Contractual Brief
It will also include what they do not want. They will also include multiple pages which consist of terms and agreements so the contract is airtight. As soon as you sign it you are agreeing to everyone in that document
This is similar to the document which you may be signing. It will say you are agreeing to these terms and agreements. It will have an area for the employer to sign and for the employee
For example if a company such as Mcdonalds came to you and wanted a video that advertised they're new burger, they will put this in the brief and they will put everything in the brief. Usually they're is no negotiating during the process.
It does not leave any room for creativity because you have to do what the company wants from you in order to get paid. In some cases this can be a disadvantage if you like to have a creative input in what you are creating
One advantage of doing something such as this is that you do not have to come up with the brief yourself because it is already made. You are just handed the brief.
Negotiated Brief
A negotiated brief is when the company who want the project done and the people they are hiring to do it for them may have a disagreement about a certain aspect of the project and in this case the company is flexible in what they want, they may allow certain changes in order for both parties to be happy
the role of the company who are involved in this are the ones who want to have the project done. Some companies have different kind of briefs such as the ones I am explaining here.
The employee/employees may not be okay with certain aspects of the project and they can ask the company if the brief is negotiated, they may be allowed to have certain aspects of it changed so it fix what they want and it does not effect their ethics
for example I am currently working with a member of my family to create a video about dancing and the brief is very vague and it is in speech format not in a piece of paper and I am allowed to have my own ideas put into it such as the location and so on. This is what makes it an negotiated brief because we have both reached an agreement.
Formal Brief
The formal brief is just a piece of paper which has all the information that is needed on it and in most cases it can not be negotiated and this may be a problem if people have ethics that collide with the project.
A formal brief is usually aimed at everyone that is up to the task unless the brief is private and it is not open to everyone to try to do. If it was open to everyone that would make it a competition brief
the main format of a formal brief is just a piece of paper that will have the main things such as what they want, the rules they may have, what you can and cant do and the resources you may have whilst doing this project and of course what they want you to do.
For an example a formal brief is usually something a professional company may use because everything is done professionally and correct so that they don't get any backlash from the brief it self. A company that may use a formal brief could be a company such as apple, They may use it if they want something made such as a commercial for a new product.
Advantages
- It is a very simple kind of brief because everything is on a piece of paper in a simple format for you to understand
- There will not be as many as obstacles in your way during the production of what the brief has asked you to do
- it can be a lot more efficient if you just stick to what the brief has asked of you.
Disadvantages
- It can not be changed. The information that is on the brief is final and you either work by it or don't at all.
- You don't have a say in certain aspects of the project, only the employers do.
- If you need a bigger budget mid production then you may have to pay that yourself and that will come out of the cut that you are getting for creating the project.
Informal Brief
An informal brief is usually something that is done face to face not on a piece of paper like a forma brief. They are usually seen as not as professional as formal brief and the reason that is, is because they can be very unclear of what is going on because nothing is written on paper and you may forget a certain aspect of it because it is speech, it is not on a piece of paper for you to look at to remind yourself.
Informal briefs are usually prone to a lot of mistakes during the production of what the informal brief has asked of you, the reason that is, is because sometimes people can be vague in what they want and this can mislead the employee to what they are creating and also it is not written on paper for you to use as a guideline to what the employee is creating
For example informal briefs are usually used by amateurs or people who are new to how to get a project done correctly and this is why they are unprofessional compared to a formal brief that you can use to help you.
Advantages
- It can be good because you may be able to use informal and formal at the same time in order for you to refine certain details of the brief.
- You can get to know who you are creating the project for and getting an idea of what kind of company you will be getting involved with
- It may make your project much easier if you have contact with your employer because you can get feedback
Disadvantages
- It can also interfere with the production because of conflicting ideas of what the employer/employee want
- The brief may not be that detailed, you may be given a vague idea of what they want that may leave a huge area of what you are creating
- It leaves a lot of room for mistakes during the production stages.
Commission brief/ Co-operative brief
A commission brief is when you have two parties, one of the parties wants a product to be made and the other party will be the company who will be creating the product. It is when the employer has a product that they want to be created and in that brief they will have to include all the basic information such as what product it is, budget and deadline.
In some cases more than one company is involved in the creation of the product. The employee may need two companies to create their because each company has different aspects that will benefit in the long run. When both companies are involved they will have to figure out the problems they may have together in order to fix them to move on.
The employer will find a company who is willing to make a certain product for them that fits the aspects that they have within the brief and you will pay that company a certain amount of money to make what you want them to make. In some cases the company which made the product may get a cut of how much the product makes.
For an example a professional company would usually use something such as this because you will be paying them money straight up the creators have not got any attachment to the product after it has been created due to them being paid.
If a company such as Mcdonalds wanted an add to be made for TV they may use this kind of brief because it makes things much easier for them to just pay the company upfront for the creation of the product instead of doing it any other way.
Advantages
Tender Brief
A tender brief is a open brief that multiple companies can try to get involved in and the way this works is that the company that wants something made will advertise their brief on the internet and so on and different companies will approach the employers with pitches that fit the brief and the employers will decide who they think fits what they want the best by the pitch that they had.
this is a good way to get different ideas from different pitches which you may not of thought of before and this may help you in the long run due to there will be newer minds getting involved.
it can benefit you in many different ways because you will not have to negotiate a certain budget because it is also in the brief and them coming to you means that they have agreed to them details.
A disadvantage that you may have is that the company may not find exactly what they want and this can lead to them not finding anyone in general due to them turning everyone down because the pitch does not fit what they want.
if you look at the perspective of the company who is doing the pitch it can be hard for them to find work in this time because you need to fit exactly what people want and the production standard is higher now so people may expect more from you. Also what you make will be the label to what the public and other companies may see you as and this can be from advertisement to film and also the professional quality of what you create can dictate your future projects.
Competition Brief
These are the kind of briefs that anyone can get involved without even meeting the company that they will be working for. Competition briefs are often a good way to start and to get known if you have the budget to do so.
You will read the brief which you may often find online and you have to make the project that they want and when you create it, it is at your own risk because the money you pay for it comes out of your own pocket and you are gambling on winning the project or coming in the top 3 if there is prizes for 2nd and 3rd place is well.
For example you can use THIS site that has live briefs that anyone can go for if you are capable of doing it. It is a site that has huge companies on it that you can try and get noticed by such as netflix, mountain dew and Volvic.
One of the advantages of doing something such as this is that there is no meetings or anything for certain aspects of the project, you can just get on with it and see what you can do but also you are risking a lot of time and money if you do not place well.
Also a lot of people are involved in these usually so you may be competing against 1000 companies in some cases and that will force you to create something of higher quality.
Nature and Demand Of a brief
You can recognise what kind of brief it is by just reading it and that will tell you what kind of brief that is.
It will help you because it will give you an idea of what that person may want you to create. After you have read it you can make notes which will help you in the future because even tho the brief has already been made you still need to figure out how you are going to put your plan into action
The nature and demand is what you been asked to do inside the brief that you have been expected of and the time that is expected. This is why you need to read the brief in detail to understand what you have to do, how long you have to do it and can you do it in that time
for example if a company wants you to create an advert which is based in a place such as Australia and you live in England then you got to understand that there is constraints in the nature of the brief that needs you to be in that place so you need to think about how you are going to get there and how much money you are willing to spend to create this advert
It is also what you have at your disposal when you are creating that project and this goes from how big of a budget you may have, how much man power you have and if you have the time to create it.
Sometimes companies do not put information in the brief that could be key to what you are creating. You may have to do your own research in some cases to figure out the little details that may help you in the long run. One of the aspects is understanding what kind of company/person you are working for to understand what their ethics because if you understand their ethics you may realises they may not like certain kinds of people in their ad
The company that you might be making the ad for could be a sports car company and they may not be that fond of having females in their advertisements they may have the idea that a sports car is mainly a male attraction and not a females attraction. This is not wrong but in some peoples eyes this is ethically wrong for them to just use males in it and not both. This is why you need to understand who you are working for.
Negotiating the brief is a big part of actually completing it because you need to figure out what is actually possible for you to create.
One of the biggest problems that you may have is the budget and the how realistic the brief may be compared to the budget because a company might want a fancy advertisement from you that may include a lot of GFX and cars in a closed off location and this will cost you a lot of money to create and if the company have only given you 10 thousand at your disposal including the money they are actually paying you to create the advertisement. The chances of you being able to manage all of that and have money left for you that makes the project worth the time that you spend on it really slim. If you are determined to get it finished on this kind of budget the money may come out of your pocket so you need to decide if the idea is worth more than the money you are putting into it.
We had a brief that was planned correctly but when it came to filming we did not get off to a fast start so if you follow to a brief correctly you can finish filming correctly in time and you should have a realistically prepared brief that fits your time schedule, what you are capable of.
A commission brief is when you have two parties, one of the parties wants a product to be made and the other party will be the company who will be creating the product. It is when the employer has a product that they want to be created and in that brief they will have to include all the basic information such as what product it is, budget and deadline.
In some cases more than one company is involved in the creation of the product. The employee may need two companies to create their because each company has different aspects that will benefit in the long run. When both companies are involved they will have to figure out the problems they may have together in order to fix them to move on.
The employer will find a company who is willing to make a certain product for them that fits the aspects that they have within the brief and you will pay that company a certain amount of money to make what you want them to make. In some cases the company which made the product may get a cut of how much the product makes.
For an example a professional company would usually use something such as this because you will be paying them money straight up the creators have not got any attachment to the product after it has been created due to them being paid.
If a company such as Mcdonalds wanted an add to be made for TV they may use this kind of brief because it makes things much easier for them to just pay the company upfront for the creation of the product instead of doing it any other way.
Advantages
- The kind of advantages you may get with something such as this is that it makes the employers job much easier and more relaxing because they don't have to think about future payments because they have already paid them unless they are paying the company by how much the product makes also.
- If more than one company is involved then it could be more efficient because there is more people involved.
Disadvantages
- There could be conflicting ideas if more than one company is involved and that could damage the efficiency.
- you may not make enough money overall so the amount you paid for the creation of the product may not be good enough compared to how much you earned.
Tender Brief
A tender brief is a open brief that multiple companies can try to get involved in and the way this works is that the company that wants something made will advertise their brief on the internet and so on and different companies will approach the employers with pitches that fit the brief and the employers will decide who they think fits what they want the best by the pitch that they had.
this is a good way to get different ideas from different pitches which you may not of thought of before and this may help you in the long run due to there will be newer minds getting involved.
it can benefit you in many different ways because you will not have to negotiate a certain budget because it is also in the brief and them coming to you means that they have agreed to them details.
A disadvantage that you may have is that the company may not find exactly what they want and this can lead to them not finding anyone in general due to them turning everyone down because the pitch does not fit what they want.
if you look at the perspective of the company who is doing the pitch it can be hard for them to find work in this time because you need to fit exactly what people want and the production standard is higher now so people may expect more from you. Also what you make will be the label to what the public and other companies may see you as and this can be from advertisement to film and also the professional quality of what you create can dictate your future projects.
Competition Brief
These are the kind of briefs that anyone can get involved without even meeting the company that they will be working for. Competition briefs are often a good way to start and to get known if you have the budget to do so.
You will read the brief which you may often find online and you have to make the project that they want and when you create it, it is at your own risk because the money you pay for it comes out of your own pocket and you are gambling on winning the project or coming in the top 3 if there is prizes for 2nd and 3rd place is well.
For example you can use THIS site that has live briefs that anyone can go for if you are capable of doing it. It is a site that has huge companies on it that you can try and get noticed by such as netflix, mountain dew and Volvic.
One of the advantages of doing something such as this is that there is no meetings or anything for certain aspects of the project, you can just get on with it and see what you can do but also you are risking a lot of time and money if you do not place well.
Also a lot of people are involved in these usually so you may be competing against 1000 companies in some cases and that will force you to create something of higher quality.
Nature and Demand Of a brief
You can recognise what kind of brief it is by just reading it and that will tell you what kind of brief that is.
It will help you because it will give you an idea of what that person may want you to create. After you have read it you can make notes which will help you in the future because even tho the brief has already been made you still need to figure out how you are going to put your plan into action
The nature and demand is what you been asked to do inside the brief that you have been expected of and the time that is expected. This is why you need to read the brief in detail to understand what you have to do, how long you have to do it and can you do it in that time
for example if a company wants you to create an advert which is based in a place such as Australia and you live in England then you got to understand that there is constraints in the nature of the brief that needs you to be in that place so you need to think about how you are going to get there and how much money you are willing to spend to create this advert
It is also what you have at your disposal when you are creating that project and this goes from how big of a budget you may have, how much man power you have and if you have the time to create it.
Sometimes companies do not put information in the brief that could be key to what you are creating. You may have to do your own research in some cases to figure out the little details that may help you in the long run. One of the aspects is understanding what kind of company/person you are working for to understand what their ethics because if you understand their ethics you may realises they may not like certain kinds of people in their ad
The company that you might be making the ad for could be a sports car company and they may not be that fond of having females in their advertisements they may have the idea that a sports car is mainly a male attraction and not a females attraction. This is not wrong but in some peoples eyes this is ethically wrong for them to just use males in it and not both. This is why you need to understand who you are working for.
· Negotiating the brief: consultation with client; degree of discretion in interpreting brief; constraints (legal, ethical, regulatory); amendments to proposed final product; amendments to budget; amendments to conditions; fees
Negotiating the brief is a big part of actually completing it because you need to figure out what is actually possible for you to create.
One of the biggest problems that you may have is the budget and the how realistic the brief may be compared to the budget because a company might want a fancy advertisement from you that may include a lot of GFX and cars in a closed off location and this will cost you a lot of money to create and if the company have only given you 10 thousand at your disposal including the money they are actually paying you to create the advertisement. The chances of you being able to manage all of that and have money left for you that makes the project worth the time that you spend on it really slim. If you are determined to get it finished on this kind of budget the money may come out of your pocket so you need to decide if the idea is worth more than the money you are putting into it.
(Writing looks weird here for some reason)
You also need to interpret what the company wants that they may not have come out and said but they have hinted at and ethics also come in here which I covered earlier, You need to figure out what they want by the hints that they may give.You will also need to negotiate the constraints of what they want, partly what I covered earlier.You need to look at what you have available at your dispense and negotiating a middle point between you and the company who you are working for that makes the project possible to create within the constraints that you may have such as time and budget.
There could be legal issues that may come into play such as filming in certain places or if you are
planning to use some kind of violence in what they want you to create because there is a limit of
how much violence can be displayed on TV. Not all advertisements are checked over first before
airing onto TV so if you go too far the ad could be banned and the company and you may face a
fine depending on what kind of brief you have.You can negotiate these kinds of problems
by just talking to them and settling for something that does not offend someone as much as it
would of before. (ADS THAT HAVE BEEN BANNED. LINK)Overall you may have to do a
whole different kind of brief because of the multitude of problems
by just talking to them and settling for something that does not offend someone as much as it
would of before. (ADS THAT HAVE BEEN BANNED. LINK)Overall you may have to do a
whole different kind of brief because of the multitude of problems
you may face along the way or the backlash you may get from the public and the rules that you
might of broken broken in the ASA rules
Opportunities
For example if you creating something a long the lines of a brief you have, after you have finished it you can go back and see how you could of improved if you did this project again and that will develop your skills in what you do overall
I created a short movie and I went by my own brief that I had created and this allowed me to look at it after and see how I could of improved by putting more detail into my brief that would remind me what I have to do and how to do certain things correctly.
You can also identify what kind of skills that you may have with these briefs that you may be able to improve on and use them to your advantage in the future because certain kinds of briefs may make you realise what you are capable of depending on what brief it is, it will also give you some kind of light of which kind of film/TV you may like to do in the future.
I did a multi camera music video and I will use this as an example that it improved my skill in multitasking because you have to keep an eye on many different things such as the camera settings, where the camera is based and is the shot correct and you usually have to keep an eye on all of these at once. We used lighting in our shoot in a black room and we had to place the cameras in certain areas so they all were shooting different areas of the artist.
I contributed to this by looking at one camera and keeping an eye on the settings of the camera and making sure nothing changed during the time it was recording because if that happened we would of had to reshoot the whole thing because it was a song, it was not a scene that you can just reshoot that certain scene
You can also identify what kind of skills that you may have with these briefs that you may be able to improve on and use them to your advantage in the future because certain kinds of briefs may make you realise what you are capable of depending on what brief it is, it will also give you some kind of light of which kind of film/TV you may like to do in the future.
I did a multi camera music video and I will use this as an example that it improved my skill in multitasking because you have to keep an eye on many different things such as the camera settings, where the camera is based and is the shot correct and you usually have to keep an eye on all of these at once. We used lighting in our shoot in a black room and we had to place the cameras in certain areas so they all were shooting different areas of the artist.
I contributed to this by looking at one camera and keeping an eye on the settings of the camera and making sure nothing changed during the time it was recording because if that happened we would of had to reshoot the whole thing because it was a song, it was not a scene that you can just reshoot that certain scene
We had a brief that was planned correctly but when it came to filming we did not get off to a fast start so if you follow to a brief correctly you can finish filming correctly in time and you should have a realistically prepared brief that fits your time schedule, what you are capable of.
