Legal Considerations

Copyright

Copyright is very important when it comes to the film making industry. This gives you legal right to protect your work from being copied or stolen. This protection lasts a fixed number of years and means the work you've published is signed to the creator.

The 'C' symbol and many more represent the protection on any production. This isn't only done in the film industry, however copyright is used for music, companies, specific advertising images, logos and even brand colours along with many more.

A good example of a copyrighted film is James Bond. No one else is allowed to publish a film that has details of their work because of the heavy trade mark and copyright.

Public Domain

Any production that is no longer protected is now open to the public. When people come to making movies, tracks and other projects there is the opportunity to take some useful files from public domain. A good example is Shakespeare's work. People now have access to his scripts and other resources of his because the protection of his productions has ended. This is why you see people remaking films etc on his work in the recent years. This is also happened recently with the popular Sherlock Holmes.

Creative Commons

This however is completely different when it comes to legal considerations. This is work published with the intention of allowing anyone to use it for their productions etc.
For example if someone needed a small piece of footage of a car passing by. They could find it in creative commons and use it with no harm.

 

This symbol will be presented when the work is in creative commons and it is for public use.

Clearance

The clearance is made up of two essential documents. A ‘Filming Release Form’ and a ‘Location Release Form’. Without these documents it will become a problem for your production in the near future. This process is giving you permission to film in your chosen locations, in areas where there might be residents and locals and even an agreement between your actors and crew.

Filming Release Form

Anyone who speaks on camera or gives an interview will need to sign and fill out this document. You also need to be cautious of people in sensitive areas and so a granted permission will be required. Ages under 16 will need the form signed by one of their parents or guardians. Other small details also need to be checked and noted within the form.

Location Release Form

This document is for showing you have permission to film in a specific location(s). A signature from the owner is permitted and a small text in letter form with regards to the reason for filming in the premises.

Budget

A budget is very important in the pre-production process for obvious reasons. Once the script breakdown is complete, the team can now sort through everything that they need to make their production and price everything up.

The commonly used software for this is Microsoft Excel because it shows all your calculations in a clear table format.

In this example you can see the range of props and kit which needs to be took into consideration when it comes to budgeting.

Script Breakdown

This document is a simplified version of a script, where the important facts and figures are broken down and noted onto a sheet for the other members of the film team. This means the props, locations, vehicles, the special effects and much more can be organised in preparation for the production of the film. 

When the script is completed, going through and highlighting all the important information is part of the process. You can then clearly see the colour coded information highlighted and note them down onto this sheet.

 

As you can see, there is a lot of important things that need to be picked from the script to consider and plan. When this document is completed it means the affordability and realism of the production is visually seen. 

Risk Assessment

This is a document that is very crucial when it comes to the equipment side of the production. Here you need to take into account the possibilities of what could happen to the cameras or even the actors. Every single detail needs to be filled out according to the different scenes, locations and environments you will produce your film in.

Once all the possible risks are noted, the next step is following the table and indicating whether the risk is present, its severity, the likelihood and whether it’s a risk or a fact. At the top of the sheet you can see scale of each factor from highest to lowest.

Here is an example of a risk assessment form.

Storyboard

Storyboard

This is another important document in the pre-production process which allows the team to visualize the different shots and the positioning of the actors, equipment or props in the shot. Very basic drawings (like stick men) make up a storyboard but the layout of where they’re positioned is vital. If the different frames of a storyboard were just quickly sketched with little thought, this could produce problems when it comes to setting up a scene.

Examples of storyboards.

  Here there’s a very basic description of each shot and

 what’s contained within the frames.

This is an example of a storyboard for the cartoon ‘The Simpsons’. Each shot is roughly sketched to proportion and detail with slight info on the top of each frame for the shot, timing and scene number.

Film Script

A film script is a pre-production document used to structure and plan a film. Included in this document, there is specific details on the location of the shots (whether it is an exterior or interior shot), Scene details of the surroundings and the movements that are going to occur and the actions of the character with their name included.

The purpose of this document is clearly to give the film makers and others a sense of direction when filming or organising other crucial documents as part of the pre-production process.  

Adobe Story film script example

This is my example of a script for a potential short film. From here you would follow up with the script breakdown when it comes to the next process.

A popular software that is commonly used in the film industry to plan scripts is Adobe Story. The software automatically integrates the required layout to your script and is easy to use. 


Here we have a professional script made using the same film script format. The characters name and age also must be mentioned within the script.