Production roles through media- Unit 22

production roles through media- unit 22.

P1- PRODUCTION JOB ROLES IN MEDIA.

In media there are various roles throughout pre-production, production and post production. I can't tell all the roles throughout, but I will say about 5.

1. Director- Part of the whole production side of media. To become a director you will need experience in TV or film and an in depth understanding of production. It can take several years to build up experience. You'll need very good organisational and planning skills, the ability to make and brainstorm ideas quickly. For the role, responsibilities are key. Day to day would include, meeting producers to plan schedules and resources, developing scripts and storyboards, deciding how the bigger picture will look after all the work has been put in. Salary as a director is paid by a fee for each contract or project they do. Rates vary depending on the experience or the type of production. They are basically the person responsible for bringing an idea from other roles to life.

2. Set designer- To become a set designer you need a Higher National Diploma or a degree in a relevant subject examples: architecture, fine art, interior design or 3D design. To begin with, you can be assistant or department trainee or a runner for film or TV and work up from there. You'll need the mind of creativity and imagination, strong practical skills within drawing and 3D model making. Brilliant attention to detail and the ability to work under pressure. Your responsibilities will be studying and discussing script ideas, communicating ideas to costume, make-up, props and lighting designer. Working problems with changes, researching, contemporary or futuristic details for production. Salary for someone starting as a Set Designer (runner) would be £200-£500 a day, experienced (a junior draftsperson) £600-£1000 a day and highly experienced (working on high well known productions) £1000-£3000 a day.

3. Camera operator- To be a camera operator there's no set requirements. Employers are more interested in skills and experience than qualifications. You'd start of as a 'runner' if wish to and then work your way up. You could take up a media production, technology college or university course or get paid, unpaid experience and build up contacts by working : on film projects, with camera equipment hire companies, as a runner or camera assistant. A place you could apply for the Guild of British Camera Technicians trainee scheme. Your skills that are needed; the ability to carry instructions quickly and correctly, stay calm under pressure, patience and good levels of fitness. You'll be recording moving images for film, television or online use. You could work of feature films, programmes, commercials, videos or corporate productions under the supervision from the director or director of photography. Your day to day responsibilities will be setting up camera, choosing the suitable lenses and camera angles that go with what you're filming, planning and rehearsing, following camera script and working closely with technical departments. Salary is a paid fee for each contract you encounter.

4. Lighting technician- To be a lighting technician, you could qualify as an electrician and get practical experience or do a college course to learn the skills like electrics and lighting design. You will need present practical experience like a traineeship with lighting companies or experience in; lighting equipment hire theatres or concert venues, amateur theatre and student or general film projects. To have more chance you'll need to put together a portfolio of all your work. Skills you're going to need are; practical and math skills, communication and people skill, creativity and problem-solving and the ability to follow technical and design instructions. Your responsibilities day to day will usually specialise in film and TV, theatre, concerts or live events. You will be interpreting a lighting designer's plan, carry out risk assessments, plan where to run cables and places lights at locations, help rig and check equipment used, take cues from the stage manager and programmer and operate manual computer-controlled lighting systems. Salary for a lighting technician, as a starter would be £15,000 - £18,000 a day. Experienced would be £30,000 a day, highly experienced would be £40,000 (senior positions) Freelance work is more of a common path than permanent work.

5. Editor- There's no set entry admissions, but you will need to have experience in editing software such as, Final Cut Pro, Media Composer or Premiere Pro. You could potentially do paid or unpaid work at a company or editing suite, create and edit students film productions. It may be a help if you get in if you do a HND foundation degree, degree or postgraduate course in film and television studies. Skills you are going to need are; having a good sense of time and visual awareness, a mix of practical and creative skills, a high level of detail, the ability to work under pressure, patience, concentration and IT skills. Your day to day responsibilities may include, agreeing to a finished 'look for the final image, transfer film or video footage, use editing software, keep a clear idea of the storyline and creating DVDs or formatting footage to view online. Salary for an editor, as a starter would be £18,000 a day, Experienced would be £20,000 - £35,000 a day and Highly Experienced would be £45,000 a day. Working hours you will need to be flexible and in some cases you will be working up to 60 hours a week.

P2- analysis and compare 2 job roles.

Director: A director is the person who gives directions to cast members to do what they'd like them to do on set. They are in effect the main person who brings a visual idea from other roles throughout pre-production, production and post production to life within the boundaries of the film's budget.

There are various pathways to becoming a film director. Some film directors start as screenwriters, cinematographers, film editors or actors. Some directors write their own screenplays or collaborate on screenplays with long standing writing partners and some directors edit or appear in their own film or compose music.

To become a director you will need to have experience working in television or film and the understanding of the production and process you will need to go through. You could get understanding through working with camera and lighting, acting or start out as a runner. Bearing in mind it takes several years to build up experience, be patient. In the meantime, take up a filmmaking or media production course to give yourself an advantage of practical skills that are required. You will need excellent organisational and planning skills, the ability to make and brainstorm ideas promptly and good leadership and motivational skills. They are all important to maintain throughout this role.

A director has a lot of responsibilities that need to be taken day to day and they include, meeting producers throughout to plan filming schedules and resources within, developing scripts, storyboards and ideas, deciding on how the bigger picture will look and where it should be, of course hiring cast and crew otherwise they wouldn't be able to create a visual outcome. Explaining the technical requirements to different teams because they won't necessarily understand what's happening if they are in a different department and finally, they will supervise the editing.

The equipment a director uses is quite simple. They use a pen and paper for jotting down ideas or notes, a laptop to write notes or use for communications, a phone for more communication incase they can't get hold of anyone and an earpiece for further communication and to listen to people through radio if they're on a quiet set.

Camera Operator: A camera operator or informally called a 'cameraman' is a professional operator of film or video. The camera's are put into their capable hands and they are incharge of capturing the visual idea from the director. They need to keep the maintenance of composition and camera angles throughout the shots.

To become a camera operator there's no specific set requirements to enter. Employers are mostly interested in skills and experience. There's the chance of starting out as a runner and work up with contacts. But in the meantime, you could take up a media production, technology or university course or get paid or unpaid work. Your skills needed to be a camera operator are, the ability to carry out instructions quickly and correctly, calmness, patience and good levels of fitness.

A camera operator has responsibilities, as they are the focal point for maintaining good precision on capturing visuals throughout. Like, setting up camera equipment correctly, choosing the suitable lenses and angles, planning and rehearsing shots, following script and working closely with other departments as part of the process and to see what they are all doing. As a camera operator they will usually be in the mix of either television or film work as the different pieces of equipment aren't always the same.

Comparing: These two roles I have chosen to compare, director and camera operator are completely different to each other. A director has more authority over the camera operator, as the director is the person in charge and relies on his/hers production team. A director is the one who sees the bigger picture and brings a visual idea given to life, he/she then goes to the production team, mainly the camera operator because they are the ones who capture the insights of the idea. Without the director, the camera operator wouldn't have a clue of what to do, as they wouldn't know the idea given or they wouldn't have a camera script to go off, as that's what helps them. Without a camera operator, the director wouldn't be able to create and bring to life the visual idea given from the other roles throughout the production process. The director isn't the one to get hands on with the technical side of things, as that may not be another fortye of theirs.

So, the director has more power than the camera operator, but they both need each other because without one another they wouldn't be able to capture the visual picture.

p3-self analysis.

For me I have many strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In some shape or form they all bounce off of each other in the fact that strengths could become threats and weaknesses could turn into opportunities.

To set myself a task to do better, for this project; Eclectic Sessions, I've decided to put myself forward for the director role. I feel by putting myself forward for the role, I can prove to myself and others that I can take on a big role and take charge!

With writing in general or emails, I feel I'm average at it, but not 100% because I have mild dyslexia which sometimes gives me a ahead block and I'm not sure on what to write and how to put it out. I'm confident with knowing what I want to write down like, it will be planned and thoroughly thought out in my head from beginning to end, but it's the writing it all down and making what's planned out in my head become real in black and white. Once it's all become realistic, it's the checking over and making sure words, sentences and punctuation are in order and it all makes sense. I would usually get someone other than myself to check through it and seeing if there are any mistakes.

Other than not being so confident with writing I feel, I'm more confident with speaking to other in general, publicly or directly. With talking to other, I find it quite easy doing so than I have done in the past. I wasn't so confident speaking to people I'd never met before, but as I'm getting older, I've become more confident with speaking/talking to others. This has come from my experiences throughout cadets and at college with presenting to the class or at events where I've openly volunteered to speak in front of a big crowd who I've never spoken to.

I am comfortable using production equipment when I'm needed to. I've been taught how to use it and carry it correctly. I don't feel there is anything I need more training on with camera, tripods and other handheld equipment. Saying that, I feel there needs to be another workshop on audio e.g. the boom mics, as I believe more people will understand more on how to use them properly.

Creativity to me means having/ brainstorming any idea that comes to you be it, weird, unique, ambitious and out there and turning it into a real aspect and making it come to life. Also pushing yourself to create your idea if you've got little faith in yourself. Tell yourself you 'can do it' despite what others say. You are you and don't let anyone tell you anything else. Don't compare your ideas to someone else's. Let out your idea that's been stored in your head. Write it, draw pictures, spider diagram it of your weird, unique/original, ambitious and out there idea. Let that creativity that's inside be it you thinking there's not much because you're wrong, there's plenty and allow it to flow.

I personally feel I'm creative within. I can come up with ideas that are way too ambitious for me to think of, but I push myself to continue with it, make the ideas practical for me to achieve. I may give up on the way, but with that extra, 'you can do it' gives me a pump to carry on and make the creative idea that's stored become real for me and others to see.

Strengths:

My strengths I feel I have to fit are; confidence within myself and speaking in front of people, as I go to cadets and through cadets I am an NCO so I have to talk in front of people all the time so it wouldn't phase me. I also have good leadership skills, with this I can get into a group and again talk in front of a group of people, I'm very direct so I can tell them what's going on and where to go and they can go off and do it with my looking over. I feel I also have good control over a group that also links in with the previous two.

Weaknesses:

My weaknesses I feel I have are; I doubt myself quite a bit, as I don't always believe in myself when it comes to producing. I'm quite negative at times when things aren't always going to plan, but I try to keep a cool. With negativity that I put on myself comes over analytical. I over think about many things that I need to tame so that's where negativity arises.

Opportunities:

Opportunities that I can take for help towards being a director are; my current course, Boomsatsuma studying Creative Media. That will give me confidence when in the processing of productions. Leadership through Air Cadets, I have obtained the rank of Sergeant currently and I'm normally in charge of the other cadets leading them through various activities and disciplines. Theatre School is another thrive. I've been attending theatre school from the age of 8 to 17 and I'm currently an assistant helping and support the teachers and pupils through the 3 disciplines, singing, dancing and acting.

Threats:

Looking at my weaknesses some of them fade into threats such as negativity I put on myself , negative thinking 90% of the time, putting pressure on myself which will bring me down when going for a permanent director role.

When entering an job role or anywhere that includes roles, someone's always going to be better than you, competition. That's what I fear, not being good enough for a role I've set my heart to.

Dear Mr Weaknesses and Mrs Threats,

I just wanted to write to you both to let you know that I can get past you, without you being in my path. I've noticed from my 'SWOT' analysis that you both appear more than once which is quite worrying, but that's why I need to get you away.

I'm not happy that you both appear in the same way; doubtful, negative and not feeling good enough. That's not very high confident driven for my in the sense of wanting to be a better be me, but I can't because you're pushing me. I push you both away, but you always seem to find a way back.

To get rid of you both for good, I've decided to come up with a 3 year plan that's going to get me where I want as a director and to be happy and free from you both. I've put up with you for way too long and now is the chance to make a difference and to get you both away as soon as possible!

Development plan during 3 years:

I'm going to apply for a UCAS for the University Of the West of England (UWE) studying Filmmaking located at the Bower Ashton Studios where the majority of film and media course are based. This course is at Degree level which is 3 years. Over the 3 years of Filmmaking the course will push boundaries, intellectual and imagination. Explore filmmaking for the 21st century through development of short form projects. Attendance of lectures and seminars, develop drama and documentary storytelling skills.

Over the 3 year degree that I will be applying for I will be putting in training to become more confident, take on work experience in preparation for a Directors role and earn my qualifications.

Work experience: Through development I will start by gaining as much experience as possible working on film and potential television projects that will provide me with a real insight into how films are made and how much goes into them.

I will also work as a runner and assistant on projects I've had the chance to go on, alongside creating my own low budgeted film projects in order to help develop my skills further.

p4- fEEDBACK from a previous production role:

I've been given feedback from a previous project we did, Unit 46, this was where we had to work with the NHS and Medical mavericks to produce a short film for them promoting the workshops they run for people to understand and get to grips the ins and outs of what they do.

We got given a brief from our client telling us what they wanted, told us their audience who were going to attend, Year 9s from different schools around Bristol and what to include.

We took our briefing and from there planned what we were going to do, who was going to be in charge of what role. I took main role as the director, as I felt I was confident looking after a team and also to give me a bit more responsibility in terms of seeing what I could do to my capability. I also took on second camera operator to help the group out with an extra pair of hands.

With being the director I had control of the group, what I wanted them to do and where to go within the workshops taking place.

Here is a piece of feedback I received from Harrison Maidment who was one of my group members.

From reading my feedback, I feel overall I was a good director and proved I was capable for the role that I had chosen to do. I also feel I helped out my group a lot by supporting them with their doings within the workshops. From what Harrison Maidment said about improving my communication, I would agree on that one. On my part not on the other members of the group, sometimes the communication I gave out was lost in transmutation which is something I need to improve on if we were to redo it.

Above is the final short film that we made for our clients, NHS and Medical Mavericks.

They used this short film to show others what happened on the day of the workshops and for them to get understanding of what they do.