Pitch Day

Today was the pitch day which involved us putting all the research and planning we had done so far into a presentation and pitching our idea. I researched into the compliance issues we would face when it came to the actual production. Compliance: Originally, our cast was going to include a character as young as 8 years old. Taking compliance issues into account, this was then changed to 16 years old as now as there are lots of complications with shooting during term time and long hours with such a young age. However, GOV.UK states the compulsory school age is 16 meaning the law states you can leave school at 16 but then must either stay in full time education, begin an apprenticeship or you can work but must be in part-time education. We now are looking to cast someone who is 18 years old but who looks younger because of the complications that come with a child who is of compulsory school age. You need to research to see if a child performance license may be required along with an absence letter from the school and a doctors note as well as their parent or guardian whom must supervise them at all times. Health and Safety for actors and crew members. We will take out risk assessments to ensure that all members of the crew and cast are safe and no complications ensue on the day of filming. A risk assessment identifies hazards, who will be affected, assesses the risks and how to prevent them which ultimately keeps everyone on set safe and not at risk. We will also do location recce for the locations we would prefer to shoot at. This allows the crew to take a closer look at the places we want to shoot and make sure that they are accessible for us as crew and cast and also for the equipment and how easy it would be to shoot there whilst keeping health and safety of the team in check. In the current draft of the script, there are many scenes which take place in derelict places such as in the woods or fields. When location scouting, we must make sure that these areas are accessible enough that no one is put at risk when getting to and from location or when shooting on set.In regards to locations, we also have to get permissions from the landowners of the locations for access to shoot. An important thing that we must note is that whilst we will be using weapons in our film. Whilst we won’t be using firearms or replicas of, we will be using weapons, mainly spears as this is what the characters would be able to make themselves. These are “props or weapons that could be mistaken for real weapons” and without an armourer we need to nominate a responsible person on set to take charge of the props; which most likely will be me. This means making sure they are being used for their correct purpose and not being mistreated which could lead to incidents. This designated person also makes sure no prop gets misplaced as if they were to go missing then if were shooting in a public place then a member of the public could come across them, again causing injury under our responsibility. when they are not in use they should be kept in a safe place like locked in a car boot.If anything were to mean a prop got lost the producer should be informed immediately.As a result of this, it is vital to get permission from the land or property owner for the use of weapons. We must let them know what we will be doing with them and if it's a public area where there is possibility of members of the public passing by then must also let the public know too. In case of any misunderstanding, we shall also “let the local police know and they will issue with a CAD reference and give restrictions and guidance on what we can do”. This is important as we don't want any complications during shooting with the police having to shut down production due to safety issues.{http://www.bbc.co.uk/safety/resources/aztopics/firearms-and-weapons.html}{ https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school } 
All of these notes were included in the production file for the film. Overall the pitch went well in terms of hitting every target for the pitch itself. The main criticism we got was toward the story and what makes it original. We know that another group is doing a similar idea so that gives a little bit more pressure on us to make ours even better but also one question asked was 'what makes this film different from stuff already out there?'. After the pitch we discussed what we could do to make the story more original and less complicated to be able to fit it into the 20 minute barrier we set for ourselves.