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Working to a Brief
LO1
Charles

2. +
Contractual Brief
Definition: A Contractual brief is a legal document that a media company signs in
agreement to complete a specific task within a specific time period for a set
fee. It is created between an employee and a client. The brief is very easy and
clear to read, meaning it allows the client to complete their details without
confusion. Example: Match of the Day’s studio is supplied by dock 10, they are
contracted to rent the studio out at an estimate of £100,000 a day, this includes
all equipment and lighting. All the details shown in this example will be on the
contract.
Advantages: The contract will give every detail to the company or client. If the
contract is missing something and you are notified later on it doesn’t matter
as you already signed the contract before so you can stick with the contract
you have or accept the offer for a new contract. They client or company could
also ask you to do what was missing from the contract but you don’t have to
because it’s not stated on the contract.
Disadvantages: If the media company or the client do not stick to what they
agreed upon they would be found in breach of contract and could face legal
action. Companies or clients must be really careful when signing a contract as
some aspects could be breached easily.

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Formal Brief
Definition: A formal brief is a brief where the client gives a freelance or
production company a brief where the terms can be negotiated to
satisfy both sides. This type of brief will give the basic structure of
what the client wants from production leaving a flexible area for
negotiation. The clients must adhere to the brief, and include all
components and instructions that have been agreed upon.
Advantages: The main advantage in this form of briefing is that they
will eventually come to an agreement that satisfies both sides. This
form of briefing can also be used in larger audiences.
Disadvantages: One disadvantage to this brief is that the media
company might not be given enough information or enough
instructions to what the client is trying to create. This will leave the
media company with less of an idea about what they’re doing.

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Informal Brief
Definition: An informal brief will allow the production company
more flexibility as there is no contract set or formal brief, they are
given a general idea of what the client is looking for and what
they need to produce.
Advantages: Because there is no contract set the production
company has huge flexibility and freedom to create anything they
feel should be around what the client is looking for. This is good
as the production company can pitch are large number of ideas
and the client will be able to analyse and choose what they like
the most.
Disadvantages: Some clients could be informal in the beginning
but begin to become formal and restrict the production company
resulting in bad relations and stressful work that might not meet
the needs of both sides.

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Co-Operative Brief
Definition: Co-operative Brief is where two production companies
or freelancers work together to produce a brief for a client. An
example of this is Tiger Aspect productions working with
Endemol to produce Bad Education for BBC Three.
Advantages: This makes it easier to create a proposal and quota for
the client, allowing the companies to work together for the client
if need be as well. This also allows both companies or
freelancers to provide more ideas giving the client more options
when having the brief.
Disadvantages: The client might not be happy with one of the
production companies decisions leaving the production
company in the dust which could force the other production
company to pull out of the brief.

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Negotiated Brief
Definition: A negotiated brief is when two or more media
companies are working on a brief together and negotiate the brief
so it appeases to all parties (including the client), both
companies have to compromise to allow for the project to
continue.
Advantages: This is over an advantage because all aspects of the
brief will be in agreement by the end if it works out and will all
know what they are doing with all the details.
Disadvantages: The main disadvantage of this is that the
companies and clients don’t come to a compromise and can’t
find a way to do so. This puts strain on all ends as they all want
different things that they know wont work if they keep negotiating
which might result in clients taking a different approach.

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Tender Brief
Definition: A tender brief is when a client publishes that they need a media
production to be made, a production company then creates a proposal and
budget that is then pitched to the client. Several production companies may
enter a brief to the client to try and secure the project. The client then decides
upon the best proposal submitted and offers the project to that production
company. A good example of the tendering process is with BBC programmes.
The BBC will advertise a contract for tender and then production companies
will supply a quote and a proposal of how they would approach the program.
The person with the most viable proposal and costing will win the tender. This
production company will then make the program.
Advantages: The client has a wide range of production companies it can choose
from and can select them from how good their proposal is and looks. This
allows the client to pin point the most useful production company that will
suite their needs the most.
Disadvantages: If your production idea isn’t good or interesting you might not
get many production companies sending proposals which could lead you to
only having bad proposals or none at most.

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Competition Brief
Definition: Competition briefs are similar to actual competitions where briefs are
set in response to a company wanting a diverse range of complete products.
At the end of the competition, the client will choose the most ideal product to
best represent their brand image. Competition briefs are typically open to the
public and involve a cash reward. A good example of this is the Channel 4 “E-
Strings” competition. In 2013 Channel 4 held a competition for everyone to
enter. Their was a prize pool with a £5000 rewards for first choice and £500 for
runner up. In the end two choices were made out of the large quantity, the
audiences choice and judges choice.
Advantages: The client is open for a range of products and given ideas allowing
them to accumulate a large number of production ideas from public sources
and professionals.
Disadvantages: When the best are chosen there could be backlash from the
public as some people will like some better than others, this can cause an
uproar and could damage the “E strings” channel 4 name. Another
disadvantage to this way of briefing is that you might not get any participants,
this could be caused by having a low cash reward or bad reward in general
forcing people that do it for a living to turn heads.

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My Brief
Which type of brief is being used in the corporate promotional project? Explain your response.
We have gone with an Informal Brief as this provides us with more flexibility and area to
create whatever we think looks good. This also allows us to give draft edits to the client
getting their opinion throughout the process of post production. Once looking at the draft
edits they can give feedback on what to improve and what they would like to change or
add. Because this brief doesn’t have many restrictions, the hotel have allowed us to film in
basically any location unless it’s occupied by a large number of customers. So far they
have given us a general idea of some aspects they would like to be in the video, they have
also asked for photographs of a range of facilities and rooms in the hotel.
The advantages of this brief was it didn’t give us any restrictions on what to shoot, how to
shoot and when. We’ve been given the freedom to gather whatever footage we want as
long as the ending result is good.
The one disadvantage to this is that they didn’t give any specific areas they wanted filmed.
Although they have given us the freedom to shoot whatever we want, they didn’t give a
general idea of what they want so they are relying on us to make sure it’s what they’re
looking for.

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Reading the Brief
Why is it important to thoroughly read your brief?
A brief contains all the information a production company or freelancers needs to
accomplish there task how the client wants it. If the brief doesn’t give enough
information to the production company or freelancer they could be left with no idea
what they are doing or creating. Overall having a good brief that satisfies both sides
is the best way.
Because our brief was informal, we weren’t told exactly what to do but were given an
idea, this was done verbally so we couldn’t refer back to any documents or ideas the
client had come up with. This wasn’t so bad as we were given freedom to film
whatever we wanted. Because this brief was done verbally it’s always good to write
down anything the client says so you can document any information you need from
the brief for example, specific rooms that they want filmed or specific areas we aren’t
allowed to go.
If we were to do a formal brief, we would be given a large amount of information with a
strict guide line to stick to when filming. These briefs need to be read multiple times
so there isn’t any information you haven’t agree on in the brief or any tasks that
aren’t possible but have been said anyway.

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Negotiating a Brief
Why is it important to discuss the brief with your client prior to production?
Discussing the brief before your production is what briefs are for, it’s important as it
gives the production company or freelancer a guide line or idea of what the client
wants.
In the brief the client isn’t going to know much about corporate videos and what content
is in them, the production company or freelancer is going to need to provide
examples of existing corporate videos and products to give the client an idea of what
they are looking to create, this can be done in the first brief. Between the first and
the second brief the client will have had enough time to think about what they want
the company or freelancer to create. They will then proceed to give the company or
freelancer a large document of information with visuals (photos) if asked for.
The advantages of discussing a brief before production is that the client and production
company/freelancer will both be happy with what’s being produced and will have an
idea of what the ending result will look like.

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Negotiating a Brief
What are the advantages and disadvantages of employing discretion with a brief?
Discretion is both good an bad when used in a brief. There are multiple
advantages that will benefit the production company, this is because the use of
discretion within the brief allows for personal interpretation of some vague
details in the brief. Because the details are vague, this leaves the production
company with some creative freedom to propose ideas to the client in the area
of vagueness. This benefits both sides as the company is allowed creative
freedom to give suggests which the client will be looking to receive. However,
this is also a disadvantage as the producer could interpret these details in his
own way which could lead to a difference in opinion and the product may not
be what the client desired which the producer could then refuse to create the
product. Having vague areas could also leave the producer confused or not
sure as to what approach to take to the situation leading to a bad product which
is missing different aspects which could lead to the product being rejected as
the client cannot use it.

13. +
Negotiating a Brief
Are there any potential legal/ethical/regulatory issues when negotiating a brief?
When changing visual style or any content in the brief itself you have to ensure
the product stays within the boundaries of the legal or ethical obligation.
If the media company or the client do not stick to what they agreed upon they
would be found in breach of contract and could face legal action. If breach of
contact occurs or is alleged, one or both of the parties may wish to have the
contract enforced on its terms, or may try to recover for any financial harm
caused by the breach. In this case the client might drop the producer and find a
new one or could try and resolve the problem. If none of the above work then
the next step is a lawsuit. Which could result in one side paying money for
damages or one side going to jail for ignoring the court.
Not sure what else to put

14. +
Negotiating a Brief
From the brief you were given were there any limitations? In terms of production,
budget or timings? Please explain.
Because our brief was informal the limitations weren’t really there as we were
given near total freedom to create whatever we wanted. In the brief they only
limited the amount of rooms we could film because the hotel had people
staying in it at the time. We also had a time limit on what time we could shoot in
the pool area as guests at the hotel were wanting to use the pool.
There was no budget given in the brief, if there was a budget everything would
still be the same as we were already provided with all the tool we needed.
The time limit given was non existent, they allowed us to film at any day any time
and explained that they would provide us will full access to the facilities they
could provide.