Contractual, Legal, And Ethical Issues In Short & Feature Film Industry Research
http://www.poynerspruill.com/publications/Pages/LegalIssuesinFilmProduction.aspxhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/distribution/legal-guide-publicising-your-short#
http://notthesecretary.blogspot.com/2008/11/ethics-in-production.html
These websites were interesting to find out information about the film/media industry and how it differs from most other businesses. A particular interest I took into my work was the fact that some Directors or Companies under pay there working crew just so they get big fat bonuses at the end.
http://www.ehow.com/video_2374488_contracts-releases-other-legal-issues.html
After watching a couple of these videos, it was a good reminder of the basics in contract write ups. It gave me a comprehensive list of the legal copyrights that will need to be dealt with before starting a production.
Market & Product Research Email Copy & Research
Date: Thurs, 18 Feb 2010 15:26:31 +0000
From: dangerousdan2k@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Questions On Market & Product Research
Hi Tom
Sorry it took a while for me to answer the questions.
1. How important is market and product research business?
very important, you need yo know what your selling will sell.
2. How do you do your research into these areas?
Research is done by asking clients what they’d like. Trialing new products and displaying them at exhibitions and seeking feedback.
3. What difference would it make to your business if you were to not do any research into these areas?
If no research was completed then products that I would offer wouldn’t sell as well as other products could, ultimately affecting cash flow and the eventual survival of the business could be put into jeapardy.
Knowing what customers want and providing that is key to any business.
Anything else you need let me know.
Dan
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Non ICT
Audience – An Introduction by Roy Stafford
A great piece of educational material that is usually used for classroom activities. Plenty of information based around audiences and how to research into them and market the correct audience for your productions.
ICT
http://marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/market-research/product-research
http://www.morebusiness.com/running_your_business/management/Market-Research.brc
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-market-research.htm
These sites all gave small bites of information that I could include use in my essay. It gave me a wider view on market research which isn’t just media related so I could compare with the general knowledge I already have from working in businesses of the las 4 -5 years.
Interview Techniques Clips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx5Z6T7MpwA Jim Carrey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbNBYnqDfBQ Steorn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KAk7o1gQm4 Micah Richards
And Winner Of The Acadamy Award For Best Film 2010 Is…….
The Acadamey Award For Best Film 2010 is not too far away now and there are a host of great films which have been nominated to win. On the list is:
Avatar
Blind Side
District 9
An Education
Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air
The question is, who will win? Unfortunatley for me, I have only watched 3 of the listed 10 films. So its difficult to predict who will win. However, I have to say that after watching Avatar (eventually) that it was an incredible story, and the 5 years that took it to completion. Stunningly realised locations, fantastic CGI and an intense and emotional story make it my prediction to be the winning film. Not only did the film showcase a unique design but also gained incredible hype throughout the release of the film. Incredibly, Avatar also surpassed records of Titanic in grossing intakes by gaining a huge $1.859 billion in its first six weeks, compared to Titanics $1.843 billion. This is also the reason in which I choose this film to be my choice of film to win the Award. I was ingrosed every minute, almost in tears at points and I didnt feel the 2.5 hours that it was. Fantastic
Career Path – Gained Skills
- Ability to use Final Cut Pro
- Ability to use Soundtrack
- Ability to use Adobe Audition
- Directed/Produced/Edited “The Conversation” (Complete)
- Directed/Produced/Edited “Sony Ericcson “Not Just A Phone” Ad”
- Ability to use DV Camera + Microphone
Career Path – Cameraman Job Role Research
http://www.mandy.com/1/jobs3.cfm?v=36664276 – The Job Ad
http://www.skillset.org/film/stories/article_4348_1.asp
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/television_camera_operator_job_description.jsp
http://www.ca.courses-careers.com/articles/tvfilmcameraoperator.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/studentlife/careersandchoices/dreamjobs/mediaandentertainment/camera_operator.shtml
http://careersadvice.direct.gov.uk/helpwithyourcareer/jobprofiles/JobProfile?jobprofileid=519&jobprofilename=TV%20or%20Film%20Camera%20Operator&code=1824651492
http://www.jobguide.thegoodguides.com.au/occupation/view/499213A
The plague that is Plagiarism
Plagiarism is when oneself copies the work of another source (i.e. Wikipedia) and uses it as their own work without crediting the original author/creator. It is also a form of plagiarism when quoting a line or paragraph from another source without using quotation marks and referencing. Even finding information from another source and changing the words slightly to make it out to be your own work, but still not crediting the original author is plagiarism.
If oneself uses the act of plagiarism in any form, whether it be because they want a higher grade, because they do not understand the work, or purely because they cannot be bothered to do the work, it is dealt with very seriously. The work will be not marked and the student may end up being expelled from the course. In turn this will make finding another course in the same college extremely difficult, as the college records will show that this students use of plagiarism. It may also make finding another course in a different college or university difficult if a reference was needed from the college.
In order to avoid plagiarism in writing essays, always reference your work by stating the original author and website in which you got the work from. You should also add quotation marks wherever necessary so that it is known that someone else has stated this quote not you. It is also a good idea to, when required, start sentences in such a way that states that the information comes from another source. I.e. According to the Daily Mirror website…….
Film Review – James Bond – Dr No
Dr. No is 1962 film that sits alongside a large collection of other legendary James Bond films. Starring Sean Connery as Bond, the film is set in Jamaica where an island called Crab Quay is set off limits to everyone, claiming that the island os home to a dragon. Bond is sent to Jamaica to find a missing colleague called John Strangways , and finds himself being lead to Crab Quay where he comes across Honey Rider (Ursula Andress) and the famous and well loved beach scene is seen. They team up to find their way into the huge organization that is of Dr. No.
Not being the biggest James Bond fan, I wasn’t the most excited about watching Dr. No. However, the film was a suprisingly better than average for me. It wasn’t anything ground breaking, but then maybe that is because I’m expecting too much from a 1962 film. I could’nt help myself spotting many jump cuts and poor green screening, but then it is a film that is nearly 40 years old. Sean Connery however was a fantastic lead as James Bond. Convincing acting, he looked cool, calm and collected regardless of what was happening around him, which is what you come to expect of James Bond. I was however disappointed with the ending, as the fight between Dr. No and Bond was too short lived and the moment Dr. No struggles to get up and dies is just a tad to unconvincing. Overal, it kept me entertained but im still not quite converted.
Against Film Piracy
It is estimated that film piracy costs the box office $3 billion dollars a year. Film piracy (and other piracies) can affect the film industry in many different ways. Not one to watch pirated movies let alone download the films themselves, its easy for me to understand why film piracy should be banished completely.
First and most importantly, the producers will not receive their well earned money. People say that they earn enough but this is beyond the point. Much hard work and effort to make a film for the audience would be unfair to not receive the right amount of money for. You wouldn’t think it was fair if someone said you earned enough anyway for your job and so you didn’t receive the right amount of pay for your work. The money that is not given to the right people will affect the new generation of upcoming talent and these people that would eventually normally become big film stars may not even get to become the big star they desire to be.
The quality of sound and picture on pirate DVDs tend to be poor. Some can be good but its not the same as going to the cinema or having the proper full quality, just like music quality. There are cases of annoying lines, jumping pictures, people walking through the cinema and fuzzy noise quality in pirated copies.
If you are a person who downloads regularly, you would know that there are thousands of different options to download when doing this. How do you know what you are downloading isn’t the incorrect film, or even porn? False tag lines and titles are easy to do and easily mistaken for the wrong file. Programmes like Lime wire, WinMX and other sites are notorious for their virus ridden programmes that can ruin your computer. Not only that the files that you are downloading can be named anything and so what you may think you are downloading is genuine may be virus ridden itself.
Film piracy in turn causes higher costs for cinemas and some cinemas can go out of business. So for those who watch pirated films but still go to the cinema, the next time you go to the cinema and say “how much!!??”, take a second to think that this maybe all because of film piracy. This is unfair for those who don’t watch pirated films and genuinely want to pay for what they see.
Research Links To BAFTA Nominate short film “Soft”
http://www.cinema16.org/film.php?film=81
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Ellis_(film_director)
http://www.bafta.org/awards/film/short-film-award,296,BA.html
http://www.screendaily.com/simon-ellis-talks-doggingand-romance/4043298.article
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Copy of Simon Ellis email for evidence of primary research
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 21:01:51 +0000
From: simonellis@bubtowers.com
To: foolsforest@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: Re: A Few Questions On Your Short Film “Soft”
hi tom,
here you go, short and sweet:
- Why did you choose gang culture for this particular short film and how did this idea come up?
i didn’t choose gang culture. it is first and foremost a film about fear, specifically male pride between two generations and how that can function as a handicap, regardless of age. the gang are a contemporary catalyst for that.
- Where exactly did you film this short film and why did you choose that particular place to film it?
it was shot in nottingham, in my own neighbourhood. it was very important to set it in suburbia and not the usual council estates that many filmmakers seem to think are the only places where such events occur.
- How long did it take you to film on location? and how long did it take you to edit the film?
the shoot was five days. the edit took a couple of weeks and was pretty much a case of joining the dots. the father’s journey to the shop, in parallel to the gang’s behaviour, was the only section that needed repeated sculpting.
- How much did it cost in all for the production?
it was a cinema extreme commission, so £50k, which is by far my biggest budget yet, and probably the biggest i’ll ever get for a short despite my ambition to keep making them, indefinitely.
- How many crew did you use in all the production?
i’m afraid i can’t remember, you’d have to count on the credits!
- Was there anything that you changed, or that didnt make it into the final edit of the film?
i had a scene where the gang ‘leader’ talks two girls into kissing each other but his cheek was quite charming and gave his character a touch of warmth that interfered with the role. other than that, what you see is what was shot.
- Why did you choose the actors that were used in this film?
jonny phillips, who played the father, had heard about the script through a mutual friend and wrote to me expressing an interest. after rehearsing with him there seemed no point in looking any further. i was already familiar with the actors who played the son and the gang leader, either from other people’s projects that i had worked on or through auditions for other films of my own. the rest of the gang were cast from an open call and coincidentally included lads who i’d spotted in gangs in my own neighbourhood.
- Was there any negative feedback after showing the final edit?
there have been a small amount of people who like to think that the film suggests violence is the solution to violence, which, given that the film’s ending is hardly positive, is missing the point somewhat.
hope that’s okay for ya.
cheers,
simon
