Unit 8 Activity The Proposal - legal and ethical issues

1. These notes are based on a brief on encouraging people to go into media
education – the plans are for shots of children and then shots of them when they
are grown up linking them together (so the child takes photographs with a toy
camera and grows up to be a photographer with their old toy camera on a shelf in
their office).
1. Legal
a. Copyright – I don’t want to use music through most of my video –
instead there will be voiceover that guides the audience through the
scenes. In the final scene, I think there is real value in negotiating a
copyright use fee to play a specific piece of contemporary music which I
have identified that will have a specific resonance with the target
audience – it will add to the budget but it will still add net value to the
finished product. I will obtain clearance from the named education
institutions to use their names, and products marked with their names,
in my video
b. Libel – I am not representing any living or real person in my
proposals, nor making any disparaging comments or inferences about
any character who could be confused with a real living person, so I do
not believe there is any issue about libel.
c. Regulatory body rules – advertising and marketing are regulated in
the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority who have a code of
practice. The Code has a specific section about institutions offering
instruction in a trade that leads to a qualification – it cannot exaggerate
the employment or earning opportunities it might lead to, and must not
include institution that are not properly competent to offer the training
and qualifications – my plans do not break these rules. There are
specific rules about advertising aimed at under 16s, which are a part of
(or possibly are just on the edge of) my target audience but my plans do
not break these rules. There are specific rules about misleading your
audience but my plans do not break these rules.
d. Child actors – My plans call for the use of two child actors. I would
require Child Performance Licenses from the child’s local authority,
children would need to be chaperoned on set at all times by a
parent/guardian or another licensed individual, and there are strict
rules about when children can work, including not during or before
school hours or for more than four hours at a time. My plans will not
break any of these rules.
2. Ethical
a. Fairness – I am not making any inflated claims or unreasonable links
in my plans – it is reasonable and proper to link together the way a
child might have an interest and how that interst could come to fruition
in later training and education.
b. Privacy – I am not making a film about real people, but about
characters played by actors. I am not invading anybody’s privacy.
There is only a requirement for five actors – the two main ‘characters’
shown both as children and as older students, and the photographer’s

2. model. I will need to make sure I receive Contributor Release Forms in
an appropriate format from all of them, and I will need to make sure
they are signed by parents/guardians for any who are under 18.
c. Representations – I think my plans are not overly stereotypical. I
have deliberately planned a video with two people so I can portray male
and female life stories.Unlike the recent real advertisement for ‘follow
on milk’ which is something like my idea, I am not saying that little
girls can grow up to be dancers whilst little boys can grow up to be
scientists and explorers! I have not reached any conclusions about
ethnic or racial diversity or disability in my planning – the specific
casting would be a matter for the casting stage. There are no issues at
all in my plans that would lead to actors having any specific racial or
ethnic identity. I don’t think there are any issues about casting actors
with ‘visible’ disability, although there is a (rather unfair) risk that if
you cast a disabled actor your audience might feel that you are talking
exclusively to disabled people rather than to them. This is an idea that
it might be worth challenging – if it came up in casting it would be an
issue I would be happy to argue out with the client – but it is not a core
idea in the project (and it might have casting issues about ‘matching’
the casting of the younger child and the older student). (Another real
world example – recent ‘Maltesers’ adverts have very successfully
challenged the idea that adverts with disabled people in them are aimed
only at disabled people).