Will Grimmer's TV & Film Blog: The Requirements of Working to a Brief

Briefs ~

A 'brief', in its most basic terms, can be defined as simply a "set of instructions given to a person", relating to a specific task or job (Oxford Languages, libel definition). When it comes to the creative media industries, briefs are given out by whoever wants a project to be completed by their employees, for example, so the employees can know exactly what needs to be included in the project by its completion. It is common for briefs to include details such as wanted inclusions in the completed product, the date it needs to be completed by, and roughly how long it should aim to be in the case of a brief for a video project.

Commissioning can be defined as giving out a specific "instruction, command and/or role" to somebody, whether that be a group of people or an individual (Oxford Languages, commissioning definition). If someone has been 'commissioned', it means that they have been hired by somebody specifically to work on something for them; this could be a piece of art, music, animation, or an entire video project from scratch. Commissioning can be done by both companies and individuals - as long as the one who has been hired to make whatever has been asked of them is paid for their work and time. Often, typing in the word 'commissions' on social media websites, such as 'Twitter', will result in many creatives looking for work on the site coming up, with phrases such as "commissions open" or "Direct message to discuss commissions" in their name and/or bio (Twitter, (no date), 'commissions open' search). Whether these accounts be video editors, artists or music engineers for example, people reach out to these accounts in order to ask them to use their specific skills to create something they need for their project, for example a piece of music for their soundtrack, discussing between themselves the details such as the price of the work and commissioning them with a brief of what they are exactly looking for. Commissioning like this can be considered as perhaps a bit more informal than commissions done in places like Hollywood, but is likely to be more common especially for independent media projects like indie films or upcoming creators for example due to the ease of access, communication and variety of choice the internet allows in the modern age.

In terms of the creative media industry, the term 'tender' refers to an open invitation put out publicly, for example onto the internet, relating to a job position that needs to be filled, allowing anyone who sees it "to bid for [the] project or accept a formal offer" (Will Kenton, Tender, Para. 1). A good example of a website which houses a lot of these kind of jobs is the website Freelancer.com, where people are encouraged to post on the site, offering a certain amount of payment to anyone who would complete the brief they have described in the post (Freelancer.com, How it Works). Below is a screenshot of an example of one of these tender job offers, specifically searching for a dedicated video editor for their reality show project. In it, a typical outline of one way of setting out one of these briefs is shown, including features such as the type of person the company is looking for, on top of details about the project they want to create and the company behind it, as well as another screenshot of what the site calls 'proposals' below it, consisting of some of the people who applied to potentially be chosen to complete the brief and their reasoning behind why they believe they should be picked. These kind of posts are often quite competitive when it comes to applying for them, with many people attempting to fill the same position and only one or a few of them ending up being chosen ultimately to work on it and receive the promised compensation for said work (Freelancer.com, 2021, Video Editor for Reality Series "Chasing My Dreams").

Some briefs can be a lot more formal or informal than others. If a brief is considered 'informal', it often consists of the client and the person who responded to said brief working as much more of a team than an ordinary one, working together on ideas and achieving what they want to create together. The environment set out in an informal brief is usually much more casual than a formal one, with things like ideas that would usually be written down and professionally documented in a formal situation, being instead discussed more verbally. The informal approach will often be taken when it comes to a project which is not in a professional industry, such as if someone was to be making a short film or music video for one of their friends or somebody they already knew beforehand. On the opposite side, 'formal' briefs often require much more serious and 'professional' approaches to the steps that are taken place throughout the project, such as meetings where ideas are pitched and agreements wanting to be settled before any of the actual filming and production takes place to be sure that everything goes exactly the way the client wants, with as little risk as possible.

Sometimes, somebody may put out a 'co-operative brief'', as opposed to just a regular one, for whatever project they are wanting to hire people to work on for them. These types of briefs are ones which end up hiring multiple people and/or companies to take part and work on the project together, leaving it to those who were assigned to the project to split parts of the brief up between each other and discuss ideas together so they can begin working on the project in a way they both understand and causes as little conflicts as possible (Alexander Moriarty, Unit 5 - Working to a Brief, Para. 8). It can be expected that these kind of briefs with multiple people responding and working on the project at the same time can be expected to be the case on much bigger projects with much more money and/or scope behind them, as opposed to the more independent, smaller clients' works.

A 'negotiated brief'' is another form of brief an individual or company could be set by someone. These are, in the simplest terms, much more flexible versions of ordinary briefs, with the instructions within them being much more vague and allowing the company who it has been given to to be much more creative and relaxed with their ideas and what makes it into the final product, as they've been given much more control (Working2aBrief, Negotiated Briefs). When comparing these types of briefs to those of a 'co-operative' nature, the biggest obvious difference would of course be that two or more companies must be involved in working for the client in a co-operative situation, whereas this is not a must for negotiated briefs, while it can still occur. Both allow much more negotiating and teamwork than an ordinary brief is often expected to, with co-operatives encouraging discussions and, as the name implies, co-operation to take place between the multiple people on board and working on the different parts of the briefs details, while negotiated briefs encourage these negotiations between those working on the product and the initial client who set out the brief to begin with.

On top of the more classic way of responding to briefs, including negotiating and discussing it with the people who created it, pitching your own ideas and so on, there are also other, quite different ways specific briefs can be differently responded to and completed. For our first assignment related to this topic, we each responded to a short film competition online by the name of 'Depict!', which classes as a type of media brief, just as all of the other examples I have described above also do. The difference between this in particular though is the way we did and were encouraged to respond, that being by simply making our video projects under the specifications of the brief set on the website, and then uploading them online as to enter the competition - no communication took place between us and the people who set the brief at any time, apart from the submission of the completed project at the very end, resulting in us as the creators having close to one hundred percent creative control over every aspect of the video we created, apart from the basic guidelines set out in the original brief (such as the video needing to be roughly ninety seconds and not over for example - all videos submitted to the competition will follow this exact same brief set by the competition holders) (Depict!, About). The animated short film 'Carpark' was made by a man by the name of Ant Blades of Birdbox Studio, being an example of a creative project made in response to one of these 'competition' type briefs (Depict!, Archive > 2014, Carpark). The comedic, animated film ultimately ended up winning Depict!'s main yearly award in 2014, resulting in the animator receiving "a cash prize of £1,500" from one of the competitions main sponsors due to its quality and overall enjoyability compared to its competitors it was being held up against by the judges that year. (Depict!, News Tagged ‘winners’, Para. 4)

Reading a brief ~

When it comes to the specific details included within a brief, some of them are a lot more demanding than others, as well as some things being implicitly wanted without them being explicitly stated in each. For example, when it came to the brief given to us by our clients, we were told that the end goal of these videos was to post them on the college's website and perhaps social medias as to promote and advertise the college to new people. Even though we were not explicitly told it in the brief, we can gather that the videos should be the best in terms of visual quality we can do (720p at least for example), and have visuals and audio that is understandable in terms of spelling and voice quality respectively, as to make the videos as easy to watch and understand for the viewers as possible. When it came to the flexibility of the project, some of the inclusions within the brief allowed us to make our own decisions for them more than others, such as the length of the video wanting to be "roughly" ninety seconds long, the actual setup and layout of the video, as well as what each shot would include, if we wanted to include any music and other similar features. However, there were of course more specific features we were told straight to include as well, like shots of the college and the deadline each version of the video needed to be completed by. Often, the way to understand the flexibility the client is allowing for each part of the brief is best recognised by the language they use when describing them, often being a lot more specific in their explaining if they are features that are needed to be included in the final product. If this is still unclear however, reaching out to the client who set the brief in the first place is also a good option, just to be extra sure everything is properly understood before making any sold decisions.

Negotiating a brief ~

Once we were set our brief and all the details within it, we were not given a massive amount of room to deny or change some of the things in it which were set by our clients (these being John Dack and Lottie Lanham). However, when it generally came to what we had to make the project about, we were given more control to negotiate between each other, due to the fact that their were multiple subject choices to make the video on and we had to decide on one as a pair. Leading on from this, depending on what subject we ended up choosing, which for my case was the Enhance college programme, we had a meeting with the head of that subject and negotiated with them what inclusions they wanted in the finished video, as well as any ideas we had ourselves.

In terms of the creative media industry and the amount of discretion an average person replying to a brief would be expected to have, the specific amount can vary depending on who the client is that you are making the project for, often as well as other factors such as how much money and risk is being put behind it. In a typical situation though, you would be expected to have a decent amount while interpreting the brief you have been given, for example in the way that you personally interpret the ideas that are being given to you by them and other factors such as some of the more technical sides of the production phase and how it will all be set up and planned. Meeting between the client and the people who respond to the brief are not uncommon, where ideas can be introduced from both sides in order for everyone involved to discuss their opinions on them and whether or not they would be good or bad potential inclusions or methods. At the end of it all though, the client who set the brief always has final say, and if something is included in the initial drafts that they do not approve of, or something has been left out and not included which they particularly want to be included in the final cut, the person working on it for them will be expected to follow the demands they have been given.

When it comes to actually responding to a brief you have been set by somebody, there are sometimes more complications related to it than someone may initially believe, mostly relating to the constraints that the people responding will have to work under. These restraints vary in terms of what they are and why they exist, with one example being copyright and the legal issues related to it. Unless licenses have been agreed on and all the legal things that must be done in order to use copyrighted material in the project you are replying to a brief with are done correctly and agreed on with the people who made the brief, just like any other media project, you legally will be expected to only include un-copyrighted material (such as royalty free music for example) or materials that you yourself have created or own in the final product, as to not run into any legal issues for both yourself and the company who's brief you are making it for (The UK Copyright Service, UK Copyright Law). This is a very common constraint that many face when working on these kind of things, with myself even running into it during our project, having to create our own graphics instead of relying on any already existing one online for example. Other constraints which must be worked under commonly are both more ethical and regulatory related, such as being sure to treat those helping or working on the brief with you correctly, not over working or underpaying them for example, as well as being sure to follow any regulatory body rules that may relate to the brief's project you are working on, such as making sure to keep a film within the walls of the age rating it is wanting to be rated as by the BBFC (BBFC, Who we are, The trusted go-to guide) or making sure an advert is suitable to air at the time it is planned to under the judgement of OFCOM (Ofcom, About Ofcom, What is Ofcom?).

When it came to the project we were working on for our college work, there did end up being a couple 'amendments' we had to make when it came closer to completing our final product. One example of these changes is related to the subjects that the pieces of footage included in our video were focused on, being given a list of subjects that our subject leader wanted us to include in the final video early on in the pre-production phase, some of which we ultimately did not end up including after all. The reason for this change and lack of inclusions was due to planning issues, with the people we had to email and get permissions from in order to film not getting back to us at all, preventing us from completing the video to the exact brief we were originally set from the beginning and being forced to make a couple amendments out of necessity.

The reasons for a project to have amendments made to it mid-way through its creation process can vary quite a lot. Factors such as the creators running low on their budget halfway through the project's production, being forced to make changes, or simply seeing the project's first draft and deciding that their ideas worked better in concept than execution, are things that can lead to a brief change. A good example of a project which had its brief changed, even though it was completed, is the 2020 movie 'New Mutants'. Even though the film was delayed multiple times for many reasons, one of these delays was due to some amendments being decided on as to "make it scarier". The reason for this change happening so late, causing reshoots, was said to be due to how positive the audience's reactions were during test audience phases of the film, with it being said that "audiences really embraced the notion of a superhero movie or a comic book movie that was, in its core, a horror film" (John Boone, ETonline, “'The New Mutants': A Complete Timeline of Its Long Road to Finally Being Released”, Para. 16).

Opportunities ~

There are a few reasons why somebody may decide, once reading or coming across a certain project brief, that they would like to respond to it and work to complete it. Obviously, the reasons will depend on the individual person, but one of the arguably more common reasons would be financial. As a piece of work/labour is being done for them, the person and/or company posting their brief will offer some kind of payment to whoever responds to it and gets the position of completing it for them. There are people, such as freelancers, who make their money off of completing briefs they find which they believe they could complete to the standard which is being asked, not really caring too much about what exactly the specific details are about them, as long as they can make their living from them. On the other hand, some people will respond to certain briefs due to what they are asking for, whether that be the type of video, or the company/person it is being made for and/or with, such as a specific movie company or actor which is involved in the project. Briefs like this can be seen as opportunities for future work if they are completed to an impressive standard, leading to more work of a similar sort in the future, potentially leading to an improved financial or fame status. The short film contest 'Depict!', which was mentioned earlier, is a good example of a situation where the brief can lead to future great opportunities for the winners and those who take part, with one example being one of the cast members of 'Cool Unicorn Bruv', a Depict! entry from 2013 (IMDb, Cool Unicorn Bruv), Nathan Bryon, going on afterwards to be in mainstream pieces of media, such as playing the character Joey Ellies on the ITV show 'Benidorm' (IMDb, Nathan Bryon).

I personally feel as if this project gave me multiple opportunities to learn to increase my confidence. When it came to walking into the active classes we wanted to film the way we did, then proceeding to film them as they worked, this was something I found extremely awkward and difficult to do to begin with. However, being forced to do them in order to complete our project and putting myself out of my comfort zone. did end up slightly increasing my confidence when it came to situations like that during the production. As well as this, the emailing of teachers and staff during the initial planning part of the project, sorting with them the times of when we could film them and arranging that to work around all of the other classes as well, also gave me a chance to improve my overall planning skills.

When it came to making and producing the product as a whole between the two of us, there were some times where the both of us had to multi-task slightly in order to get things done in time for our project brief's deadline. For example, during the later half of our pre-production phase, both me and my partner were still coming up with our final ideas as for how exactly we wanted to lay out our video in editing, as well as what we wanted to include in the voiceover we were planning on including, while we were in the process of emailing teachers we needed permissions from and planning their filming days around the dates we wanted to potentially plan with others, so we could get as much footage filmed in the time we had. As well as this, although it was not exactly working on both for our own project, there were a couple times during the editing phase of our video where we were helping out other groups a little bit at the same time, by being in the videos or reading pieces of their scripts for them, then returning to work on our own project's post-production.

As for my own personal contributions to the project and its brief, I believe that I had a few ideas which ended up being picked up on and used for the final product. Specifically, I had a few suggestions for which subjects I felt would be the best to attempt to include in our final video, as I believed that there were some which were never mentioned by our subject leader that I thought still would do a good job of representing the quality of our sixth form and intriguing our target audience - something which we were instructed to try our best to do in the initial brief. One of these subject suggestions, for example, included one of the language options, which ended up being Mandarin, due to what I believed would make for interesting and intriguing footage to watch. As well as this, I had a lot of ideas of things to potentially include and create during the editing of the project, such as the quick flashes of all of the Enhance subjects available during the end section of the video, in order to reflect just how massive of a number there is to the viewer creatively, which ended up making it into the final cut of the video (YouTube, EN College Video: ENhance).