LO1: Evaluating the factors that need to be considered when planning

Evaluating The Factors That Need to Be Considered When Planning

Pre-Production: the planning stage of a product. 

Factors that need to be considered when planning:

• Finances (Setting up potential sources of income to fund product)
• research/market and audience research
• Time
• Accessibility to required software/resources
• Feasibility
• The product itself (type of production) and what it must contain based off the brief
• Target audience and how to appeal to them
• Problems that may need to be worked around relating to the brief
• Employees/personnel to work on the product (e.g. directors, producers, crew)
• legal (e.g. copyright), ethical (morally correct) and regulatory issues with companies like Ofcom or the BBFC 

Finance

Revenue streams - where funding for the media product comes from. This could include: crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter).

An example of a crowdfunded product is Hollow Knight which had a target crowdfunding goal of $35,000 however, the team had stretch goals which went up to $85,000. The team reached up to $62,000 in funding from their Kickstarter campaign. This allowing for the game to be produced and include extra due to the additional funding. The campaign constantly including interaction between the developers and their funding groups, those who funded the project being gifted additional rewards by paying a monthly subscription.

Other revenue streams include:

• Corporate finance - investment from a corporation
• Sponsorship - Advertising another product within the product you're making
• Advertising - Trailers, posters, adverts etc. to make people aware of your product
• Franchising - Expanding your media product to other media

Industry and Job Roles - Audio Visual:

• Director - Directs people as to what they should do within the production e.g. expressions - managerial skills
• Actor - The person who plays the character/s within the product - acting ability
• Cameraman - The person who films the product - filming/camera skills
• Editor - The person who edits (cutting, changing audio or visual effects and cleaning up the film) - editing software skills
• Audio Recorder - The person who films/records the audio - audio knowledge/skills
• Writer/scriptwriter - The person who writes the narrative for the product - English/writing skills
• Advertiser - The person who gets the product known by audiences - Market Research/audience research
• make-up/costume artist - The person who is behind the actor's appearance in the product - art skills
• VFX artist - The person who is behind all the visual effects in a product - Adobe Premiere Skills
• SFX artist - the person behind all the sound/audio effects within a product - Adobe Audition Skills

Time Constraints

The production of a media product often requires a deadline to complete it; failure to meet this deadline can lead to project failure and therefore, financial loss. This means it's important to plan and find your resources within the timescale. These could include: crew, editors, equipment (cameras, microphones). 

In drawing questions: annotate!

Legal Issues and Ethical Issues

Legal Issue present in pre-production - copyright

• Freedom of Information Act 2000 - To allow public access to information held by public authorities. This is important as: it allows people to access information such as the news, allows public authorities (e.g. police) to access information, allows for people to access healthcare information like the NHS. Not adhering to this act results in a fine. This law would affect pre-production of a product by way of allowing for research into what your media product is about (if it was based off real events or required real world knowledge to make).

• Intellectual Property Rights - The legal rights given to the creator of a product for a given time period. This prevents copyright, all use of the product is beneficial to the creator (funds or credit) and the creator is free to use their product in whatever way they wish (within legal and ethical constraint). Not adhering to this can result in a fine or a sentence up to a maximum of ten years. This affects pre-production as you can't use someone else's Intellectual property in your own product.

• Data Protection Act - Controls how your personal information can be used by organizations and corporations/businesses. This is important as it prevents data breaches, stops vital information like banking credentials from being stolen and means organizations cannot commit identity theft with your information. Not adhering to this results in private claims for the extent of damages taken to the person. This affects pre-production as the people behind the product must fairly use the information of those involved in the product's creation. 

• Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 - This act protects the intellectual property of people. This is important as it allows for people to patent their work, this meaning that they gain profit and credit when their work is used. Creator's works cannot be stolen by way of copyright, giving them profit by use of their products; creator's will be given credit for their work. Not adhering to this law can result in a max fine of £5000 and/or 5/6 months imprisonment. This law affects pre-production as the creators would have to file for this law by way of copyrighting or patenting their product or not using other's IP's during creation (planning for the use of those IP's in pre-production).

Ethical Issues: Consequences

• Legal action against the organization
• Product being banned from sale
• Reputation of the organization
• Loss of finance

Regulatory Bodies - Companies which oversee and make rules for producers/other companies to follow

• ASA - Advertising Standards Authority - Adverts - 'zinger chicken salad ad'
• BBFC - British Board of Film Classification - Film - 'The Batman and Mrs.Doubtfire'
• PEGI - Pan European Game Information - Games - 'Manhunt'
• Ofcom - Office of Communications - TV and Radio - 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here'
• PRS - Performing Right Society Limited - Music - 'God Save the Queen by Sex Pistols due to crudeness'
• IPSO - Independent Press Standards Organisation - Print - 'Daily Mail as most complained about newspaper''
• W3C - World Wide Web Consortium - The Internet/World Wide Web - 'complaints to the regulatory body itself due to incorrectly blacklisting sites and lack of accessibility'. The site contains a page which demonstrates how to complain about an inaccessible website.

ASA Complained Ads - Tesco's Father Christmas Covid Passport (https://youtu.be/0P7QSCLtRwI?si=3TSAxlFDqb3DlX0k)

This advert was complained about due to the portrayal of racist stereotypes: this being a black family eating fried and jerk chicken together.

Booking.com (https://youtu.be/-XjQutgqW4Y)

This advert was banned due to it's insinuation of swearing, using the word 'booking' as a replacement for another word: the similarities however, made audiences believe the words were too close together, making it sound like the ad was actually swearing.

Constraints include lack of knowledge in staff, staffing (cost and knowledge), time, catering and equipment/resources and location (uncontrollable factors like weather). Resources are physical objects so knowledge would not be a resource.

Unit 2 Pre-Production Exam

Unit 2 Pre-Production Exam

A brief is defined (within media terms) as a resource which outlines objectives, the target audience, budget and other additional criteria that are important to the client in the production of a media product.

Product Brief

Ultimate Astronomy would like Livewire to create an interactive kiosk game that helps children learn about the elements of the Solar System through a series of tasks and quizzes. They would like Livewire to create a fun yet educational game that will test key information, such as the names of the planets and the distance of each planet from the Sun. As part of the game an avatar will be travelling across the solar system. The avatar will take the form of an astronaut character and will travel to different planets in each level of the game. 

The game must embed short reviews at the end of each level and a piece of narrative to allow the children to test their knowledge in quizzes. The game should contain images and sound effects/speech that will help the children learn the facts. The app should be bright, colourful and engaging so that children want to access the content. The game is aimed at 7-13 year old's. Ultimate Astronomy hope that the content will be engaging enough to appeal to a range of cultural groups. Ultimate Astronomy would like the game to be available and ready to be installed in the center in six months’ time. 

The main highlights of the brief is to create an educational interactive product aiming at a target audience of 7-13 year old's which must completed and planned within a 6 month time period. This product must have dialogue accompanied by text which quizzes the audience on what they have learned through the natural progression through the game. These quizzes must be based on astronomy (on subjects such as the order of planets, their names and distances between them, that younger demographics can understand) just like the rest of the game. The style must be bright, colourful and engaging to the younger audience. 

Could check national curriculum for 7-13 year olds about space and astronomy.

Could use to plan:

• Mind map
• Mood board
• Wireframe
• Decision Tree
• Storyboard

Production Schedule

• Pre-production - Planning, organising resources, gathering talent and skill.
• Production - The making of the product e.g. filming, capturing photos or writing
• Post-Production - Editing and testing the product with audiences 

Constraints of Production

• Budget
• Time
• Legal and Ethical
• Feasibility
• Skill set
• Physical/environmental constraints (uncontrollable)
• Resources

Production Scheduling

• Timescales
• Deadlines
• Tasks
• Activities
• Resources
• Milestones
• Contingencies

Why does market and competitor research help media companies?

Market Research allows for media companies to target specific audiences, discover what is being viewed or used on what platform and when, which also tells you the primary audience of the platform. What your market/demographic want. Competitor research allows for a company to research and therefore, stand out against their competitors by using their weaknesses and turning them into their own strengths. An example of this would be that you can watch sport on Amazon Prime which no other streaming service allows for. 

Strengths - what your company does well, qualities that separate you from competitors, internal resources such as skills, tangible assets like intellectual properties and technologies.

Weaknesses - What your company lacks, things your competitors do better than you, resource limitations, unclear selling propositions.

Opportunities - Underserved markets for specific products, few competitors in your area, emerging need for your product or service, press coverage of your product or company (reputation).

Threats - Emerging competitors (CDPR challenged Bethesda), changing regulatory environment, negative press coverage, changing customer attitudes towards your company. 

Site Map Purpose - A plan for an app/website's structure and layout. The home page always being the first thing the user arrives at. 

Visualization Diagram:

• Does it feature what has been asked
• Fitness for purpose - features relevant to the brief

Planning For a Given Media Product - Fight Club

Costs

1. Casting - A List Actors like Brad Pitt and Edward Norton - These actors are A list therefore, high cost

2. CGI - Buildings exploding - requires staff to create CGI and money to pay them and find them with the CGI being expensive at the time due to it's infancy and therefore, lack of experts

3. Location - Derelict Manor, Basement, Airport, planes, office - costly due to renting out certain places or paying to film somewhere like an airport, bar or an office however, other locations like the basement where Fight Club takes place are less of a problem since it's already unoccupied.

4. Set Props - Vehicles 

5. Props - Handgun, soap (made specifically for the film)