Understanding and Interpreting a Brief

Working To A Brief
Contractual brief, is where a media organisation is employed by the client in order to complete a project within the specific thats stated on the brief and media organisation must follow it. If the media company doesn't follow the brief it can result in a breach of contract and the company could face legal actions by the employer. Both the parties have to sign the brief. This brief is good as it tells the media companies exactly what to do as the brief is very detailed, the media company wont be able to negotiate.

Cooperative brief, this is when a brief is given to two or more media companies and both companies are contracted to work on the same assignment. When this brief is bing negotiated it change be change to fit both companies. To information on the brief can be negotiated and the project can be open to suggest that the media company might have, this could make the project more successful.

Negotiated brief, this is almost entirely up to the employee and the client to be open to idea's. This means the media company will get more of their creative vision. Both client and company employed by them will formally agree on the end project and the brief. This means the media companies can share their ideas to the clients and be more creative.

Formal brief, this is a document that outlines the specifications of a product or service. The document is formal in language meaning there is no slang. This brief only gives enough information for the media company to produce the product. Both the client and company will have to formally agree on the project and he brief. This means that the client is open to any ideas or problems that are raised by the media company again this makes it creative for the media company and there is room for negotiation.      

Competition brief, is a brief which is opened to the public meaning it can be accessed by different production companies that are taking part. So times they are free. Only the winner will get the prize. This means less money is spent on the product. This brief means there is can be more perspectives to creating the product by the client, meaning the brief can be more understood as there are more people working on it.

Tender brief, this is similar to a competition brief as it requires a client to post the brief that opens outside companies. People will have to pitch to the client to the work, there can be multi pitches to the client from many different companies, so the client will have to choose one. The advantage of this brief is that the client will get to choose more a wide range of different media companies. The companies will have to pitch to the client giving the client more information on what they want to do with the project. After that the client will choose the proposal, that they think is best.

Commission brief, this is when a client commissions a media company to fulfil a brief. A commission is usually only given to a company that has established a relationship with the client. Advantages to this is that the large company don't have to do all of the hard work, they can sub contract workers that sets the brief out to other companies. Both companies will receive the money for what they have done.  

Informal brief, this isn't a document of any kind and is usually a verbal kind. It is where the client and the company which has been employed simply discuss the requirements for the product that they will be making and also agree on the project. This is good as its more verbal can you can communicate more with the media company and client and theres more chances that the media company will understand what the client whats them to do because they have spoken about it.

When reading a brief it important to look at, what sort of brief it is, the final date, timescale and what is required. Opportunities that accepting a briefs can give you are, new skills,self development, gaining a contract, experience, travel, communication skills, CV/portfolio, meeting clients/important people in the industry.If you don't do everything on the brief the client could bring the law into to it depending in what brief you have worked on.

Examples:

This film brief is a competition brief as it is handed out to the public and anyone can submit their short film. This brief includes event background, the short film competition, the actually brief, deadlines and judging. The brief is from the Sundance film company. The brief is also formal as the language is formal and the document states everything you need to do on it. You don't have to sign this brief so it is not a contractual brief. On the brief there are only three requirements you have to follow. There is a strict deadline and there cant be ant negations with this brief as it given to a wide range of different people. This brief states way they have create this brief. The brief says it can be any sort of short film such asa documentary or a cartoon. The Sundance company want the clients to make the "story of our time".  The brief also short its not long.          

Purpose and impact of social action and community media

Need to say why the video creates an impact e.g. music used shots.

What is social action and community in media? this is a form of advertising a specific topic which isn't really spoken about, a subject that not a lot of people will know about, which will then give an opportunity for people to know about it and do something about the issue or subject. The purpose of this is to talk about current issues that audiences might not know about and to convince them that the issue will become much worse if no one takes any action to fix the issue. Community means a group of people with shared experience and interests. Community media provides a vital alternative to the profit- oriented agenda of corporate media, they want to empower people.   

There are three different types of changes in a social actions and they are local change, national change and Global change. 

Local change are issues that currently affect your community and members of the public and they feel there is a issue in the local area this could be things such as littering, drugs or gangs. Local change can help and make a negative issue in to a positive change. An example of this is Save the National Media Museum which was a local campaign in Bradford, this campaign aim was to save the the national media museum and get the attention of the public to help save it. At the end the campaign did saved the museum form demolition. 

National change is the change within the country the issues are addressed to the members of the public, therefore they could try and help to change the issue. An example of a national change is the British Heart Foundation, the aim of this company is to keep hearts healthy and to fight against heart disease. The campaigns aim to to raise awareness of how dangerous heart disease are and also to give the public ways to prevent heart problems the campaign does this on a national level. The campaign also does special campaign days such as "wear it. beat." days in which people will wear red on Friday 5th of February 2016, this day is to help raise money and awareness for life saving research. The campaigns vision is "a world in which people do not die prematurely or suffer from heart disease". This creates a impact because no parent want to leave their child and miss them growing up, so it will create in impact on parents. It also creates a impact because it happens while the son is at school which every child goes to everyday. Also because theres no music until the end it very realistic. 

Global Change this is a much wider scale then the other two as it wants change around the world that a lot of people might feel strongly about. Greenpeace is an example of global change and the aim is to protect the earth and find solutions to help the environment. Greenpeace want to stop climate change, defend the oceans, protect the forests, work for peace and disarmament, eliminating toxic chemical, fracking and save the Arctic the campaign defends the natural world.  Another example is Peace One day this organization aims to have peace one day around the world on the 21st of September and to change and raise awareness of the situation around the world. 4% of the worlds populations were aware of Peace Day 2012 thats 280 million people and on that day 2% behave more peacefully. This creates an impact because of the music is very dramatic and the tempo is fast through out the advert and it builds up in volume. The advert is fast passed, so your getting a lot of information at once this creates a impact. 
Another global change campaign that happened not to long ago in 2012 and a lot of  people did not know about this problem before the campaign came out and the campaign was called KONY 2012, the campaign made a video lasting 30 minutes and it became viral with 100,721,867 views on the video to day and the aim of the campaign was to stop a man named Kony from stealing children and turning them into children soldiers. The campaign had a day in which people from all around the world put up posters of Kony in their town to make him famous so people would know about his crimes the campaign was successful a lot of the world now know who Kony is. This creates an impact because at the beginning it show a normal family which can relate to a lot of people. Also it creates an impact because they use a child to tell the story. It creates an impact because the father want to make the world a better place for his son and I think all parents want that. 

Homework

- Create a blog post explaining your skills and weaknesses and what you need to develop in order to complete this project. What points will you need to negotiate? What is missing from this brief?

The skills that will help me with my social action documentary are filming skills as I have studied media for 3 years now I have used a lot of different cameras and know how to handle a camera and have make a lot of different videos. I also have the skill of editing a video as I have done this is the past and I also know how to use a lot of different editing software's. I also have good researching skills so I can find out a lot of things about my chosen topic, which is mental health and education. Also because I have anxiety it helps me when think about things I can ask about,people and can help me connect which people I might interview. Some weakness I need to develop in order to complete my project is my social skills, I'm not very good talking to people I don't know,  which isn't good when I need to interview people for the work. I also need to develop my interviewing skills and questioning skills. I will probably need to negotiate the timelines/deadlines as I might need long to complete everything and make sure I have included everything I need. The thing that is missing from the brief is the timeline.      

Interview Techniques- Amanda Knox

The interview with Amanda Knox, the interviewer was very good with making questions relevant and give Amanda the chance to say what she though about the even and how it happen. The interviews was direct and formal giving the interview a professional feel.  There was a lot of different question that he asked. The interview all so had good way of presenting himself. The purpose of the interview was let Amanda say what she want to say and speak her mind to a national audience. The interview wasn't very long meaning the interviewer went straight in to the hard questions and didn't build up a rapport. The interviewer also asked follow up question of what Amanda was saying  he was also developing questions while interviewing her. The interviewer also had eye contact through out the interview.    

The cut

1. How effective is this documentary? Consider the techniques and conventions used as well as the way in which the campaign is conveyed to the audience.

I think that the documentary was very effective as they had a young women from their culture saying that she thinks its wrong, and that its a bad thing and also that there are no benefits for getting it cut. They used the technique of head interviews where you can see the person who is talking. They also had visual video of the tribe and what they do in the ceremony.  

2.  What is your personal response to the documentary?

I think that its bad that they are doing this to young women because it has no benefits and its very painful, so I think it should stop.  

Documentary

Documentary Campaign "Like a Girl"
The purpose of this short campaign documentary is to make the saying "like a girl" a positive thing rather than a negative thing. When girls grow up they are told they throw "like a girl" or run "like a girl" and it has a huge impact on girl's self confidence and the campaign aim is to stop that. The video show teenage girls acting out different things "like a girl". The initial feeling is negative  but after it shows younger girls acting out things "like a girl" and they do it in a positive way, showing how the different generation react to the phrase.  

I think that the documentary has a really big effect as half of the world are women and have probably grown up with similar remarks said to them. I think that the majority of the audience can relate to the documentary. The video has had over 59,000,000 views on youtube, meaning a lot of people have seen it. Also similar campaigns have come out after this video for example "this girl can". I think that a lot of people have started to make it a positive phrase and help young girls do want they want to do and not be afraid of doing it.

My personal response to this documentary is that I relate to it very much. When I was younger I loved sports, tennis, basketball and football and the phrase "like a girl" came up a lot in my childhood and it was never a good thing. So seeing this short documentary was really good for me as I hope that it changes the phrase for young girls growing up, I hope that "like a girl" is used in a positive way today and in the future.