Pre-Production is an extremely crucial part of my Final Major Project. It has essentially planned out my life for the next month as I move into proper production and then later post production. And completing this pre-production work now was vital in keeping my Project structured and progressing smoothly.

Pre-Production is split into two major areas. Creative and technical. The creative side deals a lot more with the development of the idea and furthering it. The technical side plans out how the production will happen, including when, where and how it will be produced. To structure my pre-production work well, I decided to start mainly with my creative pre-production.

I felt this was the best way to do it, as progressing my idea and finalising it more before planning how my production would run made a lot more sense in my mind. Thankfully, I was also able to use my knowledge from my ideas development and research in order to develop my idea even more from what it was. Having this solid idea down before planning my production would make understanding what I needed to do a lot easier.

I started my pre-production with making a proposal. This one is slightly different from the formal proposal I created within my Ideas Development. This proposal is structured more similarly to how you would present an idea to a company. I felt this was the best piece of work to start with, as in the real world, if your proposal wasn’t approved you wouldn’t be doing any other pre-production. The proposal also aided me in helping to develop my idea to myself, as describing the synopsis and characters allowed me to structure these aspects a lot more.

This proposal then led to what I felt would be one of the most important pieces of pre-production, the Script. In my opinion, the script is where the idea really starts to develop itself. I started my own script writing by using the Celtx website in order to make sure my script was properly formatted into “Hollywood Style”. I started by writing a first draft of my script, using my proposal and previous work in order to develop the idea and narrative even further. Using this first draft, I then asked one of my lecturers for feedback on it, as well as Marking up the script myself. My lecturer got back to me and said the Script was very good, but in my own Mark up I had discovered some things I wanted to change or improve myself. This then led to me creating my final Script.This final script then allowed me to move onto even more pre-production work, as I was now able to use this script as a basis to build my future work off of.

My next piece was also a very important piece of work, the Storyboards. I had already started to visualise the piece within my head, so this allowed me to fully develop the visual style to my piece. Multiple pieces of previous work really helped me in the creation of my storyboards. My script acted as a basis for the narrative that I would build the Storyboards off of. And much of my research into documentaries and mockumentaries helped me in deciding what shots to use as well as how the camera would work, either handheld or static. This work made creating the storyboards a lot smoother and made the final product feel more informed.

Two pieces of work that then went hand in hand were the shooting script and audio script. Related to my storyboards, these pieces of work also aided in creating the visual style of my piece, as well as the audio script aiding in furthering my planning of the audio style a lot more than I had already done. The audio script also started me thinking about new features of the piece, such as the Foley, atmospherics and music that would need to be included in the final piece. I had done some research into these aspects which had started my insight into these features, but I had not yet properly looked into what I would need. This also allowed me to decide on certain features, such as limited foley and natural atmospherics in order to continue to emulate the documentary style.

These two scripts then allowed me to start creating my Resource List. This details all the props, and equipment I would need. Where and when I would need them as well as why. All of my previous pieces of pre-production helped inform this piece of work. The Script, storyboards and shooting/audio scripts all detailed things that would be included within the piece. Which then allowed me to detail all these features within my Resource List.

For many of my characters, I am letting the actors choose their costumes, as I want the people to feel real, once again pushing the documentary feel. But for Cody, as he is animated, I needed to plan his costumes in advance. In order to do this I created character designs. Throughout the piece Cody uses 5 costumes; Scene 1 costume; outside costume; inside costume; school costume and breakdown costume. I tried to make these costumes different in order to emulate the real sort of clothes that people would wear. But what these character designs also aid in is acting as colour references. Specifically things such as hair and skin colour are important to keep consistent throughout the whole piece. And the colour of the clothes also need to stay consistent between each of the shots. This means, when I come to production, I can use these character designs in order to keep my colours consistent.

Style sheets were what I completed next. These continued in the development of the visual style of my piece. The most important one was the one focused on my animation. I was able to find uses of Ebsynth which looked incredibly similar to how I envision my final piece will look like, and I think it’s really useful to display this visual style during this earlier phase.

Two of the most important pieces for planning are the location and risk assessments. These are super important as this is where all my production days will take place. I have four different locations in which I shoot. Two of these are public property and one is my own house so these were relatively easy to access. However, I had a little bit of a struggle when finding a classroom to shoot in. However, thanks to Nigel, I was able to book a classroom within the College which allowed me to finish off my location assessments. Assessing these locations then allowed me to assess them for risks. This was super important as keeping all crew and cast safe is a high priority. I had made sure to pick locations which I knew weren’t extremely dangerous, so many of the things I detailed on my risk assessments are minor risks and hazards. Completing these two pieces of paperwork really started in helping me to see how my final piece will look, and really felt like I was on the right track.

Related to the locations is the Shot List. This is important as it will act as a guide for me when I’m filming on location. I used the shot list to detail what shots happen where as well as what needs to happen at each of these locations. Completing this piece of work will definitely help me to run my production more smoothly but also aided me in creating my next piece of work, the Production Schedule.

Possibly the most important piece of work when it comes to planning the production is the Production Schedule. This details where and when I’m shooting as well as what’s being shot, who is needed and contingency planning. This was the piece of work where I really felt my production was coming together. Now that I have made it, all my production has been planned. And the production schedule also helped to complete previous pieces of work, such as the location assessment and resource list which required the dates. As well as allowing me to complete the rest of the work that I needed to complete.

A piece of pre-production which I hadn’t originally planned was the Equipment List. However, after creating my production schedule, I was able to book all my equipment. I then created this list as a way to detail and keep track of all the equipment I had booked and when. The table was a creation of my own, and I’m going to make sure to check it before each shoot in order to make sure I have all the equipment I need. This piece of work will then allow me to worry less and make my productions run smoother as I will have access to everything I need.

My penultimate piece of pre-production work acted as a culmination of much of the work that came before it, the Call Sheets. These pieces of work were only able to be made thanks to the previous work I had put into the location/risk assessments, the scripts, the production schedule as well as my resource list. I had also been gathering actors throughout this stage and these call sheets allowed me to detail about them as well. I created 9 call sheets in total, one for each day of production. Similarly to the shot list, these call sheets will aid me on my production shoots, as well as helping all the other people who will be present on the shoot. Creating them now will help me a lot later down the line, especially in helping my productions run smoothly and efficiently.

And my very final piece of work were my release forms, location and talent. These act as confirmations for the actors I’ll be using as well as the places where I’ll be shooting. These are important as they allow me to confirm and display the locations and actors I will be using.

Overall, this pre-production has been hard work but extremely rewarding. All of the work that I have completed during this period will allow my production to run a lot smoother and my idea and planning has developed so much during this section, to the point where it is practically finalised. I’m happy with my pre-production stage and I’m looking forward to heading into my final production.