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Pre production process

Pre Production.

It was important in this project for the pre production paperwork to be at our highest standard. We also worked hard to secure relevant locations for filming, rather than settling for easier locations like we have in the past. 
In this post I'll be including copies of our paperwork, my emails to location managers, the council and other authorities, as well as breaking down the process, a bit about the website, and what was important for me.

Paperwork

Project Development



This is a copy of the Onenote notebook I used in the very early stages of production to consolidate all of my ideas. It is in somewhat of a disarray but contains all of the initial thought processes that lead to this project.

The other drafts of the script are available on the website here. I just didn't want to post them all to here and overload this page!

Location Maps

I arranged for our Airbnb host to send me a copy of the floorplan of the house we will be filming in so that we can get an idea of the layout and how we can utilise the space the best, especially since we won't be able to visit the flat until the shoot.

I have also documented all of the locations that we will be filming. You can see details about the locations by clicking on the pins.

Shoot Organisation




I made a shorter more concise shoot schedule for the actors to refer to so that they can easily see where they need to be and when. The other shoot schedule is more for the crew to refer to for shots but both will be available to everyone.

I found this an easier way of managing all of the extras that we will be using because we will have so many. On the original sheet I can also quickly access email addresses in case there is a particular role I need to contact.

Budget

All of the cells containing numbers have functions attached to them so that we can simplify the information that we enter and it will give back everything we need to know. For example, the travel column multiplies the entered amount of miles by 45p and then multiplies that by the amount of back-and-forth the actor will do to give the exact amount of money we owe the actor, which is then retracted from the remaining budget total. (The reason the file has "do not touch" in the title is because this is entirely managed by me to reduce the chance of mistakes and any issues or mistakes can be traced back to something I've done.)

Correspondence


These are screenshots of an email conversation with The Diver's Arms, a pub we wanted to use as a location. I included this as an example of correspondence and professional practice on the project. Other correspondence included phone calls with locations such as Kings Hall to secure a base room from which we can operate out on the beach in front of the hall. This would give us a location to store unused equipment and a warm place to serve food and drinks.

Organisation

Here is an example of how myself and Esme organised our shared files. We shared everything we worked on except for blog work so that we could both keep updated on what stage the other is at and help each other out.
We also had a page where we could update each of our jobs that needed doing and keep track of where we were at in production.

Website

To present the package I made a website. This is where I was able to present everything that we had both put towards the project so far. I ensured that I made the website as accessible as possible by using as many of Wix's features as possible. This meant that anyone viewing the page would be able to navigate using the pages as well as the toolbar at the top, and connected different topics on the website together.
I thought it to be important to let the viewer get to know us as a team as well as the project we were working on, and so I made the About Laziday page which included short biographies about each member of the team, contact details for the team and a way to watch all of our previous work in order to get an idea of development and how we work together.

About the process

The pre-production process was a challenge for us due to me needing an extension, however, I think we pushed ourselves and we have definitely gone further with this project. The added bonus of getting the grant from the university opened up possibilities for us and we have been able to make our project much more ambitious. It has been great to work with the people involved so far and there has been an amazing amount of kindness from the locals of Herne Bay, offering private roads as locations and being patient with our correspondence and slower-than-usual production process. I have put a lot of effort into the website in particular to try to ensure that it's as user-friendly as possible and functions like a professional website. I have strived to maintain professional practice in every aspect and it has so far helped with our production. I look forward to taking it to the next stage.
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