The Requirements of Working To a Brief

A brief or project brief is a small document telling the creator exactly what needs to be done in a project. When starting a new project someone will make a brief for the team to stick to and if the brief isn't stuck to then the work that the company or person makes will not be used or will have to be re-done as its not wanted or doesn't meet certain requirements so it can't be used. A brief can be created by anyone from me and you, to large scale companies that gross millions of pounds a year. The brief will basically tell a media company or someone that will be able to make the product with the skills they have to create a product for someone. It will contain the requirements and what the end product should have or show, for example a company like Virgin could approach a small film company and ask them to create an advert for their new internet service. Virgin will give the film company things that have to be included within the advert and what its got to show and then allow them to create and think of the rest of the advert. Virgin may also give additional information like the target audience of the advert so the film company can create an advert that will attract the right kind of people.

Commission is where you grant certain powers and authority to carry out a particular task or duty. When you're commissioned this means you have been given the duty to carry out a certain task and you have been given the authority to use certain content, for example an animation creator could be commissioned to work on Wallace and Gromit giving him the authority and the duty to complete his task. You're basically asked to do work for someone and will get paid for completing this task, for example if a television company like SKY asked a small time film making company to make them an advert for their new SKY box or a new deal on getting SKY they would then be commissioned to do the work and get paid once the advert is complete.

Tender, although similar to commission it is different. Tender is where you will compete for the work that is being offered, there is no prize if your work gets picked you get work and contracts from it, this can often get mixed up with competition but the two are very slightly different. An example of this would be; A large company like Paramount putting out an advertisement for people to make them a poster of small film that shows how good the their film studios are. It would give certain criteria that would need to be met like now showing sex of use of drugs, like a small brief that will tell you what you will need to do and show within your work , and would also give details on how to send in your work to them. Once this is done and you have made the poster or small film you would sent it in. Once looking at your work and deciding who's was best they would then offer the person(s) who made the the piece and either offer them work to carry out for the company or give them a contract to work on films etc for a certain period of time. This can be a great way of gaining experience and making a name for yourself within the sector you want to go into.

Another way you could respond to a brief I mentioned in the last paragraph as the two terms are quite alike. A competition is a great way of responding to a brief and is very popular with people that are just starting out in their media careers. A company or television channel or anyone really, will put out a competition for people to enter their work into and whoever wins, gets a prize. E4 for example hold a competition every year to get people to give them new EStings to use within ad breaks between their TV shows. The prize being your work is shown on television. Being a large scale company and well known television channel the brief that is created for this competition is huge are there are numerous requirements that have to be met for you to be able to enter your work and for it to be valid within the competition. Some like the music or sound effects, the music would have to come from their already made library or if a certain sound effect isn't there that you need you will have to create the sound effect yourself and prove it due to copyright laws. Media competitions normally involving for the persons work to be shown on the TV of that certain part of the media industry and possibly a small cash prize the companies basically get work for free or very little money as they get hundreds of people sending in their work for them to win the competition and get their work publicized. The company gets cheap work that they can use and promote their business and the creator of the work gets credit and publicity for the work they have created, this is why this method is a very popular and used a lot within the media industry.

There were many specific guide lines that had to be met when making my ESting for E4 and all had to be met to not make my work void. The E4 logo had to be shown within the ESting and content on what could and what couldn't be shown was obvious (no nudity, drug taking etc). The length also had to be exactly 6 seconds and if a I wanted to use a soundtrack it had to be from E4's library of soundtracks that were already made, any sound effects that I wanted to use either had to be non-copyright or make by myself. E4 being a large and well known television channel had pages of requirements about things you can and cant do within the ESting you submit. This was difficult as we were doing stop motion animation and keeping to the 6 seconds was very hard as we had to cram an entire stop motion animation sketch into the time frame. If the ESting was a even a second under or over it couldn't be entered into the competition. This really did show me that working to a brief is the most important thing when working on a media project as if your work doesn't fit into the brief and meet the requirements you either have to start again and all your time and hard work will be wasted or you have to go back and make sure it does meet the requirements which can take even more time. If companies need this within a certain amount of time and you can't meet the deadline your reputation as a company or even as an individual can be hugely effected.

When creating my animation project (E4 ESting) there was little room for negotiation within the brief and there normally isn't. When people create a brief they want the work to follow the brief to the dot, Small things that you think would be better can be discussed however normally you need to follow it exactly. As Channel 4 and E4 are huge television channels they have to take every precaution to make sure that the EStings are not only suited to the audience but are also suitable, for example they're not allowed to show drugs or sex etc. Small negotiations within the brief may be allowed but you might have to confirm you're doing them with the employer of the person that made to brief, as if you do it and they then don't allow you to make that small negotiation you have wasted your time. Keeping to the time limits is also very crutual as they will need the work for a certain time period and this cannot be changed. This again would be stated within the brief as to when the work would be needed to be completed.

Within the media industry there is little discretion when interpreting a brief. The freedom you have is very minimal and when you do have the freedom to decide what should happen in the situation, even then it would be best to ask the company/person who created the brief as if the decision you make doesn't match to the brief or what the creator of the brief wants within the work, the work will be some what void. So in my opinion it is always best to ask the creator of the brief if the idea you have had would be good to include in the work. If you know for certain that it does in fact apply with the requirements of the brief then you can make the decision. This however leads on to the constraints that people can face when responding to a brief like legal, ethical and regulatory constraints. Legal issues such as not being allowed to swear before the watershed, or showing drugs etc can stop people from creating their work. Ethical issues like being racist or showing a certain religion in a bad light can also stop your work from being shown. Fotunatlty when making my ESting I didn't face many constraints and the ones that did arise I was able to overcome quickly and move on. An example would be when I couldn't find any music that I felt matched my ESting, however after looking through the music E4 had already gave us I was able to find some music that I felt matched my video. Apart from this I didn't face many legal or ethical constraints which allowed me to get my work done and perfect it within the editing stages.

My final product I feel was creative, unique and was edited well, giving a piece of work that I was really happy with. After I had finished I found that I did have a few small amendments to make. As I shot my footage on two different days the lighting within the two shoots was slightly different and you could see it change half way through the ESting. I had to change this as I felt it made my ESting look amateurish and I wanted to create a professional looking product. To change the lighting I had to play around with the brightness and the levels. Once playing around with the shots I was able to get the brightness and colours to match throughout my work. One major amendment I had to make that I found my work was actually a little too long and this is when the problems started. I had to shorten my work however not make the stop motion animation look jumpy I had to be smart and delete certain clips that looked the same as the previous clip. Once I managed to shave off a few frames and looked over my work to make sure that it wasn't too jumpy I was happy with my work. Apart from those that I have spoke about I didn't have many amendments that I needed to make which is good. There can be amendments within many things in a project, one could be the budget. You may have been given a budget to work with but to make the best piece of work that is possible the budget may need to be extended or the creator of the brief may take the budget down as they may now not have enough money to create what ever it is you're creating and so this can have an effect on the project. The fee that you will get paid when the project is finished could also be changed due to the budget changes. If you need a bigger budget it may have to come out of what you're going to be paid and if the budget is cut so too may your pay. Many things can affect briefs within the media industry some people can be hugely effected and this is where you will have to show your skills and show people that you're professional and are able to overcome the bad points within the situation

There are many reasons to why someone would respond to a brief the biggest ones would be to gain work from it or win a competition and get their work noticed, which can then lead to full time work. Some do it for fun, for a project and to create something that is 100% theirs, however when people respond to a brief its either for work or to get popularity of their work of them as a creator of the work. There were many opportunities that I came across. One was creating a stop motion animation video which allowed me to broaden my skills within the media industry and learn more about a different type of technique. Also as we were allowed to enter our work into the ESting competition which if I won would show my work on the television which is a huge achievement. From doing this project their were many new skills that I was able to pick up. As we were doing stop motion animation our 'footage' was all pictures. I learnt that stop motion animation is a painfully slow process and takes a very long time. Every shot has to be basically the same, with framing colour, everything. This was very hard and it took numerous times to get a good end result. Editing was also a little different as I was no longer editing video clips I was editing pictures. I had to make sure they were all in the right order and pick a length of time that wouldn't be too long so the shots wouldn't flow together and look jumpy but not to short that it was too quick and under 6 seconds. As one of the requirements within the brief was that it must be 6 seconds and no longer.

Working by myself during my animation I had to multi-skill all the time as if not the project would not have been completed. After I had completed all of the pre-production I had to capture the images for my stop motion animation work and also act within the production. This required me to put the DSLR on a timer and multi shot which allowed the camera to take multi photos within a certain time and also give me time to get into the next position so the shots didn't look jumpy. Stop motion animation is a painfully long process and I didn't think it was as long as people said until I did it for myself. Whilst I was filming I had to make sure the camera was actually taking photos, and whilst I was still shooting the images for my project I was uploading the images I had already taking and editing them so the project would start to come together and I could have a rough idea on how much longer and what images I needed next. You're always multi-skilling when creating a project as you always need to think about what you need to do next and what could be done better especially when you are working by yourself. As to contributing towards the project brief I think I didn't contribute much towards it as it was a very strict brief and there was little room for negotiation.