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Structure of Briefs
Contractual brief
This type of brief is a document signed by two individuals that explains the areas that they will be agreeing too before they sign it. The individuals are usually a client and a company who are working together to make something better in their workforce. It usually includes the general liability insurance and any other insurance that would be necessary depending on the nature of the contract. If one of the individuals is to break the areas, they would have breeched that legal contract. An advantage of using a contractual brief is that both individuals get a clear understanding of what the contract entails, so in no way have they been deceived or not provided with certain information. Another advantage is that each individual has control over what happens, for example the amount of money received, who does what jobs and the overall outcome of what the contract may be about. A disadvantage is that to make an airtight contract, a individual may have to employ services such as a lawyer to draft the contract. This will be very expensive and cause a major issue in the budget for the individuals company. Another disadvantage is that there may be a number of time delays from the client where deadlines have not been met, leading to the contract organisation not just running out of time but also loosing more money.
Below is a link to an example of a contractual brief that explains to the client what needs to be done to improve the parklands woods in devon. It goes into detail as to what parts of the park are apart of the project and how long it should approximately take to complete it.
http://frontpage.woodland-trust.org.uk/ancient-tree-forum/atfnews/images/devonparkland.pdf
Negotiated brief
This type of brief is when two groups of individuals have different ideas for each other but they both have to come to a decision. To do this they have to compromise an and make sure that both the parties are happy by the decision. As both sides can voice their opinions, anything can be altered to suit the companies but the guidelines must remain set. For example the product can be altered or there can be a change in the contense. An advantage of using this type of brief is that the project they are negotiating for will be more open to suggestions, resulting a more developed and stronger product. A second advantage is that it can prevent conflicts unlike a contractual brief that you can easily come to a disagreement that is harder to fix, where as in a negotiated brief all the opinions are set out and discussed so there is no need for conflict. A disadvantage however is that with a negotiated brief, its easier for the other company to manipulate the discussion resulting in the end product favoring their proposition more. A second disadvantage is that negotiating can waste time as unnecessary things can be discussed, which can delay the production time of the product. One example f where this type of brief can be used is in TV programs where the actors and individuals get a say in what the brief says. For example the brief for the program, idiot abroad requires the actor to go around the world to different countries doing certain acts. In the program the agent talks to the individual over the phone where they have an in depth conversation about where they will be going and other key details that can be negotiated.
Formal Brief
This type of brief given by a client which outlines the product which they are wanting to be made. It is very specific as doesn't provide the client with anymore information that what is needed to make the product. Any issues the company will want to go over they have to be discussed during the negotiations with the client. At the end of the discussion, they would have employed and formally agreed on the project and brief, however it isn't always legally binding. It would be laid out in a relaxed easy manner that makes it easier for the client to create the product quicker, further suggesting an advantage with formal briefs. Another advantage is that the specifications of the brief help protect the programmer from requirements changed from the customer. If the customer makes changes, it can result in entire projects needing to be restarted. A disadvantage of this type of brief is that it can sometimes waste time and unnecessary issues are bought up that the client believes are unimportant. This therefore delays the progress of the product and takes longer to complete it. This is similar to a negotiated brief as this disadvantage can occur in both. A second disadvantage is that it can lessen the creativity and improvement as the brief is to be stuck to a specific set of rules the client must abide by. This means that no opinions can be later added and few can be added in the production process.Below is an example of a formal brief that is to help move in new directions with student support, from the mental health in schools , UCLA center.
http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/newdirections/exampleproposal.pdf
Informal Brief
This type of brief is done in person, face to face with know specific structure to the meeting. Every part of the brief must appeal to all members from the client list and the company employed. This meeting will involve the individuals simply discussing the requirements for the product they will be making and agreeing on. This is more relaxed than a formal brief as it is a laid back decision and isn't strict. Its important to note its still taken seriously as it is still a an important brief and still has to be followed. An advantage of this type of brief is that it can create a more relaxed environment for the parties to work in and make clear decisions a lot quicker. Another advantage is that this type of brief allows more verbal communication than a formal brief, leaving the individuals with a better idea and understanding exactly what they have to do to create the product to the best of their ability. A disadvantage however is that there is no written documentation of the contract to prove the employment of the company, leaving an opportunity to not pay the client once the project has been created. A second disadvantage is that the brief will be created in a unprofessional environment and there will be a higher chance of mistakes made. many of these briefs are done in person so there isn't many examples, but one if linked below about the assesment into educational evaluation. It gives ideas such as doing mind maps etc as well as other information.
http://www.aspira.org/files/documents/inv_ed/forms/INFORMAL_ASSESSMENT_IN_EDUCATIONAL_EVALUATION.pdf
Commission Brief
This type of brief is where a more developed and larger company will employ another independent media company, in order for them to create a product. After this product has been made, the larger company may go on to use it for an external client who will then pay the independent media company who made the product. From this, loyalties can also be cut too. A commission brief is not negotiated between the company and the client, however it is between two media companies.
An advantage of using a commission brief is that this type of brief allows the larger company to not have to do the 'hard work' as all they have to do is receive the product and then give it to a external client to use. By sub-contracting work to another company, they both receive money even though they haven't contributed in the making of the product. A disadvantage with this type of brief is that because there are two companies working in the same production, there could be conflicts or contrasting ideas and decisions from the brief that may be made. This will effect the hole production of outcome and also loose customers for both of the companies, leaving them with less mont income.
Tender brief
A tender brief is commonly recived when an individual is new to a company where ideas can be develped with others, then the others from the company decide if you are to be the client. Further more, its where several contractors give clients an estimate cost and a detailed description as to what the product should be and how exactly it should be. A company or business will select qualified and interested suppliers based on such things as their price, availability ans proposed deliver terms in order to get the end product desired. There is a number of different types of tendering, these are open, negotiated and selective. An open tender brief is where the an arrangement where an advertisement is made in local newspapers or trade journals. This then invites the contractors of the project to apply for tender documents, with a deposit required to ensure only serious offers are made. An advantage of this type of tender brief is that it gives a high level of competition meaning that contractors tend to give and compare the best prices to other tendering methods. A disadvantage is that there are no restrictions on the amount of contractors whom can bid and become lengthy job for the tender analyses. This will then result in delays and high cost for the company. A selective tender brief is the drawing up of chosen firms for them to tender to. It allows prices to be the deciding criteria of which firm should be dealt with for the job, leaving other selection factors being dealt with through a pre-qualification stage. Negative tender briefs use specialist work such as lift systems or airport projects. There are few contractors who do work like this in the market as its based on one to one discussion between contractors to negotiate terms of the contract. Over all, an advantage of a tender brief is that it is a relaxed and easy method to use in a brief , however as its rather competitive between people trying to the next client, you may not be chosen for the final client. Below is an image that shows a tender brief.
Cooperative brief
In this type of brief there are two or more companies that are hired by the client to work to a particular brief which has been specifically written to suit company. Once the companies have received the brief they can continue to work on another project they require to be completed. This type of brief links with a negotiated brief, as if there is a disagreement or conflict with the ideas suggested for the project, the company will use a negotiated brief instead to resolve the issues and get the project back on track. An advantage of this brief is that there can be more perspectives and ideas shared about the creation of the product, improving its quality when its created. However a disadvantages is that it is more prone to disagreements and conflict which could delay the progression of the project being made. A second advantage is that the companies who employee the client have a lot control of what happens as they are prepared for when disagreements and conflict arises, by the use of having a negotiated brief as back up.
Competition brief
A Competition brief is given out when the participants are involved in a competition and allows the clients to understand what they must do to enter and win. This brief is more suited to more of a specific audience unlike the other briefs i have discussed. It can be accessed by all the production team within the company participating in the production and can sometimes be seen in free competitions the company are advertising. An advantage of this type of brief is that the client only has to pay the one winning production company who wins the competition making it less profitable for the company. A disadvantage is that the companies can be turned down by the client and may miss out on the potential work and money. An example if this is Radio 4's so you want to be a scientist competition that has been on going for a few years. This gives all the information on the information as well as read out on their station as on the radio its easy to mishear or not catch all the information necessary to apply for the competition. Here is a link to show you the website and who the last winner was and what she did to win.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/sywtbas/
Negotiation of a brief
Why is it important to discuss the brief with your client prior to production?
It is very important to discuss the brief with your client prior to production as it will give them a clear, accurate and concise account of whats expected. Without it they will be left with very little idea as to what is needed to create the project recommended. If the brief is discussed before hand, there will be no chance of confusion through the course of the project, thus making the production flow smoothly with no delays. It will also important in this time before the production to run through key points such as the target audience, the budget, specifics of the product needed to be produced and what designs interest you and don't.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of employing discretion when interpreting a brief?
An advantage of employing discretion when interpreting a brief is that there are opportunities which will allow the production staff input of their own creative ideas on the project or make the brief very vague so they can see the potential and work the client comes up with. This will help the production team in the long run as they will be more likely to get good jobs and references from that if they have produced professional and good products. It will further look good for the company who set the brief as they will have a high quality product at the end and will leave their company looking creative to other potential clients. However this could lead to a disadvantage because if the brief is to vague and the production team cant ask questions during the production schedule, there is a greater risk that the product will not be made up to the desired expectations.This will then lead to the opposite of what he advantages will result in as they wont have a high standard product and the project will either have to be restarted or a new client will be hired.
Another advantage is that with discretion, it will allow more conversation and questions to be asked in order to ensure they are interested in the work they have been given and that they want to do this well. They will ask questions that haven't been cleared in the brief which will also show they have paid attention and are focused to the task, giving them a good first impression on the company. This will then increase there chance of getting further work in the future as they can have a good reference and a good quality piece of work at the end to present. A disadvantage however is that the client could also go in the reversed direction and make something too creative or too different to what the brief meant for them to do, even if it is good work. Again this would lead to them having tore do the hole project or the company hiring another client to do the project again, loosing the professionalism of the company and risking the chance that the client will get other work in the future in that specific industry.
Are there any potential legal/ethical/regulatory issues with the briefs proposed product?
From looking through our brief, to make sure our product is legally sound we would have to consider a few issues. For example, whilst we are making videos on E safety for our web page to show the audience there is a chance that the person in the video could be injured. This would be resolved through either insurance or a risk assessment to ensure we are safely completing our project. Another legal issue would be that if we where to copy right any images of other E safety websites without permission. This is because these are not ours to use and publicize as our own work. To get around this obstacle we would either have to take our own photos or ask the owners permission. Further more, if we where to take pictures of any students or to take them off premises to take particular photos or part of the video, we would have to ask the school and there parents for consent first and have evidence of that. For example if part of the video we create requires a student meeting with someone they have never met before, but have spoke to on Facebook for instance, even though it will defiantly be safe and a reconstruction of one of the many dangers the internet can lead to, we could still put them at risk of being in actual danger as they are not with an adult or under supervision. It is important that the information given to the children and parents the correct information and no leading them to a false image of what E safety consists of. For example child protection acts will help ensure that children view safe appropriate content from pictures and videos we will use, as well as being provided with real statistics and information that we have found from case studies and just general research.
This then leads to ethical issues that could be bought up in our brief. Again we would need consent from parents, the school and the individual we would be recording r photographing if its okay that we put these photos on our E safety web page. It would be very unethical if we where to take the pictures without permission and add them to our page. We also have to ensure these images and videos are appropriate and not to frightening for the younger children. For example if a year 7 was to watch the video and we put footage on there of the more serious dangers of the internet, it could scare them and defeat the point of the web page. Therefore to suit all the audience and make it give the correct message, we need to use our creativity wisely in the photos and footage. It would be unethical of us as a production team to not fully explain what they have to do if we ask a student to participate in our production. Whether this be them giving an interview or in the footage, we must not deceit them or not tell them all the information we should do so they are comfortable and can choose to participate or not. Especially if they are under 16 and would be vulnerable, its important this is not taken advantage of and we follow the procedures appropriately.
What amendments to the brief may have to be considered as the project processes? ( the product, the budget, the conditions)
Many amendments can be made to a brief, particularly to ours we have no control over it and could be altered at my given time. The product can be adjusted by Bluecoat if they suggest a new idea that they will fit better to the aim of the project itself. This is not beneficial to us as a production team as we may have already started and could delay our chances of completing the project to the deadline. It could scale from either a small adjustment like the colour scheme, to a big adjustment such as the topic of the website or the contents required. As we will all have set roles as to who will be the leader of each section , with of course input from the rest of us, it would then lead us with more issues to fix and positions to reallocate. If the company, Bluecoat feels that a change would be best for the web page, for example the video is to long or the written content isn't strong enough, we will have to take the criticism on board and amend our current position and work to the new guidelines and brief set.
The budget for our particular project is set and we don't have to use any real money due to all our equipment and essentials being within the school. We will be issued with a fake budget that we will use on things such as transport if we have to go somewhere to take photos or for an interview, to use or borrow the equipment we need etc. But, looking into researching this particular task, i have come across examples of students who had to consider a budget to achieve their brief. This means even though we aren't using one, i still got an idea of how others have used theirs and what it means to have a budget in your production.
Reading a brief
Which structure/structures will your major project E safety brief use?
Our brief will be a commission brief as quoted from our brief, 'Your client, Bluecoat Academy has
commissioned you to create an online resource for students and parents about online safety.' The chosen structure is because we are working for a larger authority/company, being Bluecoat academy who are hiring us as clients which could be referred to as an independent company, to create this web page. However as a commission brief involve the payment from the company for the work they will be doing, our brief simply doesn't fully match. Our blog would also fit to the structure of a contractual brief as we have been given a set number of tasks to do and we will remain under a fake budget. However the only difficulty with using this structure is that we don't have to formally sign or formally meet our company who issue us with the brief as we have accessed it all over the internet.
Why is it important to thoroughly read your brief?
It is vital to read through a brief before you agree of sign anything. This is because its important to know all the minute details of what is required to create the final product they desire. You could also sign to something that you wasn't told about if you don't read the brief, such as additional work or charges etc. Its also important for us to thoroughly read our brief , even though we have no real budget or real cost expenses its still very important. One reason is because it will discuss all the key points we need to know, such as target audience, what we need to do exactly, the quantity and quality of the end product etc. Without reading it, we could create a product completely different to what the brief has asked, and therefore delay the production process of the project. As well as an understanding of the actual task you also get an understanding of the legal requirements and terms so we don't breech our brief.
What is the nature and demand of the E safety project?
Our task is to create an online resource for both students who attend the Bluecoat Academy and the parents about online safety There a lot of dangers for children on the internet, but we are specifically found to target social media sites such as Facebook. As theses sites can be accessed almost anywhere everywhere through its viral spread over media platforms like tablets, phones and computers, children are at risk anywhere. It is also virtually free and constant, crossing all social racial and ethnic divides within society. We are required to work as a team and conduct our tasks in a professional manner. We as a group have a lot of responsibilities to complete this project to the best of our ability and make it suit a professional standard. This will improve our skills in production and briefing if we where to need to fufuill a brief in the future. For example a few of the tasks we have been set to do are...
- set agendas for meetings and keep a record of how long meetings take
- Gantt charts
- storage of info we have gathered, ideas from each other and our own and research
- communicate with external contributors
- conduct market research and analyse the feedback we receive.
Opportunities
What opportunities could this brief allow you to explore?
This could allow me to explore into my own self development and discover what i can do in order to develop myself to be better, therefore creating a better result into the final product we create. Not just me but the rest of my production team could also analyse how creative we are and how imaginative we are, and work out how to make it more so or in some cases less so to suit the brief. For example i lack in imagination so i would be be able to participate many creative new fresh ideas for our web page, but to develop my self i could explore different websites and take note on other peoples ideas so i have a little inspiration to work from. Of course i wouldn't copy but i would then consider how i could improve that and make it my own, in order for me to develop my skills to share with the rest of the team. It could then lead us to be more creative with the brief and add interesting yet appropriate and relevant twists to it. For example the brief asks us to find case studies. In order to add a twist to this, we could go out research into real people who have a clearer idea like agencies who aim to promote e safety like we aim to, or actual victims, that would be happy and comfortable for us to either bring into school to do an act of worship on with our website in the background or be recorded in an interview. This will be highly more effective than just googling a case study and writing it on a page in the website. This then links into new skills as whilst we are developing ourselves, we will pick up new skills like researching skills, communication skills, creative skills and imaginative skills. As this requires a large amount of work and equal effort being made to effectively pull off the product, we have to work together and help one and other improve there weaknesses and make them into skills that can be taken away and used on future projects.
tp://www.slideshare.net/AbbeyAndJess/working20to20a20-brief20pro-forma1-22799591
http://www.slideshare.net/cikkikay2/working-to-a-brief-proforma
http://www.slideshare.net/Calessheights/working-to-a-brief-pro-forma
