All about big talk productions

How/ When my film company was made...

Big talk productions is a british film company and television production company founded by Nira Park in 1994. 

The genre of films they have created...

Big talk productions base a lot of their films around comedy, they say 'Comedy is, and always has been, the beating heart of Big Talk, often overlapping and conspiring with other genres. Over the last four years, the company has expanded significantly and, alongside it, so has the breadth and scope of the material being developed and produced.'

They do focus a lot of their attention on comedy, but they often make films such as 'in fear' which seems to be a sort of thriller, although it isn't a comedy it i a similar sort of film to films such as 'shaun of the dead'.

Their most popular genre of film is comedy with having extremely popular films such as 'shaun of the dead', 'Paul' and 'Hot Fuzz'. 

Following the success of ‘Spaced’, Nira Park’s relationship as Edgar Wright’s producing partner was cemented with the 2003 release of cult-comedy, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ – the first installment of Wright’s iconic ‘Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy’ starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. ‘Shaun’ was followed by 2007 box office hit ‘Hot Fuzz’, and 2013’s ‘The World’s End’. The three films combined have amassed a box office of over $150 million and the Hot Fuzz DVD is owned by 1 in 3 homes in the UK.

To date, Big Talk’s credits also include: Wright’s ‘Scott Pilgrim vs The World‘, starring Michael Cera; Greg Mottola’s ‘Paul‘, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost with Kristen Wiig; Joe Cornish’s critically acclaimed ‘Attack the Block‘; the multi-award winning ‘Sightseers‘, directed by Ben Wheatley and written by / starring Alice Lowe and Steve Oram; and Jeremy Lovering’s ‘In Fear‘, which debuted internationally to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013.

2014 has already seen the release of salsa rom-com ‘Cuban Fury’, written by BAFTA winning newcomer Jon Brown, directed by James Griffiths and starring Nick Frost, Chris O’Dowd, Rashida Jones, Ian McShane and Olivia Colman. BritListed romantic comedy ‘Man Up’ commenced and completed shooting in the spring and is now in post-production. It was penned by Tess Morris, directed by Ben Palmer, and stars Lake Bell and Simon Pegg.

As well as developing new projects with both Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish throughout 2014 and beyond, Nira Park and Big Talk are currently producing ‘Grimsby’ – Sacha Baron Cohen’s new action-comedy, directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Baron Cohen and Mark Strong.

Big Talk continues to work with some of the most exciting voices in both the UK and the US to bring fresh, dynamic, authored stories to the big screen.

Film Production

The 3 stages if film production;

1. This stage is pre- production, pre- production is everything that is done before the movie is created, for example:

• The planning of the movie
• The scripting of the movie 
• And the storyboarding for how it will be filmed.

For a small video company, pre-production may refer to everything that happens before shooting begins, for example, meeting with the client, research, storyboarding, location planning, etc.

For feature films, pre-production is more specific and only begins when other milestones have been met such as financing, screenplay, casting and major staffing. In this case pre-production includes:

• Location scouting

• Prop and wardrobe identification and preparation

• Special effects identification and preparation

• Production schedule

• Set construction

• Script-locking (semi-finalisation of the script)

• Script read-through with cast, director and other interested parties

 2. The next stage is the production stage this stage is the actual recording and filming;

In film and video, production refers to the part of the process in which footage is recorded. This is what most people imagine when they think of a film being made — actors on sets, cameras rolling, etc. The production phase is also known as principal photography.

In large feature films the beginning of the production phase marks the "point of no return", i.e. the point at which it is no longer financially viable to cancel the project. At this point it is almost always cheaper to continue until the project is finished than to deal with the financial fall-out of canceling.

The goal of principal photography is obviously to record all required shots, however it is fairly common to shoot "pick-up" shots in post production. Pick-up shots may be required when a mistake is noticed, a script change is made (this is unusual), or even if a performance is deemed to be unsatisfactory.

3. This stage is called post production this is everything between production and creating the final piece;

Post-production is the third and final major phase of the Production process It is often referred to simply as post.

There are many things which can happen in post-production. Common tasks include:

• Editing video footage
• Editing the soundtrack, adding sound effects, music, etc.
• Adding titles and graphics
• Colour and exposure correction
• Adding special effects
• Re-shooting certain scenes if required ("pick-up" shots)

In some cases post-production is relatively straightforward, consisting of choosing and arranging footage in the correct sequence. In most cases however, post-production is a time-consuming job taking longer than the actual production phase.

The most important people when making a film are;

Director This role varies tremendously from project-to-project, but, in general terms, a Director has creative control over the project from when he/she comes on board until the project is completed.

Producer This is a hard role to define because there are so many different aspects to being a producer and each Producer is different (especially when it comes to making a short film). But, put simply, a Producer is where the buck stops on money, organisation, the team and rights.

There are no hard-and-fast rules about how many crew members you need, but there are some heads of department that will make your life a lot easier:

Line Producer - ensures that the film comes in on time and on budget

Director of Photography (DOP) - in technical charge of how the film is lit and shot

Production Designer/Art Director - in charge of the production design helps create the style of the set. On low budget films these two roles are often merged.

Gaffer - chief lighting technician

1st Assistant Director (1st AD) – runs the set according to the needs of the director

Editor – cuts the film together

Production Manager – organises everything and everyone on set

Sound Recordist – in charge of everything to do with recording sound

Depending on the scale of your production, you may also need:

Focus Puller – in charge of focussing the camera

Clapper Loader – loads the camera, takes care of the stock and records each take

Location Manager – finds and secures locations

Grip – looks after all the equipment for supporting and moving the camera while shooting (tracking, cranes etc.)

Continuity/Script Supervisor – makes sure everything seen on camera is consistent from shot-to-shot

2nd Assistant Director (2nd AD) – helps the 1st AD, particularly co-ordinating actors to and from set

3rd Assistant Director (3rd AD) – is the 1st AD's right-hand person. He/she is always on set and often co-ordinates the runners

Boom Operator – holds the boom, ensuring that the microphone is as near as possible to the actors without being in shot

Sparks - lighting technicians

Costume Designer – designs, purchases, and manages costumes

Hair/Makeup Designer – designs, and usually executes, hair and makeup

Production Co-ordinator – works under the production manager to co-ordinate the smooth running of the set

Storyboard Artist – works with the director to create a shot by shot storyboard of the action to be filmed

Stills Photographer – takes still images of actors and crew for publicity reasons

Assistants and Runners – needed in every department - the more hands the better

All resources and technologies the fpm makers need;

Magazine evalutation

 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?

Before I began to make my magazine cover I studied many different styles of pop magazine cover and tried to stick to the forms and convention that apply in a stereotypical pop magazine, I decided to use one of the pop magazines I studied as an inspiration for my cover, in this particular magazine I looked at it was very colorful and had many different objects pictures and offers on the front page. in most magazine covers I looked at it was the same in all cases, so I used one big eye-catching main picture and got ma classmates to dress up in colorful clothes to create a playful attitude as my magazine reaches out to young teens. the magazine I looked at also had clothing ideas and offers in side so I advertised this separately on the front page. I had to give some ideas of the types of things in my magazine so I put more of my class mates on next to their picture, this is the same in the magazines that is looked at they had one main pictures and quite a lot of smaller ones with their own story, I tried to use a similar layout and followed the same colour scheme throughout my magazine cover.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my magazine cover I tried to represent a typical pop star kind of social group. So this meant it had to represent the artists and the typical life of a pop star in a certain way. I feel that I represented it best through the use of my colour scheme and my main picture. In my main picture I had my models wear very colourful types of clothes and paint their face to show a kind of 'mess about attitude' to the shoot, I did this because in pop social groups the songs and the vibe of the artists are usually very fun and very high energy so I tried to represent that in the main picture of my magazine. Also the name of my magazine is pop life because with the typical magazine it has the type of magazine genre in the title of the magazine which makes it easier to understand and can be seen as very eye-catching. As my magazine is reaching out to mainly teenage girls I decided to use a purple colour scheme with very vibrant clashing colours for the writing. I have tried to represent a typical pop social group through the way I represent my magazine, making it colourful, eye-catching and making the main pictures stand out massively.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

If this magazine became successful enough then the magazine may become distributed by companies such as Egmont. This company would build my magazine and help it to gain popularity so more people would be interested in buying it. because the company is so big they would have a lot of experience in this type of distribution, therefore they would have a better idea of what they are doing with the magazine. I chose Egmont magazines because they produce 20 monthly magazines meaning it wouldn't be complicated to keep the magazine up to date, also Egmont base their choice of magazine around younger audiences, for example they run magazines such as 'We Love Pop' , Disney magazines and also they run 'Go Girl'. They reach large audiences of people so I believe it would be in the magazines best intention to publish it using Egmont. This company can also have contacts to some of the most popular music and kids shows.

4) Who would be the audience for you media product?

my media product would probably be aimed at young teens aimed at around 10 - 14 years old, I chose this age because this is the kind of age you begin listening to music seriously and possibly idolizing some of the artists you listen to. I chose this age because they seem like the most likely age to start reading this type of magazine to keep up with all that is going on in this kind of social bubble. these are usually the age group that are interested in asking someone to buying the magazine for the free girts, posters and advertisements, my target audience is mainly for girls, not because of the contents in the magazine but because of the colour scheme and pictures mainly, i have made the colour scheme quite girly not on purpose but because i used the colour pallet of my main picture.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

i think i have attracted my audience from the use of the high colour and playful images, i believe that younger audiences would be interested in what is in my magazine from what i have shown on the front cover, yes my front page is very full of things but that is because in a pop magazine there are a lot of things that would catch the eye of younger viewers. i would say it is obvious for the viewers which type of magazine i have created, so if they walk in to look for a specific type of magazine i would say mine is bold and high colour enough to attract them towards my magazine. I have also attracted my audience with the my use of head lines, i have used the sort of headlines that people would want to read about fro example the 'UK'S top 40 songs revealed in here" this could attract people that regularly listen to music and are into the top charts because it will make them want to find out the downloads chart. the other post such as the posts about peoples private lives would interest certain people into reading my magazine.

6) what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This task has helped me to develop my level of knowledge in the ICT skills needed for this project. i no understand the use of programmes such as Photoshop and Scribus, i have developed my skills in things such as editing and enhancing images which makes my magazine a lot better.

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