Unit 4

Lingfield College BTEC Media
Scott Lawrence 1
Scott
Lawrence
UNIT 4:
Pre-Production
Portfolio

Scott Lawrence 2
Contents Page:
Content Page
1 Finance. 3
2 Sources of finance: private, public, joint financing. 4
3 Requirements of finance: for equipment, crew, transport, materials, clearances, talent,
facility hire.
5
4 Logistics. 6
5 Time: deadlines, availability of equipment, availability of personnel, timescales. 6
6 Facilities: production equipment, post-production equipment, facility houses, prop
houses, sourcing and costs of facilities.
7
7 Locations: identification; recces; limitations and risks, e.g. distance, access, cost,
weather.
7
8 Personnel: technical crew, actors, extras, contributors, e.g. experts, specialists. 7
9 Materials: type, e.g. original materials, archive and library materials, photo-library
materials, sound library materials, internet, assets, audio, script, animatics, graphics,
interviews, costumes, properties, recorded music, sources; costs; clearances.
8
10 Adherence to codes of practice and regulation. 8
11 Clearances, e.g. Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS). 8
12 Legal, e.g. copyright, health and safety. 8
13 Regulations, e.g. Ofcom, Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Advertising
Standards Authority (ASA).
8
14 Trade unions and professional bodies, e.g. Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television
(Pact), National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
8

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Finance
Within media the handling of finance is one of the most key concepts especially during pre-
production Everything you do within media will cost you money so it’s essential that you
know how much money you have to spend and where its necessary to spend it. For example
there’s no point spending a large lump of your budget on a prop that only features for a
short period of time within your media when that money can be spent on things that are
actually required. It’s important you split the money in the right way otherwise you could be
left with a poor quality final piece that your clients aren’t happy with but with lots of money
left over or vice versa spend too much money and be left with more money to pay which
again won’t make the clients happy.
Out of all the media mediums budgeting within the film industry is the most important due
to the large amount of time it takes to make a film. Also film
require the largest amount of budget due to the amount of
people that work on them which is shown just by the credits at
the end with hundreds if not thousands of names that all have
to be paid. As films are worked on over such a long period of
time they have to make sure to spread the budget so that they
don’t spend all of it in the early stages of development. The
budget has to be spread across things such as all of the
equipment, props, actors and crew.
The filmwith the highest ever budget used is Pirates Of The
Caribbean: On Stranger Tides which had a total budget of
around $378.5 million.
Another medium that requires a good handling of finance is the TV industry. Although the
average is only £2.6 million for a TV show they have to make sure its spent in the right way
as TV shows go on for longer periods of time they have to spread this money out and make
sure what they buy can last for a long period of time and isn’t a waste of money. However
TV shows can make lots of money easily due to adverts and channels wanting the
broadcasting rights if the show is good enough.
The games industry is one that is growing rapidly with
new games coming out all the time and in 2013 Grand
Theft Auto V set a new bench mark in the budgeting
of video games as they spent a mind blowing $265
million on the game and it being split nearly equally
between game development and marketing. It clearly
paid off as in the first day the game had already made
$800 million and then $1 billion after 3 days.

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The final medium is radio which doesn’t have such a big budget typically but the budget
they do have is mostly spent on their license as well as equipment they rely heavily on
adverts to make their money.

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Requirements of Finance
There are many key areas within media that you’re going to have to split your budget
between and make sure each section has sufficient funds for what you need, these are
equipment, crew, transport, clearance, talent and facility hire.
Equipment is probably the most important as without this
you can’t produce your media piece. Depending what level
of quality, you want your media to be depends in the type of
equipment you want for example when making a film they’re
going to want the best equipment they can possibly get to
make the filmlook as good as possible. This is the same for
radio stations they’re going to need the best quality microphones so that they’re voices are
clear as no one will tune into a station if they can’t hear the people clearly. As of this a large
some of the producer’s budget will go towards equipment so that the media product is the
best it can be.
Crew is something that goes more unnoticed in the world of media as they’re not in front of
the camera or you can’t hear them but are vital to make sure the creating of a media
product goes smoothly and be done without any mishaps. Everyone from the main actors to
the editors to the prop makers will need to be paid for their work done and again this is
going to have to come out of the budget and this can be hundreds if not thousands of
people for a film, game and TV show and probably less for radio.
Transport isn’t as important unless you plan to
film on different sets within a TV show or a film
but still costs money if you are preparing to do
that. It’s not only the actors you will need to
transport from place to place but all the
equipment, costumes and props. This may cost a
lot to purchase or rent lorries as these items may
not be big but there is a lot of them and none of
them can afford to be damaged as well so they
have to make sure they a packed well.
Clearances is one thing that people often forget about but making sure you have the
licenses to certain things such as music is key otherwise your media product may not be
able to be released or you could be fined a sum of money so its key that you pay for the
licenses for things to prevent things such as copyright.
Talent is something that can require a lot of money but can be something that you can save
a part of your budget on if you approach it in certain ways

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Logistics
The logistics of creating a media piece is very complicated. It
requires a high level of organization as you need to make sure
every piece of equipment is at the right place for filming at
the right time. This is the same with actors and props so the
schedule for it has to be very clear and everyone knows what
they have to be doing and where and when they are doing it.
The producer will also have to sort out a contingency plan in
anything goes wrong. This must cover all circumstances and
the solutions of how to overcome these.
They will also need to fill out a risk assessment and analyse all
the issues within pre-production work and how they are
going to make sure people are safe.
There are also many different types of lists that they will need:
 Shot list - this gives a detailed description of each shot and describe how it’s meant
to be filmed exactly including camera movement, camera angle, sound, location and
people involved.
 Location list – this is a list of all the locations they are going to be used within your
media product, you will have to go and look at all the locations before to make sure
that they are okay to filmat and are suitable.
 Prop list – this is just a list of all the props that re going to be used and when and
what they are going to be sued for so they know when and where they need to be.
Time
Within media timescales are compulsory and have to be followed by all members of the
crew otherwise it can disrupt the running of pre-production work for the media product.
The availability of equipment is something that can
disrupt your whole plan, for example there’s no point
arranging to film when you can’t hire your camera
equipment for that day. And this is the same for
personnel make sure you hire the equipment when you
know all of your actors are available otherwise you can’t
film what you need to.
The final part of timings is deadlines and these are things
that have to be met so that the whole process of filming
can run smoothly as you don’t want to have people
waiting and doing nothing because people haven’t met
their deadlines in another department. So, it’s important everyone meets the deadlines.

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People such a journalist who work on a daily newspaper will have very tight deadlines to
research their topic and write their story for the next edition of the paper. This is the same
as the TV news teams who will have to prepare their work for the evening news.
Facilities
Facilities are again another part of production that goes unnoticed within the media world.
Everything you’re using whether is filming equipment, editing equipment, props or
costumes you’re going to need a place to keep them when they aren’t in use. Normally
companies will rent out warehouses to keep all of this in which again will have to come out
of your budget.
Most professional companies will either use their own equipment or hire what they need
from a facility house they might even outsource some of the work to other specific specialist
companies. This is the same with prop houses where films and TV shows can hire props to
use instead of waiting time making them.
Locations
It’s essential that production teams check the locations to make sure they are appropriate.
This can save lots of time and money during the production save.
When your filming it’s important that when you have the crew, talent and equipment n
location that you maximise the amount of work you can do as the more days your working
for the more expensive it is.
You also have to make sure that you have permission to film if necessary to film at the
location and use it especially if it’s on private land. You also have to make sure there are no
risks or health and safety issues and if there are they have been identified and made safe.
You will also have to carry out a location recce which is when you visit the location before
you actually start working there during pre-production to evaluate whether its suitable or
not. The information you bring back from the recce will allow you to inform the production
team about distances, access, power supply, potential problems from weather, health and
safety issues and finally costs for using that location.
Details from the recce should be recorded on a location visit sheet and attached to the
production schedule so that all production members are aware of the information.
Personnel
Making sure you hire the right personal for your media production is very important for pre-
production work as you need to make sure you have the right amount of people for the job

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and that each member knows the job that they have been hired to do and preferably
something that they specialise in. It’s important you recognise the skill level of the people
your working with and how much experience they have so you can identify where you may
need extra help or even extra people in certain areas.
Materials
All media products will require you to film or capture your own footage and this is known as
raw materials. You can plan to gather and generate this raw material in a variety of different
ways.
Some will things will be your own original material that you will need to take a series of test
shoots for or recordings that can also help you develop your ideas in the pre-production
stage and ultimately decide what original materials you are going to use so that you can get
the final effect that you want.
For example you may want to get some country sounds so you would find a location that is
suitable such as a park so you take some test recordings. However when you get back to the
studio you find that the traffic sound is too loud. At this point you may download some
copyright free sound effects to use instead.
You may want to use some pre-recorded material that’s been done by someone else. If you
do this you need to make sure they are copyright free or that you are aware of it as the
copyright owners can choose to grant permission or license others to use their work usually
for a fee. So it’s better that you use your own to save on costs.
Legal Regulations
In media the main legal obligation you will face is copyright. This is when a piece of media
whether it be audio or film is owned by a person or company. If you wish to use a piece of
media that is copyrighted you will have to normally pay a fee to the owner of it or some
pieces of media are non-copyright so there’s no need to waste your budget. Another part of
legal regulations is that everyone and everything has to be insured. This is so that any
accidents that occur during the production are
covered and you won’t have any problems as long as
a risk assessment has been done before production
takes place as well.
Once you have finished producing your media if it’s a
film or a digital game you need to let either bbcf or
PEGI rate your game for a specific audience and this is
based on the amount of violence, amount of swearing
and the amount of nudity. For film, TV and radio they
all have to follow Ofcom’s rules which ultimately state
the standards of which they believe are allowed to be
shown. This changes though as shows which are later
have less rules to be met on things such as nudity,
violence and swearing.

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