Production
Pre Production –
One of the most important stages of the of production process, this is the stage when the ideas have more a less come together after the initial development. During this stage you can expect to have the pink pages to the script and to have started to crew up for the film.
From my experience of pre production this was the period of crewing up and also helping art department source props, in my case being action vehicles, televisions and bicycles. We also had the First AD (Assistant Director) finalise the schedule and the producer finalise the budget with programs like MM (Movie Magic) Budgeting and MM Scheduling. Planning and organisational skills are very important during this stage as without it the Production has the odds stacked against it.
Production –
Well, well, well this is the stage when you actually start shooting and have your cast, crew, locations and equipment. The shoot should run efficiently if you’ve had a smooth pre production and a reliable crew. You may also have pick up days (specific shots, such as establishing) after the initial shoot has finished.
Post Production –
At this stage of Production, you will have all your rushes (shots) and will most likely have started having your editor piece them together with the help of the sound reports and continuity reports (these allow the editor/s to know what shots are worth using and what ones have sound issues and so fourth). This is always an exciting stage to see the film come to life, and has a direct impact on the final version of the film.
We have just finished Production on our feature film, so we are still having a transition into the edit, although this was being partially edited as we were still in production, for reasons such as showing some shots to distributors and so on.
I’m very excited to see the final product especially with sound effects and a soundtrack added.
Marketing & Exchange –
A very important stage in the film life cycle, as without the marketing available films will struggle to get people to see their film, unless it has talent attached (and even in this case they can still struggle to break even, let alone make any revenue). So it’s a very important stage to target your audience and sell the film to them, especially if you’re targeting a very niche audience. This can be done with tactics such as hoarding, adverts, trailers, posters, competitions and magazines and I’m sure there are many more.
Distribution –
This is the physical aspect of getting people to see the film. This basically involves having a company get your film out there to the audience, either by giving the cinema the reel, or supplying the retailer with the DVDs, finding TV channels that wish to acquire the film rights or getting the film onto Video On Demand (VOD). Generally with distribution you will sell certain rights to certain countries and also decide the period of time they hold these for. The Distribution area is also a very important way to enable you make sure your film is targeted at the specified audience, including having the film play at certain film festivals and not at a specified genre that isn’t relevant to your product.
Audience Consumption
A very important stage in making sure your product is targeted at the correct audience before you start, if you haven’t got a target audience then generally speaking your not going to be able to sell it.
If your film doesn’t have a specified target audience with hard evidence on how there your audience then most distribution companies won’t want to go near your film. The reasons for this are mostly because they need to know how their marketing strategy is going to run, for example an action film with an all male cast, guns, explosions etc won’t be targeting that male audience is advertised in Heat magazine.
With companies that have a past catalogue of say action films and then have one in the marketing stage that is a romantic drama it is very important for the audience to know that this is the situation and made clear, otherwise you could have the problem of losing your existing audience for being deceitful.
A lot of the time film companies will do select screenings to the general public, to allow them to voice there opinions and concerns on a film, whether it being to graphical for there target audience, or having a very slow scene, this feedback is taken into account and has a big persuasion on what is then cut or added to the film.
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