What is Pre-Production?
Pre-production consists of the steps taken prior to the main production of the media. This can include scriptwriting, storyboarding, location planning, date planning, casting, music rights and many more.
Star Wars Pre-Production Research
Star Wars: A New Hope started as an idea for a film series based on the Flash Gordon serials. George Lucas was coming off of his first film THX 1138 being panned for being too dark and bleak and thus he wanted a more optimistic tone for his next film. He kept attempting to purchase the rights to Flash Gordon to no avail and so he began looking at the inspirations of Flash Gordon to write his own original space opera. He started to gain inspiration from global politics and then began to get more and more inspiration from the Vietnam War. He wrote a two page plot synopsis titled “Journal of The Whills” though it was scrapped in favour of a thirteen page script called “The Star Wars”. He took it to many different studios, repeatedly getting turned down for being too “out there”. During the writing process, Lucas read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces which made Lucas realise he was writing quite traditionally and needed to change it up. Eventually it got funding from 20th Century Fox but it still had a small budget of $11 million. Writing of the final script soon began, which would be edited constantly even into filming. At this point, Lucas enlisted Ralph McQuarrie to help with the designs of most characters, props and scenery. He and a few others would help bring the actual visual aesthetic of the film to life before filming. This is one of the Pre-Production Designs for C-3PO and R2-D2 by Ralph McQuarrie
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Regulators in the Film Industry
Crowdfunding and Kickstarter
Kickstarter is a website dedicated to crowdfunding in which a person can submit an idea and get funding for it to happen. The creator of the project can list different tiers in which backers can receive different rewards in return for donating a certain amount to the project. Some famous examples of Kickstarter projects include: the Pebble smartwatch (one of the first smartwatches to come into public attention), Exploding Kittens (a card game now sold worldwide) and The Micro (a consumer orientated 3D printer).
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A good example of a crowdfunded film is Kung Fury. It raised $630,000 from just a low budget trailer and from the success of the first, a full feature sequel with large stars like Michael Fassbender and Arnold Schwarzenegger is now in the works. The biggest example of a crowdfunded film is the Veronica Mars film which made $5,702,000.
Case Study Films
The Theory Of Everything
The Theory of Everything is a film produced by studio Working Title Films and distributed by Universal Pictures International. It had a budget of $15,000,000 and made a profit of $123,726,688. Working Title Films is owned by Universal Films which is in itself a conglomerate of Universal Vivendi. This is an example of the typical Hollywood funded movie.
London to Brighton and The Cottage
London to Brighton is a film produced by Steel Mill Pictures and distributed by Vertigo. It had a budget of £80,000 and made £347,443. It was adapted from a short film Royalty and was made because Paul Andrew Williams' main project, The Cottage, was proving hard to set up. This film was made mostly to generate funding for the eventual creation of The Cottage. The Cottage was produced by Steel Mill Pictures and distributed by Pathé/Sony. It had a budget of £2,500,000 and made £1,256,675.
Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is a film produced by Spondoolie Productions and distributed by Warner Bros Pictures. It had a budget of $6 million and made $3.5 million. It was a continuation of the TV show of the same name. Rob Thomas wrote a script for the film and tried to get it made but Warner Bros declined. Rob Thomas was persistent to make the film and made a Kickstarter for the film. It made its goal of $2 million in only 11 hours and ended up making over $6 million.
Life in a Day
Life in a Day is a documentary produced by Scott Film Productions and distributed by National Geographic Films. It had a budget of £40,000 and made $252,788. It was a crowd sourced project where 400 cameras were sent out to different places and local people were told to film their day. It got over 80,000 submissions which proved to be a nightmare to edit as they expected not even a tenth of them.
Film Financing
To be financed, films need a sizeable investment. An investment can be obtained through convincing investors to fund your film or through putting the project on a site like kickstarter to get funding.