In the media industry there are
many times when people have to work towards a brief; a brief is a guideline
direction commonly given to employees by the employer that details the nature
of the work and what is and isn’t appropriate to make. A contractual brief is a
brief that is handed to the employees for them to agree on and all the
necessary legal details and other important information is presented; then the
employee must sign the contract to say that they have agreed legally to all the
terms.
The terms of a brief are not
always set in stone and can sometimes be negotiated. This occurs when the
employer and the employee have slightly different artistic ideas and the
employee must persuade the employer to allow some liberties to be taken with
the brief. The purpose of a formal brief is to give all the necessary
information out to make the goals of the employer easy to read and understand;
whereas an informal brief would be carried out in a group with several people
present, these briefs tend to feature a less precise summation of the
objectives. A commission is when a specific employee is asked to work for an
employer by request and a contract is written. A tender brief is sent to
different companies and intended to draw ideas out of
prospective employees; they then propose their ideas and the one the employers
like the best gets the job.
A competition brief is open to
anyone and allows people to submit their ideas in hope of a prize in the form
of exposure. This include briefs like the one given by E4 for their E-Stings
competition; these briefs are quite open to the interpretation of the public
but must pass certain guideline standards set by regulatory bodies.
The brief we were given didn’t
bind us into any particular themes and gave us a lot of freedom to express our
own original ideas; but there were certain restrictions such as a 10 second
time limit that we had to be conscious of. The brief also gave some basic tips
and this was obviously to encourage those at an amateur level; advising to put
all your effort into one decent animation rather than 3 half-decent ones.
Another restriction to be aware of that is implied in the brief is that you
have to abide by the regulations imposed upon E4; obviously they couldn’t show
anything that they would get in trouble for.
Consulting with my tutor was
helpful for my animation as it allowed me to make appropriate changes to my
work and develop it in the right direction. This was also helpful when my tutor
encouraged me to re-shoot or film some additional material that helped to
fine-tune my creation and make it more appealing visually. The tone of the
brief did not feel strict; I felt that there were certain changes and
loop-holes that could be reasonably negotiated as long as it could be
reasonably justified. This shows that the competition is intended as a
light-hearted affair. Due to the overall positive nature of my feedback I felt
no need to amend my work after completing it as I decided I was ultimately
happy with it.
Throughout this unit I have
learnt a lot of valuable information about animation and the history of
animation; this taught me lots of things I didn’t previously know and it
introduced me to a lot of animation techniques I wasn’t previously aware of. As
well as that I have learned a lot about clay-mation; including the incredible
amount of hard work and effort that animators put into their work, this unit
has made me appreciate animation in a way I didn’t before. I have learnt how
frustrating it is to make an animation and how much planning has to go into it
beforehand as well as how long it would take to make one as part of a solo
project. I did learn some independent creative skill that allowed me to see the
animation through to the end of the unit.
