The Three Stages of Production

Introduction
In order for a film, music video, advertisement, TV series or even a video game to be successful, there are three stages of production in which need to be carried out to ensure the form of media will be high in quality. These three stages are:

• Pre-production
• Production
• Post-production

Pre-production

The first stage, pre-production, would certainly be the most important as this stage is the planning and managing of the budget, scripting, story boarding, the selection of actors/actresses, the location/s, equipment and the hiring of temporary employees and their contracts. This is all of the processes that will be measured before the camera starts rolling.

The planning and managing go the budget could be a quite difficult stage as there so many things that the budget has to cover. For example, the actors/actresses would need accommodation such as a trailer or a hotel, the temporary employees would need to agree on a contract, the whole crew would need food and drinks, location/s would need to be hired out for a certain amount of time depending on how long it's needed for, equipment could possibly need to be hired or bought, a method of transport needs to be considered and organised so the equipment, crew and actors/actresses can be conveyed to any other location they may need to be.

Production


Production begins when planning has been finalised and completed to the correct standard. Within the production stage, the storyboard comes to life and the scenes are filmed. During planning, a time frame would've been set and going over the deadline could also mean going over the budget. If the production process takes longer, this could have a knock-on-affect and cause the release date for the film or music video to be delayed, due to not having as long in the post-production stage. During the production stage the crew need to set up the equipment in the correct positions, and ensure the lighting, microphones and cameras are running. A large quantity of the footage that is recorded may not even be included in the final piece, but could still be used as 'bloopers'. If actors/actresses are involved, this may mean that they could have a considerable amount of takes, depending on if they know their lines in the script. Multiple cameras would be in use at the same time as the director may want to have multiple camera angles and choose from the best one when in the post-production stage.
Actors/actresses may only be free on certain days and they might be seen in the beginning and the end of the film or music video. So instead of recording their parts at two different times, they can be recorded at the same time as this is more convenient.

Post-production

This stage consists of editing the footage, sounds and visual effects recorded and add in non-diegetic music in the production.
I carried out some research on post production and came across a website where it gives 13 different steps on post-production:

http://www.raindance.org/the-13-steps-of-post-production/

1. Picking an editing format
2. Hire a picture editor
3. Hire a sound editor
4. Do ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement)
5. Do Foley
6. Secure music
7. Do re-recording/the mix
8. Get an M&E (Music & Effects)
9. Get your titles
10. Get a DCP (Digital Cinema Package)
11. Get a dialogue script
12. Get a campaign image
13. Create a trailer