Working to a brief within the media because the brief is the thing that keeps everything in line and will. With every kind of job you will have a brief telling you what you need to do and what is expected of you. Even if your creating something yourself it is important to give yourself a brief just in case somebody then wants to held you are buy the product of you.
Contractual - A contractual brief is a brief which is set out between between two companies, it is a written agreement explaining all the roles and responsibilities that both companies may have. Within the agreement there will be a section which will state the financial side of things and if the project is successful and how the money will be shared. Both companies will have to sign the agreement meaning that they are both happy with the objectives that have to be completed. If any side of the party were to break the agreements of the contract you could end up facing legal actions for breech of a contract.
This type of a brief is good because a contract in always very detailed and having lots of details will avoid any misunderstanding because every detail will be in that contract and both companies will know what is required of each other. It can be inflexible though that's the down side to a contract because during the progress so the project might change.
Negotiated - This brief contains two companies similar to contractual but instead of having one company go to another with there idea to make it, this sort is when the two companies have 2 separate ideas, but by the end they have to chose just one of the idea's by compromising the other or integrating both ideas into 1, then both parties have to be happy with the decision that has been made. This kind of brief is gradually developed by discussion instead of just being one sided by one company with a contract, if they have another decision to make they will sit down again until the decision is made this way everybody can air their opinions and have a say. If both sides aren't happy with the way things are going the will bring in a 3rd party to help which they call an arbitrator. A arbitrator is an independent person or body officially appointed to settle a dispute.
This is a good brief because both companies are working together to agree to the same thing
and this may help so that there are no arguments along they way especially if everyone is on the same wave length. On the other hand if both sides of the party can't come to terms with an agreement both parties will end up losing work which is not good for either side of the parties.
Formal - A formal brief is when the client has some great idea's they have come up with and the client know what they want to achieve. So the clients will either call a firm in for a formal briefing meeting or they will write to the firm describing in detail their brief and they will ask for a proposal and if the firm thing the idea is good enough they will then send a proposal and the clients can go ahead with there idea.
This is good because the brief itself is very clear and detailed also as it is not always legally binding document the company can express there opinions and they also have the ability to work around the contract without breaking any rules. A disadvantage is that the contract sometimes may be to general. Also if the company isn't willing to give them a proposal and giving them the go ahead they may have to keep going from company to company until someone send them a proposal to make sure this weren't to happen they need a really good idea from the start so that the first company send them a proposal.
Informal - An informal brief is a simple way to do something if you don't want any legal or written document involved. The client will simply ring up a media company explaining the requirements that are wanted. It is more of a verbal agreement than a written agreement so there is no paperwork for the agreement both sides of the parties still have to agree with the verbal agreement for them to proceed.
This sort of brief may be good if you want to do a speedy project because it saves all the time with the the written paperwork and legal paperwork and you can start as soon as possible once they are given the go ahead. The bad thing about this is that because there is no written brief later on during the progress there could be a lot of misunderstandings because there was to written paperwork.
Commission - A commission brief is used when your company has a high reputation for itself and it is expected of you to deliver high standard work. So instead of using an external client you will use a independent company with some standards to create your work for you. The company will commission the independent company for you to do something a certain way.
The advantage is that the company will get exactly what they want from the independent company and also the independent company will get a small fraction of any profits that are made. The disadvantage is that the bigger company may get greedy and not give any credit to the independent company and they might not give them there agreed shares.
Tender - A tender is when the client sometimes gets media companies to compete against each other. The clients will then pick a few companies that have very high reputation for previous work they have done and then the clients then put the media companies they have selected onto a tender list. The clients will explain to the companies what they want, then the clients will leave it up to the media companies to come back with a proposal on how they would do the project and how much they will charge. So say if the client wanted to create a music video the client has already given them a brief and they will wait the all the companies to come back with proposals and prices and once they have looked through all the proposals they will select one that they will think will be the best.
This is a good way to do things because they will have a wide selection to choose from and they will be looking for a good price, so if someone has a great visual idea at a good price they would jump at the opportunity. The only problem is that this process will take time to organise and they will have to wait for all the responses to come back before they can make a decision.
Cooperative - A cooperative brief i quite simple at may be that more that one media company is talking to work on a brief or may be it is more than one client talking to several media companies. All companies will need to work closely together so that they can all agree to the same brief and they all need to listen to each others opinions for it work because they will be working as a team. You are working alongside other organisations and production companies who have both made briefs so in the end your brief has to cooperate with the brief they are working with as well. For example Lionsgate and Color Force both worked on The Hunger Games so both team had to be prepared to listen to each others ideas for it to work because otherwise if they didn't have the same vision it wouldn't of worked and the film might not have been made.
Working with a cooperative brief is a good way of sharing a complicated job between two media production companies, also it helps build as sense of community in the workplace. An important thing to do with to do when working with another company is to make sure that there is a written agreement in place so everybody knows what they have to be doing. A disadvantage could be that there might be a few people working on the team that disagree and it may cause downfall later along the process of the project.
Competition - A competition brief is similar to a tender brief mainly because there will be a lot of media companies involved but both briefs have the differences. The competition brief will have a lot more companies involved where as the tender had a selected few were chosen the participate. The brief that will be given to the media companies is a little less detailed that a brief which is given in a tender.
The advantages are that they will be some great ideas given from all of the companies meaning the clients will have a lot to choose from and because there is heavy competition the media company my present themselves in the most sufficient way possible to make themselves all stand out. The disadvantage to this is that there are so many entries it may be hard to pick the one they want to use and it may slow down the process.
Reading The Brief - When reading a brief there are many things you need to take on board and make sure that it was been read thoroughly because you don't want to make any mistakes along the line. So you need to recognize and understand the nature and the demand of the brief before you can respond to it. So you really need to understand of what is being asked of the client because you want to look professional when giving in the final result. Once you know and understand what you have to do you need need to win the business by creating a proposal to the client and make sure you haven't missed out any detail what so ever because if you get this right the first time and make it look good you might get work sent your way in the future. You need also make there are no complication down the line so make sure there is a written agreement so that you know exactly what needs to be done by your party.
All Briefs - All briefs should try and communicate as clearly as possible so that then the media company know exactly what they are doing to do this they should include the following things into a brief, the general idea or objective, some information about the client explaining who they are are any previous work they have done before and what there goal is for the future, any information that the client has already picked up on for there present project, what kind of results the client is looking for, who the target audience is, how much they are willing to spend on the project and how long the media company have time to spend on creating the project. All of the following things should be included in a brief so that the company have a clear view in of what the client wants.
Negotiating The Brief - It is always important to negotiate the brief because as a professional you know what you are doing but you need negotiate with the client before you do anything that the client may not like. As a professional you know what you are doing and you may like to add certain things to the project that might make it look better but before doing so you need to negotiate with client to see how far you can go with adding your own touch they may agree because you are the professional and you know what you are doing but they may disagree because it thee idea and they will want it to stay exactly the same a the brief.
When working to a brief you need to consider legal and ethical minorities because when it could be offensive to people if they see it, so say if it is an advertisement that the client wants creating they need to include in there brief that it was to be viewable to all people who watch the TV because if the ASA get complaints about the advert, it could get banned and then it may have to get made again which will cost the clients more money.
Once the media company have completed the projects they will send it back to the client and the client will view the project and the may then come back to the the company saying that they would like certain things to be changed to make it better. Then in order to make these amendments the company may need to spend a bit more money on it but if they have run out of money that the client has given them they might not get any more from the client so they may not be able to complete it they will have to discover a benefactor to fund the specific part that need to been amended. The client will have certain conditions that they want the company to work to but sometimes the client will allow the company to work around the specific conditions so that it can work in order of them to complete the project instead of disagreeing over certain factor of the project.
Opportunities - When working on a project it is always best to start with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats). This is something that I did when I created my advertisement for TV I did a SWOT so that I had a rough idea of what was going to happen during the process of creating my advert. There are several opportunities that may occur whilst working on a project and some of the thing you might not even expect. There is a opportunity for self development when you have completed a project you get a self development that you have completed a project and it strengthens for abilities and your self belief into believing that you can be good at all kinds of things. You may also developed new skills because it may be a project that you have never worked on before like creating graphics, 3D models, script, advert etc. After you know that you have this new skill set it broadens your horizons and you could end up in any line of work because you have new and more skills. Multi- skilling can be very important on a brief because you may require more than one specific skill to complete the project so it then comes back round to learning new skills because the more skills you learn the better you are at becoming a multi-skilling and the more likely you are the person to get the contract to create the project because you have more skills that the over person and you were the better person for the job. Making a contribution to a brief may help some clients may not be 100% sure of what they want the project to look like they may have written the brief but want your opinion so you have to be prepared to contribute to the brief to the best of your ability the reason they are asking you is to test you so you need to be aware that all clients could end up asking you this to make sure you are the right person for the job.
This is a good brief because both companies are working together to agree to the same thing
and this may help so that there are no arguments along they way especially if everyone is on the same wave length. On the other hand if both sides of the party can't come to terms with an agreement both parties will end up losing work which is not good for either side of the parties.
Formal - A formal brief is when the client has some great idea's they have come up with and the client know what they want to achieve. So the clients will either call a firm in for a formal briefing meeting or they will write to the firm describing in detail their brief and they will ask for a proposal and if the firm thing the idea is good enough they will then send a proposal and the clients can go ahead with there idea.
This is good because the brief itself is very clear and detailed also as it is not always legally binding document the company can express there opinions and they also have the ability to work around the contract without breaking any rules. A disadvantage is that the contract sometimes may be to general. Also if the company isn't willing to give them a proposal and giving them the go ahead they may have to keep going from company to company until someone send them a proposal to make sure this weren't to happen they need a really good idea from the start so that the first company send them a proposal.
Informal - An informal brief is a simple way to do something if you don't want any legal or written document involved. The client will simply ring up a media company explaining the requirements that are wanted. It is more of a verbal agreement than a written agreement so there is no paperwork for the agreement both sides of the parties still have to agree with the verbal agreement for them to proceed.
This sort of brief may be good if you want to do a speedy project because it saves all the time with the the written paperwork and legal paperwork and you can start as soon as possible once they are given the go ahead. The bad thing about this is that because there is no written brief later on during the progress there could be a lot of misunderstandings because there was to written paperwork.
Commission - A commission brief is used when your company has a high reputation for itself and it is expected of you to deliver high standard work. So instead of using an external client you will use a independent company with some standards to create your work for you. The company will commission the independent company for you to do something a certain way.
The advantage is that the company will get exactly what they want from the independent company and also the independent company will get a small fraction of any profits that are made. The disadvantage is that the bigger company may get greedy and not give any credit to the independent company and they might not give them there agreed shares.
Tender - A tender is when the client sometimes gets media companies to compete against each other. The clients will then pick a few companies that have very high reputation for previous work they have done and then the clients then put the media companies they have selected onto a tender list. The clients will explain to the companies what they want, then the clients will leave it up to the media companies to come back with a proposal on how they would do the project and how much they will charge. So say if the client wanted to create a music video the client has already given them a brief and they will wait the all the companies to come back with proposals and prices and once they have looked through all the proposals they will select one that they will think will be the best.
This is a good way to do things because they will have a wide selection to choose from and they will be looking for a good price, so if someone has a great visual idea at a good price they would jump at the opportunity. The only problem is that this process will take time to organise and they will have to wait for all the responses to come back before they can make a decision.
Cooperative - A cooperative brief i quite simple at may be that more that one media company is talking to work on a brief or may be it is more than one client talking to several media companies. All companies will need to work closely together so that they can all agree to the same brief and they all need to listen to each others opinions for it work because they will be working as a team. You are working alongside other organisations and production companies who have both made briefs so in the end your brief has to cooperate with the brief they are working with as well. For example Lionsgate and Color Force both worked on The Hunger Games so both team had to be prepared to listen to each others ideas for it to work because otherwise if they didn't have the same vision it wouldn't of worked and the film might not have been made.
Working with a cooperative brief is a good way of sharing a complicated job between two media production companies, also it helps build as sense of community in the workplace. An important thing to do with to do when working with another company is to make sure that there is a written agreement in place so everybody knows what they have to be doing. A disadvantage could be that there might be a few people working on the team that disagree and it may cause downfall later along the process of the project.
Competition - A competition brief is similar to a tender brief mainly because there will be a lot of media companies involved but both briefs have the differences. The competition brief will have a lot more companies involved where as the tender had a selected few were chosen the participate. The brief that will be given to the media companies is a little less detailed that a brief which is given in a tender.
The advantages are that they will be some great ideas given from all of the companies meaning the clients will have a lot to choose from and because there is heavy competition the media company my present themselves in the most sufficient way possible to make themselves all stand out. The disadvantage to this is that there are so many entries it may be hard to pick the one they want to use and it may slow down the process.
Reading The Brief - When reading a brief there are many things you need to take on board and make sure that it was been read thoroughly because you don't want to make any mistakes along the line. So you need to recognize and understand the nature and the demand of the brief before you can respond to it. So you really need to understand of what is being asked of the client because you want to look professional when giving in the final result. Once you know and understand what you have to do you need need to win the business by creating a proposal to the client and make sure you haven't missed out any detail what so ever because if you get this right the first time and make it look good you might get work sent your way in the future. You need also make there are no complication down the line so make sure there is a written agreement so that you know exactly what needs to be done by your party.
All Briefs - All briefs should try and communicate as clearly as possible so that then the media company know exactly what they are doing to do this they should include the following things into a brief, the general idea or objective, some information about the client explaining who they are are any previous work they have done before and what there goal is for the future, any information that the client has already picked up on for there present project, what kind of results the client is looking for, who the target audience is, how much they are willing to spend on the project and how long the media company have time to spend on creating the project. All of the following things should be included in a brief so that the company have a clear view in of what the client wants.
Negotiating The Brief - It is always important to negotiate the brief because as a professional you know what you are doing but you need negotiate with the client before you do anything that the client may not like. As a professional you know what you are doing and you may like to add certain things to the project that might make it look better but before doing so you need to negotiate with client to see how far you can go with adding your own touch they may agree because you are the professional and you know what you are doing but they may disagree because it thee idea and they will want it to stay exactly the same a the brief.
When working to a brief you need to consider legal and ethical minorities because when it could be offensive to people if they see it, so say if it is an advertisement that the client wants creating they need to include in there brief that it was to be viewable to all people who watch the TV because if the ASA get complaints about the advert, it could get banned and then it may have to get made again which will cost the clients more money.
Once the media company have completed the projects they will send it back to the client and the client will view the project and the may then come back to the the company saying that they would like certain things to be changed to make it better. Then in order to make these amendments the company may need to spend a bit more money on it but if they have run out of money that the client has given them they might not get any more from the client so they may not be able to complete it they will have to discover a benefactor to fund the specific part that need to been amended. The client will have certain conditions that they want the company to work to but sometimes the client will allow the company to work around the specific conditions so that it can work in order of them to complete the project instead of disagreeing over certain factor of the project.
Opportunities - When working on a project it is always best to start with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats). This is something that I did when I created my advertisement for TV I did a SWOT so that I had a rough idea of what was going to happen during the process of creating my advert. There are several opportunities that may occur whilst working on a project and some of the thing you might not even expect. There is a opportunity for self development when you have completed a project you get a self development that you have completed a project and it strengthens for abilities and your self belief into believing that you can be good at all kinds of things. You may also developed new skills because it may be a project that you have never worked on before like creating graphics, 3D models, script, advert etc. After you know that you have this new skill set it broadens your horizons and you could end up in any line of work because you have new and more skills. Multi- skilling can be very important on a brief because you may require more than one specific skill to complete the project so it then comes back round to learning new skills because the more skills you learn the better you are at becoming a multi-skilling and the more likely you are the person to get the contract to create the project because you have more skills that the over person and you were the better person for the job. Making a contribution to a brief may help some clients may not be 100% sure of what they want the project to look like they may have written the brief but want your opinion so you have to be prepared to contribute to the brief to the best of your ability the reason they are asking you is to test you so you need to be aware that all clients could end up asking you this to make sure you are the right person for the job.
