Producers

The producer has a big role to play in any film. They are the ones that keep everyone organised and keep everything on track and to the deadlines. When I went to Bradford Animation Festival, I went to a talk by Mainframe - a vfx company. Their producer Emma Phillips was there and explained that it is always best to schedule, make sure that you know what you're doing and when. Create a project development document, something that breaks down what needs doing and is easily understood. Organisation is key.

Along with this however, the producer must have a thorough understanding of the copyright laws. With our films, I made sure that the music we used were all free from copyright so we wouldn't have any legality issues. The best way to go about things is to always assume someone, somewhere owns the material you want to use within your project, so always research into it to find out exactly who owns what.

When shooting on location we had to wear reflective jackets in order to be seen from any distance and make people aware of your presence. Normally if filming with firearms, replica uniforms, any emergency vehicles or filming near any banks or major public areas it is best to inform the police of your intentions. Luckily as our locations were out of the way and involved none of these props all we had to worry about was any health and safety issues. Normally the producer would write up a risk assessment, detailing any risks and what can be done to avoid them, as we were just a crew of 4 and the location wasn't too high risk, we just talked about the risks and didn't put it into a formal document. Obviously if it was a larger project and on a major location the risk assessment would need to be done with no exceptions.

The major issue we came across was on our second film, the weather stopped us from filming exactly what we wanted. Producers should normally check the 5-day weather forecast to see if any problems will occur and if anything have a back up plan. I had been keeping an eye out for the weather, however due to time constraints we just did the best we could and filmed some shots and finished the rest off on another day and location as a back up plan.

I really enjoyed producing and it has even made me consider it as a possible career path. I will definitely expand my knowledge of producing and famous producers more to see how they got into the industry.