created to inform, entertain and educate whatever target audience a particular factual is made for. An example of an entertaining factual would be David Attenborough - Blue Planet; as well as this being entertaining to the viewers it is also an observational documentary. This is because David Attenborough is well known for observing animals in the wild, it is also aimed at all audiences as it is appropriate to all ages. He is well known for observing different animals and the way they live, he creates these documentaries to expose to the audience what happens in the outside world. The documentary I am going to create is going to be an expository documentary; although my documentary will not be to expose wildlife, I am going to make a factual about a young boy that was attacked by a dog, Im going to film it going to be about him, his journey and when he got attacked. I am going to make this because I am going to try and make it aware to people how severe these attacks can get, and by making this will hopefully help the audience to understand the dangers of this happening to them or someone they know and expose how threatening these attacks really are.

Finance

There will be no funding needed in order to create my documentary; I am making my TV factual based on a project assignment I have been given therefore there will be no funding needed. A major part of making a TV factual piece is the process of generating funds from various sources to get it done. For example, ITV get sponsors from advertisements in order to fund their factual, but BBC on the other hand get their funding’s from a TV license. Filming a documentary for television will cost money to produce. For example some of the things that will be needed in order to make one would be: equipment. This will include microphones, lighting gear, accessories for your camera; for example for when the weather isn’t particular right or if you need different lenses, (e.g. protective rain coat, wide angle lens), travel costs, production crewe, music rights, location, etc. The paper work needed for finances whilst creating a factual programme would be check lists and budget sheets. This is to make sure that all financing is organized properly and know exactly how much money you have spent creating a TV factual piece.

Time

When making a TV factual piece, sticking to the deadline and keeping things organized are the most important things to stick too, to avoid spending more money when it is not needed. When using your funds to rent a piece of equipment for example a certain camera, you have to make sure you want to film what you need with that camera before the deadline; this saves money and gives you a bit more time to re film anything that you don’t like. It is very important to keep the people you are filming happy, and keeping this up means getting everything done on time, making sure that all paperwork is correct and professional. By getting the whole production done on time means there will be no extra costs needed to spent, and you will have made everyone in the production team happy and also you will not have to pay anything extra out.

Facilities

When filming a documentary, you have to be aware of the facilities you are using no matter what type of documentary you are creating. My documentary “Louis Story” is going to be about a young victim of a boy when he was attacked by a dog; the facilities I will be using are my house and the perimeter around it. There will be no costs or funding in the making of my documentary. Usually when productions decide to create a TV factual they will go to facility houses to get all their equipment; for example equipment might include cameras, green screens, tripods, multi cameras, lighting and microphones. As I am making my documentary based on an assignment from college I will use all my facilities from the college itself. If any equipment wasn’t available for me use I would have to wait for it on a waiting list or go to a facility house myself to then get the equipment that I need; which is what would happen when making a documentary to go on television.

Materials

For my factual piece I will use images of the victim from the Internet and also some that were taken through the whole time he was in hospital. Some of these images included him when he was in hospital after he was attacked and also graphic pictures of his wounds taken whilst in the ambulance. To find some of these images, I will not need the internet to find them, however some of the images I am going to use in my factual are from News websites where he had been in articles and how severe the attack as it was enough to make a story in every newspaper in the country. For audio materials I will use a H2 recorder, as well as the camera to get a better sound. I am going to get Louis to talk into the H2 recorder, talking about his scars and what the dog did to him. I think that by getting him to talk into a H2 recorder and showing the images on screen at the same time, I would use this as a voice over to make it more personal and dramatic. Also throughout the documentary I am just going to only use Louis voice, and my voice isn’t going to be used that much, the majority will be just Louis talking about journey throughout his experience of his time being attacked and his time in hospital and also what it was like when he got home; I think with just Louis speaking throughout the whole duration of the film; It would be much more personal and much more emotional to watch.

Personnel

From directors to producers, to Volunteers, there are many different people that make up a production team in personnel. Throughout the duration of the making of a TV factual there are a number of different people all there to do different jobs, from editing to directing, and everyone in-between. In every production team everyone is there to give a helping hand, no matter if one person is hired to one job and one job only, everybody is there for one reason, to help create a successful documentary. Depending on the length of the documentary will depend on who you need in order to make it. For example if you was to make a factual that was ten minutes long you will need less people in your production team rather than if you was to make one that was one hour long you will need a lot more people to help make the documentary a successful one to put on TV; this means hiring more people to help out with the making of the film and also ones that are sure do a good job.

Contributors

In my TV factual piece I am going to use one interviewee throughout the whole documentary. I am going to interview a victim of a dog attack, as I don’t need any extra people while filming my documentary. By doing this, I will make my film much more personal as the whole film is just about him, how he went through it and how he coped.  When keeping account of contributors in real, professional factual pieces, paperwork is needed to account how many people are actually in the film you are creating; these include actor release forms. Actor release forms have the name of the contributor, their address and a signature to certify they took part in the film. In real life situations, the producer will look for contributors with contacts numbers and email addresses to ask if they want to take part. As I am making a film for an assignment I got at college, I will need to fill out an actor release form for the victim but as Im not needing anymore people in my film, I will need contact numbers to get hold of anyone in particular.

Codes of practice and Regulations

In order to obey the codes of practice and regulations you need to follow certain rules and regulations; most of which is just basic common sense. For example, if a programme is being shown before 21:00pm, any swearing or bad language has to be blurred and censored on screen. Another example is that in order to make a good programme means everyone in the production team has to be professional. This includes everyone you talk too or interview has to act in a professional manner. In my film, in order to stay professional I will talk to the victim of the dog attack in a professional way and ask the right questions because the interviewee is a young boy, and I have to be carful what I ask with out being it being to emotional, but emotional enough to make a good film. However there are different rules and regulations in every television production and have to be followed in order to avoid the documentary being cancelled. This is so when making a factual piece, no one will get into trouble. To make sure this doesn’t happen one of the main things to worry about whilst creating a documentary is to avoid copy write. In order to this, release forms are there so you can fill them to use music that other artists have either written are sung so you can use them in your film; this is what I did to include music in my factual piece.