Unit 5 Working to a Brief in the creative industry

Structure of Briefs

Contractual - The type of brief that summarises the guidelines that everyone has to follow when they begin to work on the project. They also go over things like budgeting and completion dates. This contract is a legally binding contract, so if the work isn't finished by the deadline, then there are certain issues that can occur.

These briefs are made between an employee and client, so the client decides the guidelines and this means that the employee could have a few artistic restrictions put upon them.

Negotiated - The type of brief that is a result of when two different companies have two ways of going about something. When they then have an issue with the brief they negotiate with the client to see if there is a way to go about it without messing up, splitting up, cancelling the project, and sticking within the guidelines of the brief prior.

These briefs are made to be a solution between two companies having a spat about a project and trying to sort out their differences.

Formal - Formal briefs often detail what is needed in the production and nothing else regarding anything else. They don't talk about legal issues and are can be seen as a bit of a gamble for the client if their employees don't actually work under legal guidelines. They're often discussed in large groups of people working under a project.

Informal - Informal briefs are pretty open and are shown in meetings, in person. This makes people feel way more relaxed and lets them know who they're working with, what they want, and just how to do it. It doesn't have anything like a contract but it needs to appeal to the employer if they want to not work with a contract. Because the meeting is in person, people can discuss terms, meaning that if there was something those that are being hired wanted something, they could easily discuss it and let the employers know, without there being any complications.

Commission -  A commission brief is a brief that is made so the client can apply to have the money refunded after the product is done. If the client does get a refund it means that the product cannot be used whatsoever for whatever original purpose it had for has, and a new product will be made entirely.

Tender - Tender briefs are covered for multiple companies and let the production company deliver an offer to their client, send them their ideas and show what they want to accomplish. This lets the client to choose the best production company to match their preferences.

Cooperative brief - Cooperative briefs are where loads of companies are contacted and hired for one task/production. This can be very common with large productions like animations or film, and it is best to gather multiple ideas and include varied ideas from different groups to get the best idea of who to go to. Also having multiple people working on one project means that you can get it finished sooner, meaning productions isn't stretched out as much as it could be.

Competition - Competition briefs are made when an idea is made, and a brief gets released to the public to make anyone who thinks they can do what is wanted, come up and offer their services. Usually these briefs have high demand, hence the name, and often offer a huge sum of money alongside it, further emphasising the competition aspect of the brief.

Reading a Brief

The importance of reading a brief is a very serious matter, it's crucial to make sure you fully understand the context of the brief, what they're asking for and what they want. They also need to consider a few factors like the demographic, the style of the product, the use in marketing and advertising and specific technical things like aspect ratios and output.

It's best for the brief to cover everything from timescales to locations, crew and resources and it's even more important for whoever is reading it to take it all in and not misinterpret anything. Otherwise, they will end up in a project they don't want to be involved with.

Negotiating a Brief

Firstly, depending on the type of brief both the client and production company are dealing with, there is usually a consultation with the client. Be it either formal or informal, nevertheless the meeting between them is to discuss the brief and ideas within the brief.

Not only that, but the constraints have to be discussed also, legal, ethical and regulatory constraints have to be thoroughly discussed and spoke about between the client and company. So the final product needs to be made sure it's not homophobic or racist or going to harm/offend any sort of group that could watch the product.

When comparing the different Constraints that can affect any Media Product, it is clear that Legal Constraints are the hardest to avoid, as it requires a true understanding of all the laws and regulatory bodies that can have an effect on the product being made.

Finally, they have to discuss the budget, conditions and fees. The budget usually covers when new costs possibly arise or prices change, any new costs are discussed with the client to make sure they can afford the extra costs and pay for any extra amounts.

The conditions can change and have an affect on the final product, for example, if the client were to change the group they were aiming at, then the product will need to be discussed with the production company again to make sure that it is understood they are taking a different direction in their production. 

The fees comes down to the first consultation with the client, it's very important that every single possible cost that could be involved with the making of the product are discussed, at high priority.

Opportunities

There are a few opportunities for briefs, for one there is the opportunity for self development. If you work with a brief it means you can work with others, learn skills from them and even pass on skills to others, by teaching them you can see what you do right and wrong and improve upon those flaws. By doing this, the range of products you can tackle and make will enhance as you learn these new skills and potentially become someone you thought you couldn't be.

You can also become decent at multi-tasking, when you're working for any company there will pretty much always be more than one project in development at one time. As such you will need to be able to handle multiple briefs, projects, ethics, ideas and costs at the same time.

This can easily be done if you work on three different briefs, such as an advertisement, a trailer and an animation. The animation will need different costs and ethical values compared to the advertisement as one is fictional whilst the other is meant to be shown and grounded in reality. This is especially apparent when you consider how much different the advertisement would be to the movie trailer. For one, the movie trailer would use different editing techniques you would have to use as opposed to the advertisement.