Unit 5: Working to a brief evaluation

Working to a brief evaluation

Upon reviewing this production I can say that overall i like the end product. Although we did run into a few problems on the way which included problems with actors, locations and members of the team not fully contributing to the project i believe that in the end it came together pretty well.

 The things I liked were the reconstructions, i thought the way that they were cut together told the story really well and the voiceover accentuated the reconstructions too. I also liked the interviews with Karen Heritage and the higher education performing arts students because they had experience with child entertaiment licenses and could explain what they were, what they did and how to get one should you need it.

There are some areas that i think could do with improvement. The first improvement i would make is the sound in some of the shots towards the end of the reconstruction , i think the sound effect off Dale being run over by a car should have had more of a build up to it and also the ambient sound in the background was a little too loud. I would of also cut the scene in the historical reconstruction where the children are going to work a little differently, the actor who is playing the boss looks at his watch twice, each one in a different shot causing this to look like a continuity error, I would also have cut the interview with Alice Garderner a bit shorter because i think the target audience wouldn't want to listen to an interview which drags on a little bit.
Overall i do like this production and i think it could be successful in the schools that it will be shown in.

Production Blog for Working to a brief

25/02/14
Today we had our first group meeting to decide what this project was going to be about, we decided what we were each going to research, i decided i was going to research the 1860 Education Act. We also talked about the narrative, style and structure of this project so we were just throwing ideas around. We made a decision that Dale was going to be the liason manager and would keep in contact with the client.

26/02/14
Today we had another meeting, I came up with an agenda and kept track of how long each topic took to discuss, we decided that Ryan was going to be Team Leader, we assigned different job roles to each person. Jordan was in charge of pictures and archive, Rose was going to collaborate with a few of us on the script, Shemar was in charge of Storyboards, the Shot List was going to be mainly Ryan but with help with a few of us. I was going to be in charge of the schedule and make sure we are on track and that we meet the deadline, Isaak is going to be in charge of all the risk assesments and Dale & Shemar are going to be in charge of all the locations and casting actors.
I also finished all the research and annotated it too. Dale received an E-Mail from our client Alice that informed us that we are to meet with her this upcoming meeting to discuss progress, if she had any ideas and share what ideas we had to share.

27/02/14
Today we discussed our meeting with Alice and I also decided to annotate some more of my research, we talked about the topics we were going to discuss with Alice.

3/03/14
Today was the day of our meeting with our client Alice, we talked about what ideas we had and whether she approved of them, we also discussed time limits, Alice initially thought a 15 minute video would be appropriate but we explained that our target audience would be more attracted to something short and sharp that packs a punch, we then gave her our proposal to read over and asked her to give us any feedback. We also asked about any contacts she could think for us to interview. Overall i think the interview was successful and we were much clearer on the project afterwards.
When we got back to college we decided we would make two teams, the reconstruction team and the interview team, i am on the interview team so i looked for some contacts for interviews, i managed to secure two contacts for interviews.

6/03/14
Today we had a group discussion about the progress we are making, i am still talking to both contacts about arranging interviews.

10/03/14
Today me, Jordan and Isaak filmed two reconstruction scenes with Katie (our actress) we wanted to use a dolly to film Katie walking but the ground was too unstable so we created a steady-cam, we also filmed a scene in which Katie opens up her GCSE results to find that she has good grades.

12/03/14
Today me, Ryan and Shemar went over to the college to interview some performing art students about child employment licences. They were fully aware what these licences were because they were going through the process of working with children and one of the students had to licence children herself because she was in charge of a production, we also talked about the pros and cons of having a part time job whilst in school, overall i feel like these interviews went successfully and we got some good informative content.

13/03/14
Today Dale, Ryan and Shemar went and got vox pops around the college, this was successful. The questions that were asked were 'Did you have a part-time job in school?' 'If yes did you enjoy it?' 'If no would you have liked one?' and 'What are the pros and cons of working?'

18/03/14
Today me, Ryan and Shemar went over to Karen Heritage's dance studio to do an interview with her about what is an Entertainment License and how to obtain one, we also talked about child employment and finding a balance between school work and paid work.

19/03/14
Today I worked on scheduling the historical re-enactments, my tutor works with a drama group so i asked her to get in contact with one of her actors to take part in the filming, I also worked out how long this would take and how long filming would take. I looked for locations to use and came up with a main location and also a back up location incase we couldn't get permission to use the main location.

2/04/14
Today me, Ryan Bartle, Shemar Chawla and Rose Ashworth went to our client Alice Gardeners office to interview her about education and entertainment licenses.


15/05/14
Today me, Jordan Dent and Ryan Bartle wrote and recorded a voiceover for our actress Francesca, I thought this process went well overall and it sounded good.

Understanding and Interpreting a Brief

Understanding and Interpreting a Brief

 

 

 

Structure of Briefs

 

Contractual Briefs

A contractual brief is a type of a contract or brief where a media is employed by a client to complete a project within a brief that the client has written for them. The media company must follow the specific guidelines that the client has made. The most important thing for the media company is that these guidelines are met, if the media company fail to do so this can lead to a breach in contract amd the company could face legal actions.

 

Advantages- Having a contractual brief is good for a media company because they know exactly what the project entails and the client will have a very specific brief.

 

Disadvantages- The disadvantages to having a contractual brief is that if the media company does not meet the brief this could result in legal complications and will lead to the company not having a good reputation.

 

Negotiated Briefs

This type of brief will happen if the co-operative brief given to the two or more media companies that are working on the project have any issues about the brief or any issues that they would like to clear up with the client. These negotiations in the brief can then be changed in order to suite every party involved in the production.

 

Advantages- The advantages to this brief is that certain points can be negotiated so the project is more open to suggestions from different perspectives which could result in the project being better overall.

 

Disadvantages- Negotiating the brief can sometimes waste time.

 

Formal Brief

A formal brief is when a media company is given a brief by a client which only outlines the project, this makes the project more open and gives enough information to be able to produce the production. Any information or issues that the media company feel the need to go over can be negotiated with the client, the client and media company will formally agree on the brief and the project.

 

Advantages- This type of brief means that the client is open to negotiations with the media company which makes it more creative.

 

Disadvantages- This type of brief could make the media company feel like the client hasn't given them enough information for the production to be completed to the clients standards.

 

Informal Brief

An informal brief is usually verbal and not documented. The media company and the client simply discuss the guidlines of the product they will be making and mutually agree on the project.

 

Advantages- The advantages to this type of brief is that the media company can fully understand the clients wants and needs.

Disadvantages- The disadvantages to this type of brief is that there is no written contract to prove the employment of the media company, this could lead to the client failing to pay the media company and the media company would not be able to take any legal action. Also this type of contract can make things like deadlines be not very clear which can cause confusion for both parties.

Commission
This type of brief will happen when a large media company will employ a much smaller independant company to create and produce the product. When the product has been made the larger company will then go on to use the product for an external client who will then pay the independant company for making the product. This client has no part of this and the negotiations will take place between the two media companys.

Advantages- The advantage of this type of brief is that the larger company don't take part in all the hard work but will still recieve pay for the contribution that they have made to the making of the product.

Disadvantages- This type of brief may mean that because there are two different companies working on the same project, issues and conflicts may arise and the product may not be made to the clients standards.

Tender
A Tender brief is where a client will advertise a brief and a media company will then come up with an idea that they will pitch to the client. This could mean that the client will recieve mutiple pitches from a number of different companies, the client will then choose what they feel is the best idea to suite the brief and give the job to that media company.

Advantages- The advantage of this brief is that the client can listen to a number of different companies perspectives of the brief and in effect will be able to produce the product to a high standard.

Disadvantages- The disadvantage of this type of brief is that if a company's is turned down it could set them way back in terms of business, the media company could have turned down other work that shared the same timeline as the brief that they pitched an idea for.

Co-operative Brief
This type of brief usually means that two or more companies are hired by a client to work to a brief that they have written for a specific project. Both media companies will recieve a copy of the brief and then proceed to work with eachother to produce the product, if there is a conflict in ideas a negotiated brief can be used to resolve these issues.

Advantages- Having this type of brief means that there can more perspectives to creating the product needed by the client and therefore means that the brief can be more understood than if there were only one company working on the project.

 Disadvantages- This type of brief can be more prone to dissagreements and conflict in the ideas being given by each type of the different media companies that have been employed by the client.

Competition Brief
A Competition brief is where a client will put their brief out so it can be accessed by all of the different media companies that want to participate. Each media comany will complete the brief and then the client will judge which company has created the best project. The client will then have then publish the winning production.

Advantages- An advantage of this type of brief is that the client only has to pay the media company that they have chosen, also because they have multiple media companies producing a product the client has a large range to select from and they can judge on what they will believe will be more successful.

Disadvantages- A disadvantage is that the media companies may have lost or turned down work in order to make the product.

Reading a Brief
Being able to read a brief is the most important thing. If you fail to read the brief properly it is almost certain that mistakes can be made and the media company can easily miss out small but none the less important details. The media company need to get the grasp of the project in order to produce it to the clients standards. If the brief is not met this could result in loss of business and work for the media company which ultimately leads to loss of money.

The first thing to do when you receive a brief is set up a meeting with your client to get a better understanding of what the client expects of you. Once you have met with your client you should know what idea you want to go with, you and your team should already have a team leader allocated. They will then allocate pre-production jobs to each member of the team. Once all pre-production has been completed you should then be moving on to actual production. While all this is going on you should keep in contact with your client if that's something that they have requested. Once production has been competed the editing process will begin, you should send a rough edit to your client to give them a taster of what the production will entail.

Negotiating the Brief
It's important to negotiate the brief before the production is completed, the reason for this is because if there is a detail that they've missed or if there is a detail the client wanted to add there is plenty of time to make these adjustments. You can also look over the product that the media company has made to see if they have met the brief.

The advantages of this are that the company has a chance to use their own ideas more wisely and become more lenient on what they want to put on the project, they can be more creative with what they can do.

A disadvantage is the client may not like it and it might not properly meet the brief. It could possibly conflict with the brief.

There are many legal and ethical issues with this brief, for example my brief was for Stockton Borough Council, we were asked to create a film about child employment, because of the target audience (13-16) we thought it would be best if we use children of the same age to connect with the audience, this meant we had to make sure everything was above board and legal, because of this we had to get parents permission ect.

Opportunities

Self Development
This brief has allowed me to explore self development in the way that I have learned what my strengths and weekneses are working independently and in a group. Researching things like the Factory Law has opened my eyes to all the different laws that are in place when it comes to using children in my production, it has also made me aware of the different licences i would need in future if i was looking to use children in future projects.

Learning new skills
The skills i have learned is how to be better at verbal communication and verbal negotionation, i have also learned more about deadlines and time management. Another skill i have learned is how to create a project that is capable of meeting other peoples standards instead of just meeting my own.

Multi-Tasking
I have learned to be able to do more than one thing at a time. Rather than doing a task day by day i can complete more than one task at a time