The Requirements of Working to a Brief

The Requirements of Working to a Brief

Firstly a brief is a set of tasks and rules that must be done and understood, it will include a summary with what needs to be done for the completion of the project. It also has rules which you must follow strictly as they can be quite specific, for example they might say no explicit content in the project or you must use the soundtrack provided. If the client does not read the brief thoroughly they might miss this information and the commissioner will not be happy with the finished product.

A commission is when a commissioner will offer to pay a sum of money to make something for them, for example to turn a script into a film. When commissioned you are then working under the commissioners company and will be given a brief to follow, once you have done everything the brief states the commissioner will then pay then money discussed at the start of the commissioning.

Tendering is the process of trying to win a commission when a company has issued a brief.  The company tendering will make a proposal and a budget explaining how they will meet that brief. If the company like it they will commission them to make it.

There are a few ways to respond to a brief, a unique way it a competition, this way you actually respond to the brief by making the products itself, when responded all the competitors have a chance of winning and this way peoples true talent can be seen. For example the E Sting competition, they released a brief which stated everything that needed to be done and rules such at, you can only use music E4 provided and it MUST be 10 seconds long.

When reading a brief you have to be very careful that you read everything and understand what they are asking from you, for example the brief from E4, it was very important that I read it all and didn’t miss anything out as the rules were very specific. I had to meet 3 specific rules, use the E4 music, make sure it’s exactly 10 seconds long and if we want it to be shown before watershed make she it does not have explicit or violent content. It clearly said stated in the brief if the E Sting is not 10 seconds long it will not be selected, this is why reading the brief is very important.

When given a brief you may have a different idea to what is being asked of you, you could discuss your ideas with the commissioner, however you are working for them and you need to satisfy them by making what they want, for this reason even if you think what they are asking for isn’t as good as what you can make it you have to do it anyways if you want to get the money offered to you. If you have more experience in the media industry you are more likely to have some leeway into changing the commissioner’s idea to what you think would be more effective. When responding to the E4 brief there was a few rules which I have already stated but apart from them it was up to our imagination to create whatever we felt was right. We didn’t have any room for negotiation on the rules, such as, It had to be exactly 10 seconds long, we had to use a song from the E4 library and we had to use the logo, aside from that the production and idea of the project was in our hands and we had the freedom to make whatever our imagination inspired us to do.

When responding to a brief there are a few constraints you need to consider, such as Legal, Ethical and Regulatory. Legal can be things such as copyright, copyright is a serious topic in the media industry and if you are not careful you could be sued for copyright, for example if I was to make an E Sting and use my own music its taking their product without their permission, and because we put in on YouTube for other people to see its breaker copyright rules and I could be sued.  Along with copyright there is slander; slander is where someone makes false accusations against a company ruining their reputation, this is a suable offence. Ethical is making sure you are careful with your products and make sure you do not insult a race/religion. Regulatory, Ofcom has many laws; the main one that applied to us when making our E Sting is the ‘Protecting the Under-Eighteens’

 

Our E Sting was not affected by any of these rules as it was child friendly and appropriate for all ages, this also links to the laws of BBFC and their recommendation on what age your product can be shown to. As you can see none of these below apply to our music video and therefore it can be shown before the watershed.

 

We were both happy with our final product however we did have to make a couple of amendments such as changing the lighting in post-production and taking some unnecessary footage out as it made it look to rushed and not a fluent. There are many reasons you may need to make amendments, our changed were very small however if we had to make a bigger project there are many things to be careful about, such as money issues, for example you may get half way through a production of a film and realise it’s going to cost more than you have so you may have to make a couple of amendments and sacrifices to make the end project doable. Little things such as sound, lighting and CGI are normal amendments which are changed when reviewing your final project over and over to make sure it’s flawless. You may also come across problems with locations, for example it might have been ok to film somewhere a month when planning the production but closer to the day it becomes not useable and therefore puts you in a position where you may have to make amendments to the script and to change the final product slightly.

The reason people respond to a brief is to open doors/gain opportunities and to get money, if you are freelance in the media you are going to respond to a lot of briefs as its your job and main source of income. However a student such as myself respond to competition briefs as they open doors and give me a chance to get into the media industry by showing my talent, when wining a competition it’s a great thing to be able to put on you cv and the prize money or item is just a bonus.

 The brief I responded to for E4 was a great opportunities as it gave me a chance to experiment with creative imagination and also got me used to working to a brief which is great as I’m sure I’ll be working to man in the future and this brief has given me a lot for confidence with working with them. I also learnt a lot about stop motion animation, I may not like it but at least I have learnt it and am now experienced with the process.

I had to multi-skill when working to the E4 brief as I had to control the camera/lighting, I also had to direct and finally had to edit it all together and add the sounds. My contribution to the brief was making the E Sting, I done this by using my own creative imagination and ideas, I was able to do this as E4 didn’t want a specific idea their brief just stated they wanted a 10 second animation with their logo and song in the product.