Laura Bess Television Blog

On the 14th March, I had around 10 extras turning up to perform in our opening scene.  In order to ensure we didn't have any confusion with how the extras would be involved and what they would receive, I created a consent form for them which I emailed to them before the shoot day to ensure they were fully aware of what was expected of them and what they expected from us. After researching into what should go in a consent form I was able to construct a professional and clear form for me to use with my extras.  The many types of consent forms I had seen through researching, consisted of the main points:  They consent to the university having the rights to film them Where their footage may be sent to That the 'talent' does not own the footage The owner may have the 'talent's' contact details for future reference When working on a placement last year with Twenty Twenty, I dealt with their release forms which are the equivalent to our ...

Part of my role as Producer was to be the one who obtains all the props for each scene. For scene 1, we needed a lot of alcohol bottles for the props that needed to be empty.  As alcohol is generally quite expensive, I reached out to family and friends to see if they had any empty bottles that they could donate.  I chose to ask this just before a weekend as that is usually when it would be more likely for people to be drinking.  I asked for mainly Prossecco or Champagne shaped bottles of a dark glass so that they would look more formal on the table within the scene. Having dark glassed bottles would also make them more visible in the shot as the light would be more absorbed in the glass and not reflect too brightly, blurring them out of shot. I was able to acquire a wide range of different bottles to choose from.  In total I believe there was around 25 bottles.  This was a great amount as it made the scene more realis...

Shoot Day 1 For our first shoot day we were expecting to pick up the roto light and the LED lighting kits from the studio ready to film with on the Monday. Our runner George was scheduled to pick them up for us in the morning whilst everything else was being set up.  Unfortunately, another student had not returned these lights in time for our shoot. We had booked out the lighting kits with Ferg before this other student had and when we found out that they would need them for the weekend before our shoot, we was fine with collecting them on the Monday morning, as we understand that everyone needs to share and compromise. The only thing that effected us was that we had to come to the studios half unprepared for tungstens as I needed to change the risk assessment in order for us to be able to take them out.  As we had done all of our test shoots with the LEDs & Rotolight it set us behind schedule by an hour to set the lights up and ensure the shots were perfect as t...

For our first scene, which is Marie's conference scene, we needed to find volunteer extras to fill the room to make it look legitimate.  This was a tough challenge as we didn't have the budget to pay everyone's travel expenses therefore the extras needed to be willing to do it for experience and for free. I started off by making a poster to put out on Facebook and to share it around to drama schools and other platforms where extras could be found.  I marketed the extra work as an opportunity to be in the Maidstone TV Studios where popular shows are filmed. I also stated very clearly that it would require 'volunteer' extras and that they would therefore not be paid.  I decided to also email this out to the people who had previously shown an interest in Young & Famous through our casting process but unfortunately had little success.  I also marketed to our minor roles already within the production who was ...

Keeping contact with actors was an important part of my role as Producer as if actors feel like they are not being kept in the loop they may choose to leave the project.  We have had the actors since November therefore it is important to have a good relationship with them as this is a very long period of time to be involved with them.  We have our cast booked from November until our deadline in May which means they need to be updated throughout the process in order to keep their interest and passion in the project. I mainly kept contact with them through emails, where I would send them updates of the script as it went along and also let them know of any changes to the filming schedule. I would also give them ideas of costumes and makeup that they would need and to answer any questions they may have.   One of our main actors Christine commented how professional and well organised out team was and how easy it was to communicate wit...

As the Producer for Young & Famous, I had to create risk assessments for every location we would film at in order to keep everyone involved safe and to eliminate any risks.  As I have had 3 years experience in writing risk assessments for all of my other projects, I was confident in knowing what needed to be put into a thorough risk assessment.  I only came across one issue with my risk assessment for Marie's House which resulted in it not being signed off by our lecturer.  One of the shots on this location required our Director Of Photography to be on a ladder to film above a wall.  Although I had assessed all the possible risks for this shot it was still deemed too dangerous to be signed off. I spoke with the rest of my team and we decided that we would eliminate that shot completely and move the whole scene closer to the front of the house.  Visually and logistically this worked a lot better than what we had previously planned. 

As the Producer it was my role to manage the budget and ensure that it factors in every element to the filming. We each put in £200 equating to a total amount of £600 for the whole production. According to Studio Binder, it gives a guide as to how to budget a script breakdown.  I took this into consideration when planning our budget and which categories the money would be most absorbed.  1. Break your script into pages per day Studio Binder explains the first thing you should do when budgeting is to decide how many pages of script you'll be able to shoot per day.  Our script is only 17 pages long. Working with my schedule I was able to collaborate with the Director and the Director of Photography as to how much we could shoot in our time period.  We decided we would be able to shoot between 2-3 scenes per day. In order to budget well and to make best use of the time, I chose to schedule the scenes in order of location and the props and actors n...