CHALLENGE 3: Finance

Disclosure have a reputation for reflecting on successes and challenges evenly. We believe that the obstacles shape up more than the praise and in light of that, we bring you a blog series on how our slip ups could help you avoid the same things...

It’s the root of all evil and the necessary poison we all love to hate. It’s what makes the world go round (apparently) and it’s what, above everything else, divides us. No, we’re not talking about your Spotlight subscription, We are of course talking about - money.

Financing something like a production isn’t easy. At Disclosure we try to use a mixture of private investment and revenue from our corporate business services to fund our projects, after all we think it’s the only real way of creating truly independent content. However we are very aware that there are other options out there to help you create your own production project. 

Private Investment

This course of financing is fairly straight forward. A person (or people) put up the money for a production on the understanding that a) it isn’t for financial profit b) the profits are divided up fairly dependant on the individual amounts put in c) the financiers have a stake in the show going forwards. This route can throw up some legal implications so it’s best to get those sorted before going ahead with anything straight away.

Revenue

As with Disclosure, a company could set up a service, such as equipment rental, whose profit can partially (or entirely) fund a production. This tends to be a safer and more balanced approach as a percentage of profits could be earmarked for creative production work leaving the rest as profit to those involved. This does however mean the entire financial responsibility lies in the hope that people take up your services. 

Competitions

Here is an alternative, yet risky strategy. There are hundreds of competitions online and on TV all the time offering finance for the next great production, and usually you are judged by either a panel of experts or the public as to what they want to fund, however ultimately there is a likelihood that you won’t win and the effort will have been wasted. We would advice using this route as a parallel strategy to a more robust option.

Grants

These are tricky to get, but once got you have your financing right there! They usually involve some kind of pitch or application online and can result in not only money but also support from a large backer, such as the National Lottery. Grants usually involve a lot of effort to get anywhere and, again, you aren’t guaranteed to get it.

Fundraising

From what we’ve seen, this tends to be the most popular of the ‘indie’ funding routes. There are loads of online community sites which utilise ‘crowd funding’ for their projects and even productions who take the proactive route and hunt down donations online or even on the street. It’s definitely a favorite for community driven content (LGBT for example), however it isn’t always the most effective for larger budgets.

So in conclusion there are lots of financing options available to new and emerging film, TV and online content production teams, it’s just a matter of choosing one that’s right for you and your project.

CHALLENGE 2: Communication

Disclosure have a reputation for reflecting on successes and challenges evenly. We believe that the obstacles shape up more than the praise and in light of that, we bring you a blog series on how our slip ups could help you avoid the same things...

Now we know that in the creative world the word ‘corporation’ is a little bit dirty. It’s fine if these humungous financial behemoths happen to be paying for a media job, but for the rest of the time they are passionless, creative-starved media deserts. Here at Disclosure we like to take a step back however and look at the positives as well as the negatives. One thing we’ve observed in such institutions is that they do something that we in media land don’t, and that’s communicate.

Of course not all corporations communicate as effectively as they could, and we know of one or two stories of miscommunication that warrant a full on palm-slap to the face, but if there are entire departments dedicated to such work surely it’s something they take seriously, and so should we.

Whenever a media project kicks off you could almost split the people involved into three distinct ‘departments’; technical crew (D.O.P, gaffer, sound etc),  performance people (actors, dancers, performers etc) and production management (producers, directors etc). As we all know,  when a load of creatives come together everyone wants their skills, personalities and ultimately their voice to shine through. As creatives, we aren’t always very good at that.

Over the years, we have come to recognise that the art cannot comprimise the business reality of any production after all, as they say, ‘show-business’ is 90% business and 10% show. But conversely the business reality can’t stifle the creative flair that goes into any given production. The key to this delicate and otherworldly balance? Communication.

Taking a leaf out of the corporation book, and using the idea of departmentalising your production team, you’ll find that a straightforward hierarchy of communication can be formed to enable the smoothest possible process for your media project, whether that be live, recorded or anything at all.

For broadcasters this model is mapped out for them, however as an independent production company Disclosure are responsible for providing clear parameters by which our teams can work. We expect our production teams to adopt the same ethics and common sense as each other and to proactively communicate between each other. For example, the assistant director and production manager are crucial in translating our initial planning into a shooting schedule.

So, our TOP FIVE TIPS would be:

1. Define your project clearly from the very beginning, ensuring you understand what elements belong to what members of your team.
2. Gather a team who understand the importance of communication between departments, maybe asking them how they dealt with a communication issue, at the interview.
3. Group your team into ‘departments’ and make sure everyone knows who everyone is from the very beginning.
4. Producers and directors should keep an eye open for early signs of miscommunication by being part of everyones team; no one should feel they can’t talk to another member of the team.
5. Create a fair and functional hierarchy within the departments to the relevant people can deal with the relevant problems without the producers or directors getting involved in smaller issues.

CHALLENGE 1: Continuity

Disclosure have a reputation for reflecting on successes and challenges evenly. We believe that the obstacles shape up more than the praise and in light of that, we bring you a blog series on how our slip ups could help you avoid the same things...

From the earliest stages of pre production on our comedy Going Nowhere, we had agreed to film the show in a linear, almost realtime manner. It made sense due to the simple set ups of the scenes, the coverage we needed to capture and the building in tension required from the actors (Robert S J Lucas and Joanna Defendi). In theory that was an extremely simple and sensical plan however the strategy didn’t factor in any pick ups or scenes which were out of sync for the shooting (for one reason or another, as occasionally happen on set). We had to go back and reshoot certain angles of scenes we had already shot and for this the continuity proved problematic to say the least.

In the case of Going Nowhere, hair and costume continuity were fundamental issues. Our hair and costume departments were faced with some tough challenges and although they overcame them brilliantly, it did delay us substantially. On one occasion we realised (after review of the footage we’d shot) that one of the characters scarfs were missing from certain shots. It was an oversight that no one could be blamed for as we had hastily reshot a handful of scenes to catch up on time, however it did mean we needed to quickly script in some cut aways to make sense of the action.

Having someone dedicated to continuity may seem like a luxury on a shoot that runs on a small budget, with time constraints and a small number of crew, however it is absolutely imperative that someone have a keen eye on the details of what is being shot, else you run the risk of making it near impossible for an editor to cut efficiently between shots, no matter how beautiful the shots are!

We understand having someone solely responsible for a function such as continuity on set may leave that person without much else to do some of the time, so we advise that, if you are a producer or director that likes all hands on deck, to assign either your assistant director or art director to the job.  We advise against assigning runners or production assistants the role simply as the involvement of the activities are closer linked to the AD or art director (that is our humble opinion however).

So, our TOP FIVE TIPS:

1. Continuity is absolutely imperative on a production, even if it’s small scale or low budget.
2. Make notes in the script before you shoot where potential continuity errors may occur.
3. If you cannot dedicate a person to the role, consider including it in the AC or art directors remit if they are happy to do so.
4. If you find you’ve slipped up on continuity ensure you make efforts to shoot material which can make sense of it OR to cover it up. 
5. Don’t leave it to the edit to rectify mistakes!