Mike with the Royal Navy

Production : the process in a nutshell:

• Brain-Storm your 'message' with a view to developing a Moving Image Media solution.
• Identify and document the production and its stages
  (including initial cost estimate and identification of payment stages).
• Develop a 'treatment' for the production.
• Pre-Production activities.
• Production activities.
• Post-Production activities.
• Delivery.

The initial stage of specifying a production is usually to take your message(s) and 'brain-storm'. We are happy to get involved at this stage and to help induce some 'out of the box' free thinking. This external input can often help identify angles that you may not think of or may not think possible - also it helps to reign-in some of the wilder ideas that a coffee and eclair-fuelled session can produce!

Obviously every client's message is important, and we take great pains to understand and specify the issues involved before we embark on any treatment and production activities. We do, however, aim to bring a little brevity to serious issues and make every effort to ensure that everyone involved enjoys the process.

You will have many issues to consider and decisions to make, and a full production can include facets from all of the following...

• Target audience
• Delivery media
• Likely locations for recordings - indoor, outdoor, anywhere, anytime...
• Logistics
• Music - library music and costs
• Voiceover
• Scripting
• Replication
• Artwork
• Graphics
• Animations
• Overall Visual Style
  

A 'production' may be as simple as employing us to record a one-off event for you to archive for potential future use. The exact production process varies from job to job as we mould ourselves around your 'message'.

Your involvement can be as hands-on or hands-off as you prefer - although we obviously need access to decision making personnel on a regular basis throughout production - and someone who can sign-off pre-agreed payment stages and quickly review any neccessary changes. Your involvement at the very least will be smooth the way for the production, approving 'rushes', scripting, previsualisations, graphics and edits as things proceed. There will inevitably be 'meetings' along the way - eclairs are optional.

Of course, there will inevitably be a few unknowns and variables in your production that just cannot be pre-visualised - we always ask that you build in a little contingency. We aim to be as flexible as possible concerning all facets of a production and would ask that you be flexible too.

HRH Prince Charles

Locations

• We normally expect to travel to where the 'message' is coming from in order to shoot any material - and that usually means your place! We are content to travel anywhere to capture the associated material to get your message across properly - perhaps we need some footage of your production unit in Aberdeen to get the point across. We have limited space back at base but can always arrange to shoot simple green-screened 'head and shoulder' sequences or acquire voice-overs here in Dorset. All post-production effort also takes place here.

Expenses

• All travelling and necessary accomodation costs are to be seen as 'production expenses' and will be invoiced for on a regular basis throughout production.

Deposit

• We will require a 50% deposit of the initially identified production cost before we start any serious production activity.

Talent

• Don't be under any illusion that you or the MD are by default the best people to use for any 'to camera' or voiceover activities on your production. You may be - but you may not - so please don't be offended should we suggest that your talents may be better employed elsewhere. It may prove to be expedient to hire-in some talent who are used to speaking into camera or inflexing at the appropriate moments on a voice-over track.

Non-Disclosure

• If you are developing something special and want to keep a lid on it until you are ready to launch things with a bang then we will be more than happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement - after all it's your baby and we want to help you give birth to a raging success.

Copyrights

• Moving Image Media retain all copyrights to any production in progress, the material from which may not be used  in any way until we have received payment for the entire production in full - at which point we will release the material to the client.