The requirements of working to the brief

Briefs

what is a brief?
A media brief is how a client outlines their media objectives, target audience(s), budget and other criteria such as what they want to be included in their proposed product, Some briefs can be very specific of what the client wants the finished proposed product whereas others may give more freedom with little specific guidelines.

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

Being commissioned means that you as an individual have been employed or instructed to carry out a job to which you will be given a brief so that you can follow the guidelines of what the commissioner wants out of you and your skills. An example of this could be Radar Music Videos, they are a music video commissioning company based at RAK Studios in London. The network comprises more than 10,000 music video directors worldwide. The service enables labels, artists and managers to commission music videos from new director talent.

Here you can see several briefs that Radar Music videos
have on their website.

What is meant by the term ‘tender’
Tendering is a way of making a specific offer, bid or proposal. In other words, organisations or businesses will seek other production businesses to respond to a particular need or job. They will then select an offer that meets their needs and most likely which one is the best value for money. The Interested production businesses will then prepare a tender; which outline the offer that they are making. It will always include pricing and schedules as well as their eligibility for the project. It will also include an outline of their advantages over competitors and information on qualifications, competencies and experience they have.

How else could you respond to a brief?
there are many ways you can respond to a brief. One way would be though a competition. some competitions require you to follow certain guidelines, quite like a brief, in order to enter the competition. One example could be the E4 E-sting competition. One requirement states that the E-Sting must be 10 seconds long in order for it to be submitted,it can not be longer or shorter. Below is the assignment brief for the stop-motion animation.

Reading a brief

When it came to the the E4 Esting brief there was specific guidelines I had to meet and follow to produce an acceptable Esting. One of the requirements for the competition is that you had to include the E4 logo within your E-Sting. This could either be implemented in the world of the video or added on as a picture (.jpg). This was provided by the E4 E-Sting website, no other logo was allowed to be used in the video unless the client obtained permission to use it. The rest of the specific guidelines and requirements are below;

On top of these guidelines set by E4, our teacher specified that our Esting had to be a stop motion animation because we had two different units that were merged together. When it came to my own project, understanding the E-Sting brief was not that difficult as it was presented in a competition form, giving simple and clear instructions.

Negotiating a brief

When it came to the E4 E-Sting project that was set by my teacher, I made sure that I knew what I was doing and was able to discuss any problems if I was stuck or needed help to anything within the brief. Within the media industry it is good to ask so that you fully understand what is expected from you. It can also help with what the commissioner doesn't want, giving you a better path to follow within the task.  When it came to interpreting the brief, if something was asked from you, your skills may be challenged in order to get what the commissioner wants. For example if you were ask to make a 30 second advert, the contents of that advert might come from your personal skills. However there may be some instructions/guidelines to help you. Researching into the company that gave you the brief could help in understanding what the commissioner wants out of you. For example you could research into their new releases or previous work.       

When responding to a brief you may hit some legal, ethical or regulatory issues. For legal issues you must try and not use any other companies logo, music etc without their permission as you will most likely get sued and a lose out on a job. The copyright law of the UK states that "the law gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions, rights to control the ways in which their material may be used". This means that E4 have control over their products and organizations and can give the permission to use their products like logos. It also states "Names, titles, short phrases and colours are not generally considered unique or substantial enough to be covered, but a creation, such as a logo, that combines these elements may be". This means if a logo was used without permission and is not your original creation then it can lead to legal action. 

 

TM is for an unregistered trademark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods; 

SM is for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand services;

© copyright 

® for a registered trademark. The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark 

may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.

The copyright service website states that "a trademark can be a name, word, slogan, design, symbol or other unique device that identifies a product or organisation" these can be trademarked by putting a small 'TM' logo somewhere on the product, some names/logos may also have a small 'R' imprinted at the end to show that the name/logo has been registered and can't be used by anyone else except the company that created it. for example,Starbucks uses both the 'R' symbol and the 'TM' symbol so that no other company can use it and to also show that the name has been registered. 

For ethical issues using any explicit or offensive content could result in some serious issues and again could result in a loss of a job. When it came to my E4 E-Sting project, I made sure that my idea had no legal or ethical issues, so that I met the brief with no problems. For example the E4's guidelines for the E-Sting quotes that "Your 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. Your Entry must also be suitable for daytime broadcast." Also the Ofcom Broadcasting Code states that "Programmes must not include material (whether in individual programmes or in programmes taken together) which, taking into account the context, condones or glamorises violent, dangerous or seriously antisocial behaviour and is likely to encourage others to copy such behaviour." By understanding these regulations, I made sure that my E-Sting did not show any kind of glamorized violence or antisocial behavior.

Did you have to make any amendments to proposed final product? Why?
With my project I made several amendments though out, I changed the sequence of the frames and added more frames due to the fact it wasn't 10 seconds long. I  also changed my ideas a few times as I wasn't confident on how I would be able to follow it through without it looking unproffessional. Another amendment I was told to make by my teacher was to use a different style of stop motion animation as well as what I had already done as it was all hand drawn however due to lack of time I was unable to make this amendment to this product.

For what reasons might there be amendments to; a budget? Your fees? Conditions outlined in the contract?
Within the media industry the final product may not be satisfactory for the commissioner and you may be asked to either start again or try and amend the work. This can be pain staking for the you as a worker. However during the task given, you may need to amend the work yourself. This could be due to things like budget (not being able to afford certain releases, equipment, props etc.) or conditions to the contract (restrictions to what you can and can not do). This is common in the industry because when you are given a brief, the commissioner wants something specific from your skills and will need to set restrictions and budgets so that time is not wasted. Again, asking what your budget is could result in avoiding this issue.

Opportunities

When someone is offered a brief, there are plenty of opportunities at which the employee can undertake. For example when taking on a brief lets say for a music video, the opportunities to improve your directing, production (pre - post), and camera skills are there. Also payment can be implemented within a contract/brief which is another reason why someone would undertake a task and respond to a brief.

Working with a brief can also help in improving your skills with working within the industry and working with a brief itself. When it came to my E4 E-Sting project, I had loads of opportunities to improve my skills in camera work, Photoshop and production to which I did achieve.When working on the project, due to the fact I was working by myself I had to multi-skill throughout. I had to complete all of the pre-production, the filming as well as the editing.


http://toolkit.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au/part/26/134/623
http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/music-video-briefs/0/official
http://btecmediaen2.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Assignment%205%20-%20Animation
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code-september-2010/harmoffence/
http://estings.e4.com/terms.html
http://fsymbols.com/computer/trademark/