The Requirements of Working to a Brief

Briefs

What is a "Brief"?

A brief is a document which tells a client what to do in the process of carrying out a job, task, or assignment. If you have been given a brief it means that in all likelihood you have been commissioned. These documents can be written or verbal and can vary in size depending on the complexity of the assignment.

What is a commission / what does it mean to be commissioned?

A commission is essentially a job sent out by the commissioner.  To be commissioned means that you have been employed or assigned by a company to do a task. You will be given your brief so the commissioner can get the best out of your skills. In the media industry this means generally making a product. 

What is meant by the term "Tender" 

A tender is a predicted cost in the brief which gives a budget for the overall product. This may or may not include payment for the respondent. 

How else could you respond to a brief?

You can respond to briefs in a number of ways, as well as paid jobs there are things like competitions. E4 holds a yearly competition asking people to make 10 second idents ( E-Stings ) for the channel that are constricted to a specific brief.

The ABC's of death is a compilation movie.  It's pretty much a gory horror version of Paris, je t'aime (2006).  Both the recently announced sequel as well as the original had a competition where the clients must make a short horror film that specifically relates to a given letter. It can be made in any format. It's important to understand the brief as you are only allowed to make a horror short themed around the one specific letter. Although this guy didn't win the prize of a place in the movie, he was offered the chance to make a short for the sequel. Competition prizes are generally a means to give the winner a better foothold in the industry this is generally money or a greater way to promote your work like at a festival, before a feature film or on television.



Our brief is to produce a 10 second ident for the E4 ESting competition. Here is what our brief looks like. The competition asks for a 10 second short film that displays the E4 brand.

This brief is designed to match the E4 ESting competition that happens yearly to promote E4 as a channel, Here is the last competitions criteria for entrants.

Reading a brief

Understanding or "reading" the brief is very important. It is a formal way of being asked to do something and if you fail to do that, then you will find yourself out of the job. It's an understanding of what you are and are not allowed to include and do in your product

In my E-Sting project ( In which I was a respondent / entrant) had a very specific brief.

• It can't be longer than 10 seconds.
• All of the footage made needed to be original material.
• The soundtrack had to be made from audio stock from the E4 website (although it was allowed additional sound effects that didn't constitute as music).
• It needed to end on showing the E4 logo some how.
• It needed to have been made with a specific animation technique.
• It couldn't have any explicit material ( Special exception might be considered if the short could be shown after the watershed)
• A deadline for the 6th of December.

Now, other than these specific rules we are essentially allowed to do whatever we want with our product. Just look at some of our finished examples, there is a eclectic collection of shorts all conforming under the same brief. 





Negotiating a brief

Room for negotiation

Room for negotiation is dependent on the specific brief.  If you assume there is no room for negotiation then it is likely you won't make anything the commissioner doesn't want.  However if there is absolutely no alternative it is good form to attempt to communicate with the employer in advance.

Bernard Herrmann is an amazing music composer in cinema. He is best known for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock ( Psycho, North by Northwest, Vertigo) however, he also wrote the scores for Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver. This relationship between Harrmann and Hitchcock came to an end in the production of the film Torn Curtain 1966 . Hitchcock was under studio pressure to make a film with a Jazz - Pop influence. Herrmann went back to his roots of classic orchestral score according to his own ideas. After listening only to the prelude Hitchcock fired Herrmann and the pair never worked together again.

During the post production of my ESting my teacher and I had to negotiate whether the end of my ESting featured a superimposed E4 logo. Despite disagreeing with me we released two versions. Fortunately the version I routed for was better accepted.

Your degree of digression

Your degree of digression is important but also a personal suggestion to what you need to make. Personally I tried to keep to the most simple understandings of the brief as possible.   However, in my ESting I did bend the rules slightly, instead of using one sound bed for the video like as expected I merged two fading one over the other creating a different overall effect. This might have gotten my work rejected If I had sent it in to the competition. One of the biggest concerns of mine was sticking to the deadline of the 6th of December which was a concern because projects may become delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. An example for me was that I had two university interviews which I needed to prepare for over the course of production as well. It took a lot of work to remain organised over the course of those days.


What constraints; legal, ethical, regulatory might you need to consider?

Whilst making my EStings I used a selection of props which contained images and copyrighted names to protect myself from infringement, I properly covered or deleted them. Other than that I am safe as those constraints go.
Ofcoms broadcasting codes might cause problems if you intend to show something explicit but most EStings that win the competition are more likely to be quirky rather than unsavory.

Another big constraint is money, at our sixth form we are given a 5 pound budget.  This really never goes very far, so when I source the props I need, it is from the local charity shops.

Did you have to amend the final product?

I did need to amend my final product at the wish of my Commissioner. We shared a disagreement about how the short should end so we released two different idents for audience testing. One original, and one the commissioner preferred. The original performed better towards the demographic.

In media sometimes amending the final product is completely necessary.  The 2013 movie Gangster Squad needed to have the final product amended because the film happened to coincide with the Colorado cinema massacre.  The issue was that the film contained a scene with a gunfight in a cinema and needed to be reshot and moved to china town.  This was a huge blow for production as they had to spend money they hadn't budgeted for before. It also delayed the theatrical run of the film by nearly 6 months.



For what reasons might the be amendments to budget or your fees?

Amending budgets can often happen in the media industry due to unseen complications.  Causing shooting to be postponed or other issues that increase the budget. This is why it's important to take through steps to plan your production to avoid these pitfalls. In the making of Hobo with a shotgun the Director ( Jason Esiner) and two of the crews producers sacrificed their fee for the movie in order to stay on budget rather than risking the movie. This is an example of crew pay being reimbursed back into a budget.


More Blood, More Heart: The Making of Hobo WIth a Shotgun from jasoneisener on Vimeo.

Opportunities ?

Why might someone respond to the brief?

The main reason people respond to a brief however is the incentive of payment. Somebody might respond to the brief because they make a career out of working freelance or they want to get suitable experience in the industry. Going back to Hobo with a shotgun Jason Eisener got the chance to make this movie after winning the grind-house trailer competition.

Opportunities that you had for self development

I learnt better organisation techniques and a better understanding of how working to a brief works ( in this unit and blog post). My self development was actually quite important in this, as this was only my second self made project. I was taught the value of preparation and organisation through attempting to appease both my brief as well as the wishes of my teachers. There was one long debate between myself and my teacher where I was convinced the effect of the tape should be shown through the video, and eventually I won through the argument in our evaluative stage. This was a great expansion of self confidence in my working ability.


New skills did you learn?

The most important skills I learnt over this were working to a brief, and to be able to create my own stop motion animation. The process is extremely time consuming but there is a feeling of self gratification that it gives when it was completed. I learnt how to make all the earliest forms of animation going as far back as things like praxinoscopes and thuamatropes. I was shown how to animate objects to a greater level of sophistication.  I also got to have more experience working successfully to a brief.

Did you have to multi-skill during the project?

I had to multi-skill during the project, I had to function as researcher, planner, animator, director and editor. I needed to hire a camera operator however to help co-ordination on set.  However this meant it helped me work as a better team player.


What contributions did you need to make to the project brief?

I needed to contribute my own funding.  Although my film production class provides a 5 pound budget it can only be reimbursed if the student has a receipt.  The shop I bought the audio cassette from was a charity shop that didn't provide them. I needed to contribute a significant amount of my spare time undertaking a test run at college.  Then shooting the short over a day at college, it took much longer due to the complexity and higher frame rate (more photos taken) than expected.

I feel I brought something unique to this project in the fact that I animated everyday objects in an abstract way, unlike the rest of my class using characters and people.   I looked to use personality-less scraps to create an artistic symbol for my ESting.  I also made an animation much smoother than any other in the class, with a high attention to mise-en-scene and lighting. The mise-en-scene was also highly controlled adding more detail than was expected of my project.

References
http://danwtab.blogspot.co.uk/
http://26th.abcsofdeathpart2.com/
http://www.bernardherrmann.org/legacy/site/articles/misc/torncurtain/hitch_herrmann_1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann#Collaboration_with_Alfred_Hitchcock
http://vimeo.com/81734767
http://vimeo.com/29899714
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrcFNTsRkw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq4o2chacS4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA19pVeNWZY
http://cf.badassdigest.com/_uploads/images/19290/the-abcs-of-death_510__span.jpg