Thursday, 13 July 2017

Research Institutional Information and Legal Restraints

With short films it's typically small, independent companies or Universities (as they're commonly projects for bachelors or masters degrees) who fund the production of the film. A lot of producers may start a gofundme page to help build up their budget too. 
In Britain, the British Film Institute (BFI) will put money towards a certain number of films each year, although these are typically feature length films. The BFI is a charity governed by a Royal Charter. They award Lottery funding to film production, distribution, education, audience development and market intelligence and research. 

Occasionally large American companies will fund a short film, but typically this only happens if the film is a spin-off from one of their larger films/franchises. An example of this is a short film called Frozen Fever, a spin-off from an extremely popular Frozen. This was produced by Walt Disney and was shown in cinemas before films that brought in a similar target audience. Walt Disney are releasing another short later this year called Olaf's Frozen Adventure. These short films are used to keep their franchise still relevant. 

Some production companies that are well known for producing short films include Camelot Films. Camelot films is an award-winning Production Company based in Central London. They've won 20 awards and have worked with Oscar and BAFTA winning talent.

The regulatory body regulating short films is called the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). It works as an independent, self-financing and not-for-profit media content regulator, and operates transparent, consistent and trusted co-regulatory and self-regulatory classification and labelling systems in the UK. The ratings are U, PG, 12A/12, 15, 18 and R18. All classification decisions are based on the BBFC’s published and regularly updated Guidelines. The Guidelines are the product of extensive public consultation, research and the accumulated experience of the BBFC over many years. They reflect current views on film, DVD and video game regulation.

In terms of legal restraints, copyright is a major issue you need to be aware of. This means being aware of any brands involved in your video, this can be something as small as a branded cereal box in the corner of one of your shots. Typically this is something the producers will research and sort out, whether this includes looking on the site, emailing the company or having to avoid showing the brand.

1 comment:

  1. This is great Katie but you do need to research two production companies who are known for producing short films.

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