CINE 1115 Pre-production module was an interesting index of topics that would help us prepare for the pre-production process and gave a vague idea of how the real industry works. Every week was bringing something new but I am going to mention a few that picked my particular attention.
Week fourth was called āHow to produce a Filmā and supposedly have to provide us with information regarding creating production framework, memos and contracts, health and safety, etc. according to the official CINE 1115 Course Handbook. What I learned was āpre-production roles and tasks required to complete the pre-production stage. We also discuss health and safety aspects and why we shouldn't ignore them.ā What I wish I could learn more was more in-depth roles hierarchy and a wider variety of the examples where people did not comply with the health and safety procedures. It is due to the fact that there was no particular hierarchy provided and we heard about the train track dream sequence accident for the third time over three years of our education. Ā
Week five session was called āFilm Festival and Film Festival Strategyā and its purpose was to teach us about the list of festivals, entry, market and strategy according to the official CINE 1115 Course Handbook. What we learned was ā(ā¦) of early festival planning in order to avoid wasting time and unexpected expenses. (ā¦) an activity that opens our eyes on possible research and actions to take yet during the pre-production and not leaving it until the last minute. The activity was to search, in the groups, Ā film festivals, costs of submission and crew/talent travel expenses. We had an imaginary budget of Ā£10k. This experience showed us that festivals need very careful planning and strategy that equals the one during the actual film production. My group's choices were split into the categories of submission cost and festival prestige. The low-cost one was a Screentest. The student-friendly short film festival with a free submission. The second festival was LOLO. This film festival had a higher prestige, small entry fee and was based in London what cut the expenses. The third one was the Raindance festival that is known from its high popularity and medium submission charge, based in London but crew and talent will need to buy their own tickets.ā This session was loaded with very useful information, however, I wish we could be provided with a better list of festivals that would fit the size and requirements of our graduation project films.
Lastly, week ten was titled āSchedulingā, however, Ā according to the diaries of people (I could not find my entry) we were covering budget formats, useful software and budgeting strategies. What we learned were indeed budget formats in Microsoft Excel, however, I wish we could learn more about the budgeting applications or websites that could make everything more clear and less complicated. Despite this, budgeting strategies had a handful of good advice that I applied in my own budget that included cuts and improvisation like catering, location and crew logistic.