The Requirements Of Working to a Brief

Briefs

• What is a brief/project brief?

A brief is normally given to you by a client and gives you details of what task they would like you to perform. They often come with restrictions as to what you can and can't do. A project brief is another name for this and simply defines the client's requirements; the same as a brief.

• What is a commission/what does it mean to be commissioned?

To be commissioned is to be given the order to authorize the production of something.

• What is meant by the term ‘tender’ (in regards to Media!)

What is offered in payment for a production so in Media it would most likely be with money or with competitions where you had the chance to win thousands of pounds. What you get out of a production is a reward which persuades the production team to make something for you.

• How else could you respond to a brief? (Think about the one you created an animation for…)

Like I mentioned above, people are persuaded to do things for money and me and the rest of my group decided to enter the competition for that purpose although there was no guarantee of winning the £5000 reward. Although there was no guarantee; £5000 is a lot of money which is what tempted us despite the low winning chance.

Reading a brief

• Discuss recognising the nature of and demand implicit in a brief, e.g., what was specified in the E4 ESting guidance that you had to include/meet?

The website clearly mentioned some rules and guidelines that we had to stick by for our ESting to be acceptable for the competition. The link is here... http://estings.e4.com/terms.html

- You must have a public YouTube and Twitter account

- You must upload your submission to YouTube and Tweet the YouTube URL including the hashtag #EStings2015

- Retweets (Twitter) are not allowed, only tweets sent by you.

- The entry must be received by 23.59 UK time on 3rd September 2015 otherwise they will not count. (You will have to wait until next year to enter again.)

- The entry must be 10 seconds long.

- The entry must include the E4 logo.

- If you use music, you must use one of the supplied audio beds which can be downloaded from the entry page on E4.com.

- The entry must be of broadcast quality and must not contain anything that is obscene, indecent, defamatory, un-lawful, offensive or that infringes the copyright, intellectual property rights, moral rights or any other right of a third party. 

- The entry must be your own work.

- The entry must have the consent of anyone featured in it.

- The entry must not use the YouTube AudioSwap functionality to include music within the entry.

- The entry mist obey the House Rules (Link here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/community/articles/all/upload-rules)

- The entry must be in the English Language.

Negotiating a brief

• Discuss how much room you had to negotiate the brief.

The brief was quite restricted especially with all of the rules (above).  

• In the media industry, what degree of discretion do/would you have in interpreting a brief?

You wouldn't have much discretion in interpreting a brief though it really depends on the scale of the production. Big productions for film won't have a lot of discretion whereas a small documentary made by a small crew to be shown locally would more likely have discretion because unlike Hollywood films the stakes are lower so if you mess up on making something that isn't successful to the audience then you wouldn't lose much (in terms of revenue) unlike films where you could lose millions so productions like them put a lot of discretion in the brief to make that outcome less likely. 

As films are more likely to have more discretion on the brief, it can leave screenwriters and directors unhappy and might quit their job on the film set because the film has too much control; this happened recently to Ant Man(2015). Edgar Wright was going to direct the film however since there was too much control he left in May 2014 to be replaced with Peyton Reed.

• What constraints (legal, ethical, regulatory) might you face when responding to a brief? What constraints did you face?

In the media industry, constraints vary depending on the media production you are trying to shoot, here are just a few examples on those constraints;

Legal: In terms of legal constraints, music tracks or anything that is copyrighted has to get permission to be used in commercial video, normally that involves a cost that the production has to pay in order to use their sources. The E Stings competition made things simpler in terms of choice for our background track which was a very restricted selection of music that could cause complication such as the music track not fitting in with the E Sting that we were trying to create. 

Ethical: Ethical constraints in the media industry are rules that apply to society such as behaving the right way without offending anyone. The producer of whatever media production makes the judgement call whether anything is offensive or not. 

Regulatory: Regulatory constraints control the laws within the media industry. These are rules that have to apply to the production by law. An example of this is the age certificate that is placed on films because of their content. Some films that are rated above 12 such as a 15 can cause conflict because if their target audience is younger than that, children that are below 15 cannot see the film. It is okay for a film to be a 12 because children under 12 can still watch the film if they're accompanied by an adult.

In the E Stings competition, there were many constraints, the main one being that the ident that we were trying to create had to last no more than 10 seconds and trying to squeeze a narrative in there if any was a very difficult task for us.

• Did you have to make any amendments to proposed final product? Why?

Originally there was going to be a lot more action moves but because of the 10 second limit that was mentioned in the brief we couldn't fit it all into 10 seconds so we removed some of the action,

• For what reasons might there be amendments to; a budget? Your fees? Conditions outlined in the contract?

If something is impossible to make with the productions budget, then that budget may be increased. Your fees may be increased if you have to work longer than anticipated by the producer. The conditions outline in a contract could change if something is impossible to make without it.

Opportunities

• Why might someone respond to a brief?

Whether it is a competition like EStings or client work for ITV, you do it for the money; to get paid. Another reason could be to be credited in the credits and as a result; increase your reputation and to be more recognised by other producers.

• Identify opportunities that you had for self-development.

When my group wasn't around, I edited the footage all on my own and developed my own skills.

• What new skills did you learn?

I didn't learn a whole lot of skills while shooting or editing on the project. The skills that I used I had already learnt from previous projects. I have certainly developed my existing skills mainly with sound editing; stop-motion doesn't provide you with any sound so you have to create the sounds yourself using a wide range of sound clips which I found (royalty free) on the internet.

• Did you have to multi-skill at all during the project?

Yes, I was not only cameraman but I also did part of the editing.

• What contributions did you make to the project brief?

I didn't make any contributions to the brief, though to the project itself I volunteered to be camera man and also assisted in the editing stage too.