Post 10

When producing a short film it is import to assign job roles to specific people so she film is produced in the best way possible.

DIRECTORS
The first department which is key to follow with regards to making any media production is the role of the director. Usually it is best known that the Director is in fact the person who is ultimately responsible for the creative vision and overall style of feature film. Within this department, the director is also supported by a number of Assistant Directors, who assure that the Director’s artistic ambitions are in fact achieved throughout the production and editing. This is done by successful time management and proving an organised work forces with a dedicated cast and crew.

• The first assistant director is simply the director’s right hand person, taking a vast amount of responsibility for numerous practicalities so that the director is free to concentrate on the creative process of the film making.
• The second assistant director is just the first assistant director’s right hand man, ensuring the production runs as smoothly as possible.
•  The film director is the driving creative force in a films production, and acts as the crucial link between the production, technical and creative terms.
• Lastly will be Runners or more commonly known as Floor Runners. The role of the runner is the accepted and conventional entry-level position within the film production industry – the first rung on the ladder.

CAMERA

Having good cinematography when making any media production involves the creation of beautiful/and or arresting images on screen. The images produced should also tell us more about a character or a location. It is important to understand that shot composition, camera movement and the way a Director of Photography chooses to manipulate light and shade, all combine to create each films unique photographic signature. A lot of heard work and preparation is involved with a projects camera work, it involves moving and operating cameras in ways that create the best shot possible. Camera crews are known to work with extremely delicate and expensive equipment, even though our production will take place with the schools equipment.. This is still the case!

• A script supervisor’s work involves ensuring that, despite the fact that films are shot entirely out of script sequence, they eventually make continuous verbal and visual sense. Simply, just making sure that the film makes sense and links up according to the script.
• The first assistant camera is responsible for focusing and refocusing the camera lens as the actors move within the frame of each shot and the focal length changes.
• The “grip”’s responsibility is to build, maintain and operate all the equipment that supports the camera, such as tripods, dollies, tracks, jibs or cranes.
• As mentioned before the director of photography does have a important and specific role with regards to a films making. The job of the director of photography is to give a film its unique and visual identity or look.
• The final key role that is designated to the crew in production work is a camera operator. They would have to set up, position and operate the cameras accordingly.

The other roles include the aerial camera assistant, crane operator and steadicam operator. Specific job roles such as those can be done by students with less demanding roles where they have the time and capability to help out as much as possible. This is only the case due to having such a small group of people to work with throughout our production.



LIGHTING

As do the other departments, lighting equally plays a vital role in the majority of film crews. Although some productions may make use of daylight, for most the lightings role is necessary. The different members of the lighting crew are responsible together with others such as the camera crew and art department for the look and feel of the images captured on the screen.

• The “gaffers” are in charge of all the electrical work on production. This involves leading the team of technicians who install the lighting equipment and arranging the power supply in order to create the designed lighting effects.
• A lighting technician helps to provide the relevant lighting and power supply for a film, either on a studio set or on a location. This role would involve imagination and creative skills as within our production work, we appear to not have a studio so all locations are established prior to the filming. This would involve the lighting technician to explore different ways in which the filming could proceed.
• The film productions “best boy” has to co-ordinate the team of lighting technicians and has to deal with the variety of logistics and paperwork relating to the specific role.

• Finally the moving light operator controls all the “intelligent”, or automated, lights chosen by the director of photography.

Similarly to all departments it is important that all job roles work entwine with each other to produce the best possible image on screen. Prior to the amount of people working on or in a department all of the vital job roles are capable of being followed directly.


SOUND
Although film is considered a primarily visual production, much of the storytelling and emotional resonance of a script is conveyed through dialogue. With this in mind when recording all sound on set/or location the work is done by the production sound crew. This includes production sound mixers, boom operators and sound assistants. What their specific job titles involve is to be explained below.

• A production sound mixer is responsible for the difficult and demanding job of recording sound and dialogue and ensuring that the dialogue that is recorded during filming is clear enough for the production.
• A boom operator is responsible for placing the huge microphone in the best position, without impending on camera operation. The role of the boom operator is rarely taken on boards with projects that take place within A2 media studies at our school, due to it being unnecessary as a lot of the sound is recorded in appropriate locations where it is pointless.




A boom operator statue.


• Sound assistants provide general feedback and support to the production of sound mixer and the boom operator. Their jobs involve ensuring everyone that the sound is to the best of its capability and making decisions weather any sound needs to be re-recorded.

ART/PRODUCTION DESIGN
Creating the visual world or setting for a film is the role of the Art Department as a film can be located anywhere. The look of sets or locations involves the audience more directly with the films production. The settings are rarely left to chance by film makers; a great deal of work goes into constructing appropriate back drops to any storyline. This involvement is key to the art and production department of a films making.

• Art directors act as project managers for one of the most vital departments of any film. They facilitate the productions designers’ creative vision for all the locations and sets that eventually give the film its main unique visual identity.
 
• A smaller, but still important job role within the production design department of a film includes the set decorator. Set decorators provide anything that furnishes a film set; they will arrange them all to look best suited for the films genre and theme.
• Story board artists translate screenplays or sequences from screenplays into a series of illustrations in comic book format. This takes time and dedication and a “visual eye” – similarly to the majority of the roles in this department.

• Production designers are major heads of department on film crews, and are responsible for the entire art department. They play a crucial role in helping directors to achieve the films visual requirements.

This is an area I pay particular interest in and would ideally like to focus on the visual side of the films production. I personally think my strengths lie within the imagery and more visual departments rather than the initial filming.

Applying the job roles to our own project.
After research into the variety of job roles and responsibilities that come with the production I came to the conclusion that the follows jobs should be assigned for the following people, as follows. Having noticeably small classes in our A2 lessons, our group work is within small number. With this in mind, some roles needed to be doubled meaning some of my peers will have more than one category to cover when filming our short film.


Person A (Writer of the script): Director. It is important that the person whom created the script to be the director due to them having the best insight into what they hope their film will be produced like. The director can over see everything that happens and has involvement in all of the departments ensuring the ideas are made visual are work according to how they were thought up originally.


Person B will take the role of being in charge and fulfilling all of the roles with regards to the camera department when filming the short film. They will have to cover all aspects include the preparation, constant conversation and group work with the director as well as filming the project to its full potential.


Person C will focus on the two departments which are lighting and sound, due to these two departments working so closely together anyway it seemed like the perfect opportunity to allow them to directly link due to us having such a significantly small crew.


Finally Person D, which I hope will ideally be myself.. I/ or who ever works within this department will focus on the production design work for the film. By doing this they will have to work closely with the director enabling that they can find the correct locations for the development and filming of the short film.


As assigning specific roles it became clear that all departments will noticeably entwine with each other. Even though each person will have their own specific work to be doing, it is important that the entire group are available to help one another.

The image to the right shows my initial plan for organising roles within the group work. The image elaborates on what the roles are for each person involved and how we can all work together as a group to achieve the best possible project.