Careers in Film and Television

http://issuu.com/zac113/docs/jobs

Letter

Zac Brown

113 Rosedale Gardens

Belton

Great Yarmouth

Norfolk

NR31 9PL

Dear Mr Cook,

                                 I am writing to you today to discuss the contractual, legal and ethical issues with your latest job post for Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer. I believe that the description of the job role is not in enough detail as the salary for the job is between £15000-£35000, so I would expect more roles to do as the pay grade is high. Apart from the job role not being in detail, the job post mentions everything you would expect in a contract, the hours, the job and the pay.  In a contract employers sometimes have confidential and exclusivity clauses, a confidential clause is a clause which means you won’t leak any secrets about the company otherwise it will lead to legal action, an exclusivity clause in this job role will be that you can’t apply for any other positions from any other company, so you are keeping them exclusively to you ‘Please not that if successful, you must not apply for other positions of this nature’.

 In this job post The Equality Act (2010) is infringed as you can’t look for a certain type of person, you have to allow everyone to be equal, and in this post you state you want a male/female below 30 and religious views must be Christian.  The Equal opportunities legislation is so that all employers will rate everyone equally, so they can’t rate anyone on their age, race, and gender (Just on ability alone).  Employer’s liability means that the employer is responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the employee; I believe that in the job post you could be putting the employee at risk when working, so in this case the employee could effectively argue as the employer is not taking responsibility for whatever happens to them. This links with employees’ rights as someone may get injured at work and the employee has rights to claim compensation (as the health and safety legislation mentions that employers are responsible for their health and safety while they are at work) from their work place if the employer is responsible, I believe that you need to link in with your post that you follow all employees rights and employer’s liability laws. For employees there are trade unions which the employee can pay for, this is not available for applicants, so only people in your work place could be a part of a trade union which they protect the rights of the workers. Also you can be a member of a trade union if you are a freelancer.

Codes of practice/policies and procedures can be passed to applicants to avoid legal issues as some companies do want specific people like the television and film industry, they need a certain type of person to fit the role, they can’t have anybody but as an applicant, people will not be privy to these. Codes of practice are used to prevent legal issues in the future. The representation of the video has to be taken into account. The idea of having a rape campaign to be shown to children is obscene and the way which the ‘female victims and male offenders’ are represented can be portrayed different ways, because not all females are victims and not all men are offenders, and by you making a video about this will manipulate the audience to think that females are always the victim. Social concerns are a part of life as old people look towards youngsters as hoodies and crime, whereas it is not like that in your video you are portraying that all females are victims and all males are offenders, if you are teaching children this, in the future this will become a problem as it will become ‘the norm’ to believe this.

Ofcom  (Britain’s media regulator required by The Communications Act (2003) and The Broadcasting Act 1990) are there to regulate broadcasting but particularly there for protecting the under 18s and as the target age range is within the high school age, the images will be obscene to them,in the video that will created for children I believe that it is unsuitable and so it doesn’t comply with Ofcom’s regulation of ‘1.3 Children must also be protected by appropriate scheduling from material that is unsuitable for them’. I also believe that because you want to portray female’s as victims and males as offenders it will mislead the audience ‘2.2 Factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience.(Note to Rule 2.2: News is regulated under Section Five of the Code’. The Obscene Publications Act 1959 is affected in your video as I believe that the content will be obscene for children to watch. The Obscene Publications  Act is changing some of policies for the future. Here is a legislation that is in the Obscene Publications Act ‘For the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it’.

I believe that the BBFC will rate the video 15 as it will include a lot of sexual references if the video is about rape, therefore the video will be acceptable in higher schools years but not in low high school years but which is intended is unclear. BBFC lists these as the reason for a 15 rating ‘strong violence, frequent strong language (eg 'f***'),portrayals of sexual activity, strong verbal references to sex, sexual nudity, brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence, discriminatory language or behavior ,drug taking’

In the job post you’ve stated that you want popular music soundtrack, this is more than likely not going to happen as with a £20 budget you will not be able to buy the copyright for the music. This links to intellectual property as you can purchase the rights to buy the right to use it in your video like the soundtrack.  As the internet has become a massive problem for copyright, with YouTube people can easily get soundtracks off there to use in their own videos but this is illegal and without the purchase of the content this can lead to legal action and so applicants may feel that they need to infringe copyright or they risk not getting the job.

Yours Sincerely

Zac Brown

Ownership

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB)

Public service broadcasting is broadcasting that is concentrated on the public, this means that the benefit to the public is that there is no adverts and the programs broadcast are purely to entice the audience. An example of a PSB is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) since 1936 the BBC have been a PSB and they have made their revenue by a television license fee. The TV license in the UK has to be payed yearly and for a fee for a coloured TV is £145.50 and for a black and white TV it is £49. This is because the BBC don't sell advertising slots like other channels like ITV. In public service broadcasting you are selling to the audience, so  getting more people to watch will generate more money etc.
Whereas commercial broadcasters sell the audience to the advertisers.

Commercial Broadcasting

The main objective for commercial broadcasters is that it is for servicing the public, not for exploiting.
Commercial broadcasting is one that based on the purchase of advertising slots, an example of this is ITV, ITV sell the audience to the people who want to buy slots. The audience is the one to be sold as advertisers look for the best slots when certain people are watching and at what times they are watching, the most popular times are peak TV times 6pm to 9pm, so these will be the most expensive times after big events. Commercial broadcasters like Sky don't just charge for advertising, they charge for their service, this is called Paid programming, other TV providers now do this like BT, Virgin etc. Commercial broadcasters are normally privately owned. Some commercial broadcasters (ITV) believed that there was no need for them to broadcast children and religious tv but for them to be aloud to broadcast, Ofcom made them produce some religious and children tv.
 There are three types of ways to broadcast TV:
Terrestrial:                               Satellite:                          Cable:
BBC - Not commercial              Sky                                   Virgin
E4                                               Freesat
Channel 5
Freeview

Corporate Ownership

Corporate ownership is an ownership that is controlled by shareholders, more shares a shareholder has more control they have. The shareholders are controlled by a board of directors that make the decisions within the company. The shareholders are solely there for a profit, the idea is that they invest into a company, so they have a bigger capital, so they can produce more to make more money. A corporation can issue shares either privately or publicly. An example of a corporate ownership in TV is ITV. ITV are a public limited company meaning that you can buy shares in the company on the stock market.

Private Ownership

A private ownership is one which is not publicly traded and is not owned by the government. This normally means that only people who are close to the owners of the business can buy shares in the company. An example of an private ownership is Virgin.

Global Companies

In production there are many different companies, but we focus on the 'Big Six' these six are the biggest productions companies in the world, the amount of assets owned by the companies vary from $23 billion to $751 billion. Global companies are ones that operate around the world. The following six companies are the biggest six in terms of media production.

VIACOM:
Viacom have assets worth $22.8 billion (2011) and in the company they have some very popular channels for example : MTV, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage.
For the amount of channels and production companies owned, Viacom has a high rate of assets worth.

News Corporation: Assets : $56.6 Billion (2012)
News Corporation are very well known throughout the UK as in recent years they have been in the news themselves for phone hacking. News Corporation is owned by Rupert Murdoch and in his company he has some key assets that many people would like to have ownership of. For example : BSKYB, 20th Century Fox, The Sun, The Times, Fox channels.

Time Warner : Assets $68.3 Billion (2012)
Time Warner own Warner Bros which is a Global known company, Time warner own alot of magazines and Broadcasting companies. For example : CNN, Cartoon Network, Looney Tunes.

The Walt Disney Company: Assets $74.8 Billion (2012)
Most people will know Walt Disney as they provide many attractions for children and they produce alot of movies for children. Walt Disney own : ABC Channels, ESPN, Disney

Sony : Assets $151 Billion (2013)
Sony are known for many different things ranging from the PlayStation to Sony Pictures. Sony created the Blu-ray disc in 2006 which offered users another platform for their films. Some examples of the companies they own are : Sony Pictures, PlayStation, Blu-Ray.

General Electric: Assets $685.3 Billion (2012)
General Electric own Universal Pictures, which most people know about as they publish some of the the best films ever made. General Electric have a very high asset amount but if the assets amount was done on just media it would be Time Warner. General electric produce alot of electronics products and own oil companies so this is why the assets amount is high.

Vertical Integration

Vertical integration is when the same company is the Producer, the Distributor and the cinema owners. This is illegal as it is said to have 'too much control of a market'. The reason why media companies do this is because instead of paying the distributors to distribute the film and then they make money by selling it to the cinemas, the production company want all the money they can get, so they buy the distributors and then the cinemas. In the 90's the big media production companies did have vertical integration like Warner Bros, they have the production and the distribution rights and they had their own cinemas.

 

Horizontal Integration

Horizontal integration is when the same company buys another company in the same market, like News Corporation they had The Sun and then they bought The Times. Another example is in television, Sky could buy Virgin Media and then this would increase their overall share of that market.
'A situation when two firms in the same industry and at the same stage of production come together. This could be through the two businesses merging together or through one firm taking over another. For example two chocolate companies or two estate agents may decide to join together' (BBC Dragons Den)

Monopoly

A monopoly in a market is one which is in total control in that sector. Being a monopoly you can fix prices, and in this recent year people have been breaking these laws, as a monopoly you are the only supplier of that certain item. Monopolies have some advantages but also have many disadvantages, in broadcasting one of the main advantages of not having a monopoly is that you can compare your broadcast tot theirs, whereas if you are the only company making this product, you can't compare it to anybody. Effectively a monopoly is Vertical Integration + Horizontal Integration as you will control all the other companies.

Sources of funding for broadcast media companies

License fee - Tv license

Subscription - Sky, Virgin , BT

Pay Per View - Box office, Sporting Events

One off purchases - Dvd, Blu-Ray

Sponsorship - Coronation street - Cadburys

 Advertising - Commerical broadcasting/ adverts between programmes

Product placement - CSI - Apple computers

Private Capital - When a individual person invests their own money for a return for profits

Financial aid - National lottery

Development fund - Grants

Window on the World

Is television news a ‘window on the world’?

The starting sequence of the news is the first part we get to see. In terms of watching the starting sequence we get the idea that we are seeing a window of the world through the news. The starting sequence involves many icons, which we associate with the news like seeing the world. After the starting sequence then next part we get to see of the news is the presenters and the set. The set of the news station is key as we get to see it as if we are watching right in front of them so nothing is being kept secret from us and so this makes the news accurate in the sense of that the news channel wants to show us everything possible to make us feel that we are just looking out a window and seeing into the set. When we hear the studio news readers talk we understand that the mode of address to the viewer is direct and formal, this presents to us that they are important and accurate and they have important information to inform us about.

 Television should be presented with a balance of good news and bad news as people like to find out about people who have died, and as the program should be laid out in a way that the hard hitting stories are first and gently getting better to hear about for example from a murder to a lottery winner. Also it shouldn’t be presented in a biased way. The presenters do not show any emotion or there opinion towards any of the news as this will manipulate our views on it, so the presenters should be objective an present the news so if we saw it through a window, no views except out own. This links to impartiality as the news channel doesn’t want to broadcast news that will affect a person views on the subject for example broadcasting news that affects the views of a religion. Ofcom provide this definition of Due Impartiality "Due" is an important qualification to the concept of impartiality. Impartiality itself means not favouring one side over another. "Due" means adequate or appropriate to the subject and nature of the programme, Ofcom are putting across that you can put the opinion towards the subject only if it is appropriate. Legal issues are the main part producers have to take in before they can broadcast the news and the impartiality of the news is one of the main things to look out for as if the news would put their views on top of the news we wouldn’t be watching the news as it is a window on the world. There are many other laws to follow like the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Official Secrets Act, these both are laws that the news channels have to follow as they could put the security of the nation in danger.

 

 So to regulate the news there are regulatory bodies, two of these are Ofcom and the BBC. Ofcom and the BBC both are regulators but Ofcom is the main regulator, Ofcom regulates TV, Radio, Mobiles and postal services. The main purpose of the BBC is that it is a public broadcasting service.

 There are many ways that the news can be selected to be broadcast. A story must contain enough of the Galtung and Ruge’s new values to even get a chance to be broadcast, a few of these news values are Elite Persons, this means that the news has to include someone that is important to us. A more frequent new value is Negativity as people like to be informed about bad news and bad news is good news. Another way a story can be selected is by the Economics of the news production, at the start of the financial year for the production teams they get allocated a budget and the team have to decide which stories they would like to cover better by having more money. An example of this is at Tiananmen Square in 1989 when the protests where ongoing the BBC and ITV had to decide whether to spend a lot on this and the BBC did and had a better story on the news which had links to the studio and field reporters on scene instead of just having a reporter on the phone.

This links to another point of selection, the BBC and ITV know how worthy the news will be as they compare to their competition and they compare how the story is presented as one may use experts and witnesses of this news whereas one won’t. After the news has been selected the team will have a team there to film the selected news and when the team have finished filming they need to construct the news and they construct this news by either two ways of narrativisation, they both have the same structure but they are expressed from different angles, one has normality and then a sharp enigma and then a smooth path to resolution and finally a closure whereas the other has a Hero and a Agent of change and then the quest is created and finally a closure. This is like a window on the world as if we were watching for example a house fire out of our window we know the normality before it happened, then we see the house on fire, then the fire brigade turn up to put the fire out and finally we end with a smooth closure everyone is safe and the fire is out. Another construction technique the editors can use is hiding the constructed nature of the text, in another way of expressing this is realism of the footage, when we watch news we see some scenes, where you see the reporters interviewing someone then they cut to a picture or video of what the person is relating too while they have the voice over the top of the video, this hides the person talking about that subject so we don’t get to see their feelings, we are just focused on one subject eg: a photo. This is not as real as we would see this through a window and so this puts a negative point towards us that the editors are trying to manipulate us. Most editors describe actuality footage as a building block to creating the news as they edit the original footage to manipulate us. This is not a sample of reality but in fact far from it, as the person who is watching can tell that the video footage has been selected and edited together to create a viewpoint that the editor wants to put across.

Overall the news report structure is key to us as we can determine whether this is a window on the world and how well the representation of this news is put across. I believe that that most of the points put across matter as without all the news values/ structure and the construction we would not understand and therefore we would not have and interest in the news. In some ways we can’t do anything about how the news is presented to us as it is the broadcasters choice how they want their news to be seen. The only way we can do something about the news is by reporting parts to Ofcom and they will try to regulate this, I believe the only way this could be report is if the news is impartial and does harm people views towards things.

Many news reporters say now that it is not them who collect and find the news that it is the general public as now our generation is heavily involved with technology so people will broadcast their findings on social networking sites and blogs. The main social networking site that reporters believe is helping them is Twitter as people put across their own opinions from their finding and this can help the editors while creating a news package. Its not just the evolution of social networking sites it is also how technology in phones is developing and if you saw someone or something you would more than likely take a photo of this happening which also helps the editor create their news package. I believe that this does make a difference to how the news is presented as this is saying anyone can create the new effectively so it is more understandable that the news is a window on the world as anyone can create the news.

Documentary Mini Task

Introduction

A documentary is a type of a media product where the director captures a 'aspect of reality' to keep for historic or informative purposes. A documentary can be either displayed by film or by television, and there are five different types of documentaries to offer for a user. Some documentaries may be more authentic than others and this leads to why some are heavily criticised, as they are either misleading or aim to offer only one opinion towards the subject.

Expository Documentaries

The first documentary type is "Expository', the type of documentary is when there is a 'Voice of God' talking directly towards the user trying to express one opinion with a strong argument. The voice is normally a male with a rich tone like David Attenborough. The main conventions are normally facts, opinions, rhetorical questions and persuasive techniques. An example of an expository documentary is on channel 4 and is called Dispatches, in the post office undercover episode we hear the narrator express his views towards how the 'Royal Mail' are treating our post and manipulates the video with his rhetorical questions, one of these is "Should our mail be privatised'.

Observational Documentaries

An observational documentary is one which the film maker doesn't get involved with the actual footage for example in 'One Born Every Minute' the film maker is just in a hospital to record what happens, without any interviews or narration. The dispatches documentary had stages pf which it could be observational as parts there are hidden cameras and we see how the people in the sorting factories are treating are treating our mail. Observational documentaries could be based on war, social life, bullying and many more things but most are done on our social life as we see how people are carrying out certain activities. The authenticity of the footage could be judged as in observational documentaries you see the camera and you see that some of the people in the video are playing up to the camera as it is in view whereas it would be different if the cameras were hidden.

Interactive Documentaries

The interactive documentary is when the the film makers perspective is more evident as we see them on screen and this allows the film maker to explain more in detail and explain his facts and opinions by backing them up. The interactive documentary is the more 'liked' documentary in my opinion as people do like seeing people addressing them in a sense of that David Attenborough has carried out a lot of interactive documentaries. David Attenborough's documentaries have shown that he is interactive when producing, but he has a very different style to be interactive. 

Access and privacy can affect the production of all media products, as we can't either use other peoples material or we can't go into a unsafe area without permission.
Ofcom Has regulations on Privacy and these are two of many, which state that you can't use or disclose people without their permission.
8.2 Information which discloses the location of a person's home or family should not be revealed without permission, unless it is warranted.
8.3 When people are caught up in events which are covered by the news they still have a right to privacy in both the making and the broadcast of a programme, unless it is warranted to infringe it. This applies both to the time when these events are taking place and to any later programmes that revisit those events.
The legal obligations of media products can have a massive effect on production being shown on TV as the BBC and other companies have to regulate so they don't get large fines. In an interactive documentary you see the presenter, this makes the audience believe what is happening more believable as you see just a normal personal interviewing people without the footage being manipulated and with the presenter expressing his/hers views towards the subject helps us believe it. Also an interactive presenter could be more believable as if you like them already, so you know that they have done recent ones in the past and you liked them, you are more likely to believe what they say as you feel they done it well the first time.

Reflexive Documentary 

The reflexive documentary is where the film makers presence is clearly in front of the camera (Shows how the documentary is constructed) and in someone ways it could be portrayed that the interviewer integrates some of the interviewees, as one of the well known reflexive film makers "Louis Theroux" had done many reflexive documentaries. As he is very well known for asking the questions that no one wants to ask. I believe these type of documentaries are very authentic as you see exactly what the interviewer is saying without manipulating the text. One of 'Louis' series which was popular was 'Louis and the..." this documentary was very well reviewed as he went into some rough areas with different types of people to ask them questions. The idea of a reflexive documentary is that you get the exact view from the camera without it being manipulated. One of the first reflexive documentaries was 'Man With A Movie Camera' and this included footage of the film maker in the film, in the 50's reflexive documentaries became more popular as portable cameras could be used and this made the audience feel that they are exactly behind the camera. 

Performative Documentaries

The key feature of performative documentaries are the re-enactments of the subject. I believe that the re-enactments really do interest the user when watching as it gives a insight of what would have happened. The performative documentary is expressed so it encourages the user to fell how they would have felt and makes us feel if the events are manipulated to make one opinion come across more than another. An example of an Performative documentary is Air Crash Investigation, this documentary is a building one of which the whole way throughout it, it is building on its own story, we see many re-enactments during the media and we see people on both sides of the investigation from the investigators to the family of the deceased. The implication of using re-enactments is that some may be used incorrectly, in the way which they may be there to express how someone saw it and it was actually a lie , as people have lied to get the bounty money for example in "Thin Blue Line". I believe that re-enactments attract people as it feels that we are getting a sneak peak of what happened and this makes me feel that they attract more people to watch it. 

Conclusion 

I believe that some documentary types are there to manipulate your view of something and that is why I only like documentaries that are showing the real raw footage. I particually like perfomative documentaries as i feel that you are effectively getting a exclusive view on what happened. The thing that I think is wrong with documentary making is, manipulation - Some documentary types manipulate your views by either the interviewer or by the editing techniques, a way which the editing can manipulate us, is by displaying more of one person than the other or hearing only his/her opinions on a certain point. The best thing a documentary can do I believe is show the video without it being manipulated or editied, like in reflexive documentaries you see exactly what is happening with no edits, like in war documentaries a lot of people watch these as they know that they won't be changed in anyway. Also a lot of people like to watch observational documentaries and like 'One Born Every Minute' you can tell that these are not edited in anyway to manipulate our views, they are there to show us what is happening. Overall a perfect documentary to me is one which is not manipulated and not edited (so it shows all the raw footage).

Pre-Production

Risk Assessment                                                                                             Questions

             

Initial Planning

Our proposed idea for our documentary is to inform the person who will be watching it what is happening in Belton. So this documentary will show you all the developments in the village like making a skate park, having a public field and investments by the council in Belton to make the villagers lives better. Our documentary will include interviews with the general public in Belton and the parish council in Belton. In the documentary there will also be pictures of the plans for Belton as well as pictures of what Belton used to be like and how it has changed in the years.

Our primary audience is adults who live in the area and our secondary audience is adults who are looking to move into Belton or who are looking to go on holiday in Belton. The aim of this documentary is to inform the user about Belton for example what facilities we have and what holiday camps we have etc. The format we have chosen for this documentary  is expository as we want a voiceover for  the images and film and this format suits it best as we don’t want to get heavily involved like the Interactive format but we want some involvement.  With our documentary I don’t believe there will be any technical or ethical problems but I believe that because we have a limited budget we won’t be able to do as much than if we had more money. They may be legal issues in the point of filming the general public.

*UPDATE*
We have changed our idea now so that we are focus on 'Is there a miss communication between councils and the community?'. This allows us to focus on what people are informed about what their council is doing. When we were trying to organise the interviews and the filming of the council meeting, we found out that we wont be able to film the council metting so instead we had an idea of filming the councilers going into the building and going out of the building.