Types of Brief

Contractual Brief

A contractual brief is a type of contract that is easy to understand and it something that you have to sign. There is no negotiation on what you can do within you job. The contract should tell you all the information that you require for example: the payment for the job, deadlines when work needs to be completed, and job requirements.

In a film production team, an employee who gets the job within the industry will be given this type of brief as they will need to know what is require for their job. People who get a full time job within a film company will come across this type of situation.

The advantages of people who get this type of brief from a film company is that it is formal and the brief gives lots of clarity to the employee. This is because all the information of what is required of them is detailed in the contract. Another good thing about this brief is that everyone knows where they stand within the company and they know that they are legally protected. However there are some problems the employee may face within this situation, once they sign the brief it is no longer negotiable and they can't ask for a larger sum of money. Another problem is that the employee must agree with all the terms that are stated within the brief and they cannot break any conditions, otherwise they will face consequences. This therefore means that the brief is very strict to what it says and that there is lots of restriction what you as an employee can do within the company.

Negotiated Brief

This is a type of brief that an employee can negotiate in terms of ideas of what they ask from the employer. This type of brief is not very strict with deadlines as it can be changed and the brief allow the employee to be quite open with new ideas. The brief will often give some leeway than any other brief you can get within the job in the film industry.

I have seen this type of brief before when I had to make a short film. The brief did not tell us specifically what type of genre it had to be but it did tell us what we had to include within the beginning of our short film which was the encounter scene. It also includes a deadline of when the work needs to be completed however it’s not strict like a contractual brief. I did not meet the deadline to finish the work for the short film due to being unwell; however I was able to negotiate with the client to get some extra time to do the work.

I was very happy to get this brief as it felt less intense and it allows me to use more of my creative vision. The best part of getting this type of brief especially for an employee who works within a film company is that there is more flexibility within the deadline as I was able to spend some more time improving my work. One negative aspect I came across when being part of this brief is the people that you are working around. The reason is they may have lots of bad ideas when coming up with ideas of making the plot of the short film as the ideas will overwhelmed over their head. Another thing is that there is a lot less restriction so therefore the end product of the short film may end up not relating to the brief.

Formal Brief

It is a type of brief which formally and clearly outlines what the employee must do specifically. It is often very well structured and the layout of the brief is often neat. One way you can tell that this formal brief is that there is no slang and. They do this because it looks professional.

I have seen this type of brief before. I got this type of brief when I had to make my magazines TV show where it had clearly outlined what I had to do within my role of the TV production and also what was needed to make the product of the show. The brief told us to include interviews, music, snap chat content and graphics. I was the graphic generator and the brief told me everything i needed to do as a Graphics Generator.

When I got this brief I could tell that everybody within the production team knew what they were doing when they got their job roles and I also, as we all had the same vision on what kind of show we had to make. The layout of the brief was easy so therefore it was easy to understand what we individually had to do. However the problem when reading this brief is that it a very long time to read it all so we could understand what we had to make within our show. Another thing is that the brief it is very strict to follow.

Informal Brief

This is a type of brief which give an employee who work in the film company very little information on what they need to do. This can be found out as a short piece of text or an email that request someone to do some work for them. This doesn't have to be written information this can be a verbal agreement where the boss ask an extra favour from one of the employee or colleague to colleague to do some work for them.

I have been in this situation before especially when making my TV magazine show. One of my friends came and asked me a favour to make some extra graphics for the TV show. I ended up doing it as it was related to the TV show; the reason why I did this is because I had nothing else as I had already made all the necessary graphics for the show already by then. He ask me this favour mainly because he was the presenter and he had to present at one point of the show as the news reporter. This therefore means he wanted to use the graphics as illustration for his news report.

When I ended doing the favour for my friend it made me look more loyal to the company. Also because it was a verbal agreement from a friend I could get across the information that he was getting at. However when agreeing to the favour I kind regret doing as it was time consuming as I had to make lots of graphics for him and make sure it had looked neat. Also when showing him the end looking of the graphic, he felt I did not get the vision he told me to make in the first place as the graphics at its greatest of my abilities.

Commission Brief

This is a type of brief where a client goes to look for employees to the only company they trust. The client would often trust the company as he or she would have had some relation to the company and have work with them before. The reason why the client would look for employee within the company he trusts is to save time.

In this type of situation, this would involve the employer who want to get employees as fast as possible as he might have a tight deadline which needs to be completed. Therefore to reduce time of finding employees to work for their company they will end up going to a company of their choice. The reason is because they will think that they will find potential employee over the company of choice they would like to work with.

In this type of situation this could be an advantage for the employer if they do this type of brief as they will know the company of their choice is trustworthy for them. The reason is because the employer would have established some relation with the company. Another good thing that this brief has on the employer is that it saves time for the employer to find and recruit employee as they had a good relations with the company. However when working with this type of brief the person starts to rely the same company too much and expect them to pay him. Another bad thing about this brief is that the employee may become too used to being part of this brief and not any other types of brief.

Competition Brief

This is type of brief where an employer makes a competition that is opened to the public. This type of brief will make often encourage wide range of people who likes making films enter the competition. The public will look at this type of brief and see what the company is asking for. The brief can be shown online however they will need to go on the actual website to find it.

I have seen this type of brief where I got the brief for free it was based on a competition that they wanted the public to enter which was to make a short film. I wanted to end up doing the brief as it cost nothing to enter.

When I had got this type of brief I felt that I had the opportunity to be recognised by everyone that I had made a film. This also allowed me to enter the competition and everyone in the public had the opportunity to do it. However when participating in this type of brief I had realise that the company would not pay for you to make your film, I had to pay everything to make my film, and this meant for any equipment I needed or item I need. Another thing is the reward is not priceless it is pretty small like a trophy and that is it no money is involved.

Tender Brief

This is similar to the competition brief however this is open to companies that is outside of their company. When companies receive this type of brief they may come to the client and pitch from their point of view of why they should get the job to work with client. The client will then select the best candidates and decide to work with them.

I got this type of brief where I had to pitch my idea in a production meeting of the TV magazine show that the company should make and my reason. The reason I why I did this, so that my ideas for the TV magazine show could be selected.

When I got this type of brief it allowed me to open up people vision of the ideas i gave out to make the TV magazine show. This also allowed me to have the opportunity to show what I could offer for the company and what my industry can do for their company. However this type of brief is not opened to everyone. Also I may have to spend a lot of money creating my idea for the TV magazine show.

Cooperative Brief

It is a type of brief where two companies or more are required to work together on the same project. The reason this type of brief is given is because for multi skilling as one company would specialise in a skill that other companies would not. Another reason would be for tight deadlines.

This type of brief would be given when an employer is looking for companies to work with to make maybe a TV show. Therefore he would go to different companies that specialise in the job he want required which would be cameraman, graphics generator and many more. The reason why he may do this is so that they know what company specialise in what area and don't teach them how to do thing that they are weak on.

The good this has on the employer is that they have specialist to do the required job they want them to do as they will know how to fix any problem that may occur within the job. This also has a good impact for employee as it gives them more opportunity to work in a project. However there is a problem that they will face is that many companies are working together. Another issue the amount of imput that needed for this brief especially for making a TV show as they required lots of different companies that need to work together