2.1 – 2.2 - Identify Key job roles and responsibilities in the film industry and describe the structure and interrelationship of the production department

Outline the key job roles on a film production

On a film production there are a number of key roles which are pivotal for the production to go ahead, as depicted in the diagram below:

In our own film production, we required less of the roles above due to the shorter nature of our project and our uses of animation for example. Generally, the roles were split up into four major groups - scriptwriting, filming, sound and production design - most of which we worked on collaboratively. For example, we all went out on-location and shot a variety of live action and stop-motion footage and the script received input from almost everyone. In post-production, the roles moved into a team of editors, the scriptwriting team to refine the film's dialogue and a team of musicians to record and compose a score.

A film's production can broadly be split into three main stages: pre-production, production and post-production, all of which feature a variety of key roles. In pre-production, one key role is the role of the 'Producer'. This includes those under the titles of producer, executive producer and even co-producer and these are the people who essentially ensure that the film is made. Producers are active through the entire process albeit perhaps most prominently in pre-production, as they organise and control tasks such as finding funding, crew and distributors, so that the film can be made. An executive producer plays less of an active role in the film's production technically but generally plays a significant financial or creative role which is pivotal in helping the film get made. Another key department is 'Story development' where the screenwriter, the script supervisor and - more prominently in animation - the storyboard artist work on creating the plot, characters and arc of the film to the stage where there is a shooting script and a detailed storyboard to set out an idea of the film's shots. The last pre-production roles come under the category of 'Director'. The director themselves oversee the overall creative process of the film, often working closely with the story development as well as everything else. Also in this category is the assistant directors, who help the director and keep the process running smoothly as well as the casting directors, who are responsible for selecting the correct actors for the characters in the film.

In the production stage of a film, production design, sound and cinematography become prominently involved. The production design team work towards creating an authentic setting and universe as specified by the director and in the script, for the film. Roles include: Set decorators and prop masters to furnish the sets and create suitable props that are realistic, creative and reliable for the film; costume designers to create suitable outfits for the actors that fit with the characters as well as being practical for filming multiple takes for days in; key make-up artists and hairstylists to plan makeup designs and any necessary prosthetic makeup for the actors as well as the chosen wigs or hairstyles for the actors so that they look natural and distinctive on camera. On the sound team, the sound designer is in charge of the film's overall sound whilst the sound mixer is responsible for all sound that is recorded on set through equipment such as microphones which can then be edited in post-production. The boom operator is the assistant of the sound mixer and is responsible for the placement and movement of microphones during filming. Finally, the cinematography team are who works on constructing each shot and scene to the will of the director. The cinematographer themselves decides on the framing and lighting of each shot to the guidance of the director, whilst the camera operator positions the camera with the direction of the cinematographer and shoots the footage. From this, he clapper loader operates the clapperboard at the beginning of each take and is in charge of organising the raw footage into an appropriate order before it is processed in preparation for post-production. In charge of the lighting design for the production is the gaffer, who is assisted by the 'best boy' of the production who deals with the logistics of organising the lighting equipment. Finally, the key grip is the chief lighting and rigging technician who is usually the head of set operations and works closely with the cinematography on getting the correct lighting. Another important factor of the production is the actors themselves who serve as the public faces of the film and are responsible for putting across the storytelling through acting.

The final stage of the film production is post-production, where film editing, sound editing and any visual effects needed are worked on. On the editing team is the main editor who, usually with the director, pulls the footage together into a coherent and consistent film. There are usually several supervising editors to help speed up the process, along with a titles designer who constructs any title sequences or credits on the film. On the sound editing team, the supervising editor is in charge of the post-production sound and working with the director and editor to meet their visions. The sound effects editor is responsible for editing all the sound effects on the film so they are polished, whilst the foley artist create all post-sync sound effects, e.g. footsteps, which may not have been good enough on the original audio and thus need to be recreated for a clear sound. After this, the musical supervisor works with the composer - who writes the film's musical score - and the editors to create and integrate the film's music into the film organically, as well as negotiating the rights for any other music used in the film. Finally, on the visual effects team, the visual effects supervisor is in charge of the VFX crew who works with the director to create the desired visuals, whilst the visual effects designer produces the effects needed digitally before they can be transposed and edited onto the film by the technical director. For any animation sequences, animators work on developing the movement and techniques that animate the specific objects or characters in the film.

Create a flowchart or mind map of how these roles interrelate

The flow chart below shows how all these roles may interrelate:

How have the different roles interrelated during your production?

In our own production, many of the different roles were interrelated all the way through the process as everyone must work together for a coherent film to be created. In the main production stages, the scriptwriting team which I was part of for much of the production, worked with every department in some form, for example the people working on filming / cinematography in the main production period required knowledge of each shot so that the footage could be filmed. The same went for the people working on sound who required a list of sounds from the script to be recorded. Furthermore it meant that the group could decide on which shots would be more suitable as live-action or as animation. It also meant that these departments could point out any potentially unfeasible shots or sounds so that those parts of the script could be rethought - although due to our use of animation this was a possibility that was avoided. This emphasizes how the whole project being able to function is more or less dependent on the story and script.

During production, there was also a lot of interrelations between the filming team and the production design team, who made many of the props needed for shooting on the film. The scriptwriting team first discussed their vision of the props and designs with the production team who then designed them ready for filming. These included such items as a pop-up book and a 'jester' like hat for the character of Mad Jack.

During post-production, there was further interrelations between the editing team and the scriptwriting team, where the editing team required a full complete script with confirmed and refined dialogue that could be placed into the film so they had an audio line to work with. Also, people working on the score discussed the tone and style the music should be in each scene of the film according to the script with the scriptwriters to make the score was appropriate for each scene of the film.