Careers Booklet

Job roles in the film and TV Industry

Legal, Ethical and contractual response letter

Flipside media
20th June 2016

To whom it may concern.

I am writing to this letter to you today because I have found there are many Legal, Ethical and Contractual faults in your job advertisement for for a digital video producer, For starters what is legally wrong with the advert, after looking over the advertisement I have found that it is very explicit because the job advertisement requires me to perform a role which wants me to create a video which involves 'teenage rape' for the 'No Means No' campaign which is technically morally and legally wrong because I am asked work within a high school interview the victims of these acts but this is illegal  getting children under the age of 18 on camera describing sexual abuse is not legally and morally except able in the media industry and in the eyes of the law and there are also not allowed any reenactments to take place. Next the payment part of the contract; it is not in any way fair and does not allow your employees hired for this role equality what so ever, How can someone who works up to 10 hours a week can get £35,000 but someone who works up to 45 hours a week could potentially only earn 15,000 a year. this payment system you have set is unfair and illegal, you need to set up a fixed pay contract not including variables. A contract is supposed to be a legal binding from employer to employee, when a contract is made it legally needs to inform the applicants of three things, what you are being asked to do, when you will be required to work and how much you will be payed and how much you will be paid, this advertisement is showing that the contract the applicants will be signing will break all of these rules set in place.

The application specifically asks for the applicants in the religious views section to be Christian which is completely wrong to do because even though you are a Christian lead organisation you are not allowed to discriminate against any religious group in any way for employment, the UK's laws of employment requires any organisation to not discriminate against someone's age, gender, religious views or race unfairly this comes from the 'Equality Act' created in 2010, which then brings me to another part in the application which relates to this specific act; you have said that you will only hire applicants under the age of thirty, why is this? there is no specific manual labour such as heavy lifting needed for this job role, so why are you discriminating of people above the age of 30 over unfairly. It seems as if your organisation is correctly following these guidelines set out by the government to protect the people. When also going through this advertisement I found that apparently when filming this video I am being asked to produce for your organisation I am not protected from illness and injury until I have been hired into the organisation so i'm not legally protected by your company if form of accident potentially happens to me, this completely breaks employment legislation because i'm potentially doing work for this organisation without being employed and because I am not employed by your organisation I have no trade union to be protected by, which is in every sense of the word unfair on my behalf. 

For the video I have been asked to produce for the purposes of the anti 'date rape' campaign 'No Means No' This is on many levels ethically wrong for me to do with the specific instructions you have given me you have specifically asked me to "interview teenagers and other individuals who might be/have been affected by the topic including 'Female victims' and 'Male offenders' You should compliment the interviews with reenactments and Dramatizations" for starters why can the victims only be female and the offenders only be male? This seems to be implying only females can be affected by rape which is every bad representation, males have been affected by rape before and even I could only find female victims to interview it is still unethical to make the assumption that there is no such thing as a male victim of rape, you would be giving the wrong representation of rape victims by making these assumptions. This being shown on camera to the public can affect the image of teenage boys, and give them a bad representation to the public as a whole.

I've also been asked to create Film reenactments and dramatizations for this chosen topic with 'Teenagers' which is ridiculous because it is legally and morally wrong for me to allow the sexual reenactments of children under the age of Eighteen to take place on camera, Ofcom would never allow this to happen, they are around to set the standards of British broadcasting, there broadcasting code involves the protection of under eighteens and to stop the harm and offence of people on camera this is all part of the The Communications act (2003) and the broadcasting act of (1990) and if these laws are broken Ofcom are legally obliged to enforce these acts upon the offenders.both these rules are broken if we perform these reenactments on camera, this can be classed as 'obscene' which can infringe the "The Obscene Publications Act (1959). If you wanted to have this shown to children at high school age you would not be able to show this video you want me to create to your required audience because the BBFC does not allow scenes of sexual violence to be shown to anyone below the age of 18. Finally you have asked me to put a "Popular music soundtrack" into this production I am not specifically told I would have a budget for music which would mean if you needed me to do this we would be braking copyright infringement which usually ends up with legal disputes if these artists are not paid for the music they use, the demands you have put into creating this video for the benefit of employment is totally ridiculous, you have obviously took note into any laws which could affect this production.

Yours sincerely

Kain Brown

Developing technologies in the Film and TV Industries

Developing technologies in the film and TV industries from Kain Brown

Ownership and Funding

Ownership Concepts 

Public Service Broadcasting: Public service broadcasting means TV programmes that are broadcast for the public benefit rather than for commercial purposes. These programmes include local news coverage, arts programmes and religious broadcasts,  for example channels such as Channel 4 and ITV advertise their regular shows with sponsors and commercials, but with their news channels they do not actually use advertisement what so ever because they are seen as  'Public Service Broadcasts' this is also happens with radio, OFCOM are in charge of how these companies should proceed with the rules of their broadcasts.




Commercial Broadcasting: Commercial broadcasting is the broadcast of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, this means they advertise Brands and products in order to get revenue to create more productions and to keep financially stable as a company, For example; ITV do this by having adverts and sponsors for individual shows, such as the show 'Coronation Street' is currently sponsored by 'Compare the Market. com'  and then will have adverts on after that one has been used to advertise more brands and product.

Corporate and private ownership: this form of ownership means that a broadcasting company is privately owned or owned by the state for example BBC is basically owned by the British public because we pay the licencing fee every year to be able to broadcast television., so because of this they have to produce various programmes that can appeal to the majority of the British public.Privately owned  companies have to appeal to the partnerships, sponsors shareholders, and also viewers because these are what privately owned companies need to produce television shows for example channel 4 have various sponsors such as 'Sofaworks'  these types of channels because they are funded differently they have to try and produce programmes which relate more to the sponsors and adverts.


Global Companies: Companies that broadcast all over the world on different forms of media, For example companies like Disney (childrens programmes) and Bein. (film, box office and sport programmes)

Vertical Integration: is where the production of media is controlled by a singular individual or by a corporation, so that the production uses less money. This is done by buying the companies which are larger and smaller than  you so that they do not have to spend more money than they would need to at a trade price. when companies merge together they save money because when they work together on production it saves the companies from having to buy different equipment or software to make the production. For example this happened with 'Marvel' and 'Sony' with the integration to create a 'Spider-man' film after various attempts by Sony to make the film but not have successful implications, so they have merged to create a potentially better film overall, allowing both the companies to gain more profit both ways, through sequels, reviews and on demand purchases.

Horizontal integration: is where companies to avoid loosing money, instead of completely going against each other, add each other to the supply chain so they can work together to make even more money rather than competing. For example companies such as Facebook have done this by purchasing companies such as 'The Oculus Rift' and 'Instagram'

Funding Concepts

Licence fee: The licence fee is supposed to be paid by every television user in the UK, It funds the BBC and various public service broadcasters. this is why The BBC does have any adverts in their broadcasts they can afford to successfully broadcast their shows and stay financially stable through the Licencing Fee. The licencing Fee is £145.50 per year.

Subscription:  A broadcasting subscription service is source of media which requires the user to pay a certain fee per month or year for examples services like Netflix (£5 per month) and Amazon Prime (£79 per year) these services are used to usually fund the series the series they put out to earn ratings.

One of payment to own product:  this generates money to the money to the companies  because the purchase of the physical and digital material. when these are bought this is physically owned by the consumer rather than a subscription or rented it can't be repossessed by the company once bought. For example Itunes store and App store allows you to Purchase digital material, after it has been purchased it will be physically on your device of choice, this goes from music, TV shows, Films and Apps.

Sponsorship: Commercial stations such as ITV and Channel 4 use sponsors on their shows to generate funding for original series they produce in order to create more and get rating, for example; Gogglebox on channel 4 before entering the show there will be a quick advert saying something like "Gogglebox sponsored by sofa works" this done in order to promote the sponsor.

Pay Per View:  Pay per view is a form of on demand TV which allows the user to pay for a certain Events such as as boxing matches, live streaming of US events like WWE or could even be new film releases, companies such as Sky have integrated this into their service with Sky Box Office, broadcasting events like Mayweather vs Pacquiao, this generates money to the companies because the licencing rights allow them to generate a certain amount of money which each purchase.

Product Placement: Many TV shows and Films contain product placement which is a form of advertising within the Film or Show, when this used a before each programme or film, they should be presented with a small P in the corner to state that the production does contain product placement. For example; in Films such as Transformers: Age of Extinction which contained a high amount of product placement, this generates money to the company which produces the film because the companies which they place their products in their films or TV shows, pays high amounts of money.

Crowd Funding: crowd is a form of revenue to a media production that allows the filmmaker to create a production from the money of the 'fans' and the general public. This is done through websites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Gofundme Etc. the purpose of these websites is for a 'user' in this case a filmmaker to set a target for the budget he will require to make the film, television show, short etc  sometimes along with the money they already have and may need smaller sum to help with production. Filmmakers such as Zach Braff and Uwe Boll have done this successfully and not so successfully in the past, Zach Braff did this when he wanted to create a follow up to his film 'Garden State' called 'Wish I Was Here' that he successfully reached the target for and created the feature film, Uwe Boll attempted to do this to fund the production of Rampage 3 which he did not reach the target and failed to create the production and make money off the film.


Advertising: is when brands pay to have their product advertised usually during commercial breaks within TV, this is so these brands can become more reconcilable within the general public so they can therefore increasing sales and produce more income for the brands and the broadcasting companies For example every non public servicing companies or broadcasts contains adverts within them so they can therefore stay financially stable and produce more shows, such as channel 4, ITV, channel 5, FX, Sky and various others.

Development Funds: Are designed in order to create interest in film production and directing in the United Kingdom. for example that does this is the British Film Institute (BFI), They have funded many films by aspiring directors to help them get more reconcilable.

Private Capital: is where private investors get loans, crowd funding or any temporary source of money to help make a production, for example Megan Ellison is a private capital investor who helps aspiring film makers get money to produce their films.