Letter

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter in response to your advert for a position at your company. I'm not seeking to apply; instead I intend to point out a number of flaws with your advert in hopes that you can rectify them.

Contracts (and agreements in general) are essential to any form of job, and to that end it's important that both parties fully understand the contract and what it entails. As such, it would make sense to try and not alienate people with vague terms of employment such as salary and hours. Applicants won't know whether they'll be getting £15k or £35k per annum, or whether they'll be working 10 or 45 hours a week, or whether these two variables are linked or not.

According to the Equality Act of 2010, two people applying for the same position at a company, with the same qualifications and experience should expect similar pay and hours to each other, and according to this advert this isn't guaranteed.

It's also mentioned that you are seeking someone "male/female aged below 30". Age discrimination legislation within the Equality Act mentions that it is "unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age unless the practice is covered by an exception from the ban"; for instance if one is looking for someone young to play a certain role in a film or play. In this case however, age has no effect on the performance of a Producer, and as such there is no particular reason to actively seek someone younger for this role.

In this advert, you ask applicants to make a "short documentary that can be shown to children at high school promoting the No Means No date rape campaign." Aside from the obvious issues regarding subject matter and audience (which we will discuss later), putting a brief like this in a job application to start with is already problematic. If an applicant were to go out and make this documentary, they would not be covered by the usual health and safety codes of practice of your company since they would not actually be employed by you at that point in time. That, and in your brief for the short documentary, you mention interviewing "female victims and male offenders". This is a little presumptuous, and it does lend itself to misrepresent people through assuming all offenders are male and all victims are female, especially considering the idea was to show this documentary to young people in high school. It's really important to note the effect that showing people in a certain light has on society's collective perception of a group of people, and as media producers it's our job to make sure that that image is wholly justified, understandable, and not slanderous. This is also backed up by OFCOM, which is a broadcast regulator that came about because of the Communications Act 2003 and the Broadcasting Act 1990, under the Harm and Offence code:

"Factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience."

Furthermore, the topic in question isn't exactly appropriate for young audiences, especially considering that you ask for "re-enactments and dramatizations". OFCOM's Harm and Offence code has a little bit relevant to this aswell:

"Generally accepted standards must be applied to the contents of television and radio services so as to provide adequate protection for members of the public from the inclusion in such services of harmful and/or offensive material." [...] "In applying generally accepted standards broadcasters must ensure that material which may cause offence is justified by the context (see meaning of "context" below). Such material may include, but is not limited to, offensive language, violence, sex, sexual violence, humiliation, distress, violation of human dignity, discriminatory treatment or language (for example on the grounds of age, disability, gender, race, religion, beliefs and sexual orientation)."

Such broadcasting of offensive imagery to underage people is exactly what you intend applicants to do with this documentary. OFCOM also has a section on Protecting the Under-Eighteens which has a bit regarding sexual material:

"Broadcasters must ensure that material broadcast after the watershed which contains images and/or language of a strong or explicit sexual nature, but is not 'adult sex material' as defined in Rule 1.18 above, is justified by the context."

Since the proposed documentary isn't "adult sex material", but does feature sexual violence (such is the nature of reconstructions), the BBFC would probably give it a 12A rating, based on the following rules:

"Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Moderate sex references are permitted, but frequent crude references are unlikely to be acceptable." [...] "There may be moderate violence but it should not
dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated, and its depiction must be justified by context."

Failing that it would probably be an 18:

"Where sex material genuinely seeks to inform and educate in matters such as human sexuality or safer sex and health, explicit images of sexual activity may be permitted."

But still wholly unsuitable "to be shown to children at high school". You're asking applicants to tread a difficult line here.

You also mention that you're seeking someone of Christian faith to fill this role. Why? Aside from once again being discrimination for the sake of discrimination, you also state that applicants should try to "promote the ideals of the Christian faith and encourage young people to contact [you] for further guidance". OFCOM have a piece on religion, stating that one must not 'seek to promote religious views or beliefs by stealth' or 'seek recruits'. Your wording here rather implies both of these.

For the brief, you ask applicants to use a "popular music soundtrack", yet only offer to recompense £20 for the entire production. Therefore you've given applicants a bit of a false ultimatum in that if they use a popular music soundtrack they will not be able to pay for it with £20, but they might be forced to use it anyway if they want to follow the brief and get the job. Then there would be an issue with copyright, as permission is always required if something is entering the public domain. So, in order to stay within the law, they might be forced to forgo the soundtrack, and then they wouldn't be following the brief so they would risk not getting the job.

Research Dossier of Technical Deceit

UK FRAUD NEWS

In Technical Deceit fraud is massive part of the story that surrounds Damien Blake the theatre director. It involves money and the way he goes around doing his business.

In this article it talks about the amounts of money that went missing from a CEO. This links in very well as Damien is being investigated for the same reason as the CEO.

This also links in well with what goes on in the story as it is theatre based. Again money being the big factor in this. 

BIRDMAN

Birdman is a good film to link with Technical Deceit. The story follows Riggan Thomson, a faded Hollywood actor best known for playing the superhero "Birdman", as he struggles to mount a Broadway adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver.

In this clip it shows the director of the play/actor Riggan going mental about another actor in the production. It seems like he doesn't have full control in what is happening on stage and off stage from watching the whole film we know he isn't in full control of whats going on and news articles end up criticising him on his work. This links very well with what goes on with Damien as the newspapers find information about him and build up on him the way they do with Riggan.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Phantom of the Opera is a film based in a theatre just like Birdman. It also got made into a play so its performed in a theatre. The Phantom would be compared to Dave as they both keep an eager eye on whats going on and also they try both try to hidden away from people. They both also spend most of their time in and around the theatre.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO

This film works well with some of the elements of Technical Deceit. In the film there is a british sound engineer Gilderoy who links well with Dave as he works on the sound in the production, setting mics up listen in to what Damien has to say. They are both treated with disrespect as well from other colleagues around them and don't get noticed. 

Single Camera Pre-Production Paperwork

Developing Technologies

Television has come very far over time since the first TV was invented. Gradually TV has developed further and there are all sorts of different TV's and TV features now. The first major improvement to TV was being able to watch it in colour but since then there have been many step's up such as 3D television, satellite televison, cable television, interactive television, high definition television, streaming media and internet television/on-demand viewing, digitial recorders and pay per view.

3DTV is watching television in 3 dimensions so certain things look like they're coming out of the screen and it's made to look more realistic for the viewers. It is done by a scene being filmed with two cameras, one focusing on an image for the left eye, the other for the right, then they are merged together and it looks like a blurry image but when it is watched through 3D glasses, it creates a 3D image. Alternatively, you can have the light source split the images directionally into the viewer's eyes, this means the viewer doesn't require glasses. I think 3DTV is good because it does enhance the viewing experience and makes you feel more involved, but I find that having to wear glasses throughout the film quite annoying and sometimes it can hurt your eyes. I also don't find it majorly different to just watching a film on a cinema screen because there's not always a lot of the film that uses 3D and comes out of the screen.

Satellite TV is television received through a satellite dish, things like Sky and Virgin are both forms of satellite TV which must be paid for and a satellite dish must be attached to your house in order to receive signal from the corresponding satellite in space. It's done to offer a wider range of programmes from all over the world to viewers and offer them channels that would be hard to get otherwise. I think satellite TV is very good because you get access to so many more channels than you would normally be able to and it's nice and easy to get and usually quite cheap. It's also improving nowadays and gives you the ability to do things such as pause and rewind live TV and the ability to record your favourite programmes. The only flaw is interferences due to weather and things like that, but they're quite uncommon.


Interactive TV is a feature that allows viewers to interact with the television whilst watching it. It can allow viewers to do things such as respond to a competition, vote for the favourite act on a talent show, access internet based servicesm, view things that aren't on standard channels and more. The red button is a service on some channels where some content can be accessed by pressing the red button on your remote. I think this is good because it gets the audience more involved with certain programmes and it's one thing about TV that could be developed further and a lot more could come of this.

High Definition TV (HDTV) is video that is of a much resolution and looks much better than standard definition. HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times more than SD. Early HDTV broadcasting used analog techniques, but today HDTV is digitally broadcast using video compression. I think HDTV looks good particularly on large TV's but sometimes it doesn't look that much better than SD and the price for HDTV isn't always worth the difference. It also causes some TV companies to make their standard definition channels of worse quality to make people want to pay for the HD channels.

Cable TV is a way of receiving television through radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers on the house. FM radio programming, high-speed internet, telephony, and similar non-television services can also be accessed through cable TV. The major difference is the change of radio frequency signals used and optical connections to the subscriber property. I think cable TV is good but is quite outdated in some countries because of things like Satellite TV, it is good for getting less interferences however and is also useful in countries where satellite signal is difficult to get.

Analogue Television is the analog transmission that involves the broadcasting of encoded analog audio and analog video signal one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal. All broadcast television systems preceding digital transmission of digital television (DTV) were systems utilizing analog signals. Analog television may be wireless or can require copper wire used by cable converters.


Digital Televison is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV. Many countries have replacing broadcast analog television with digital television to allow other uses of the television radio spectrum.

Streaming Media and Internet Television/on-demand viewing. Streaming media is watching videos on an internet website that are provided by someone else who is streaming it on a website, things such as live football matches that are not on TV are usually streamed or live events. It could also mean the person streaming is recording footage and streaming it as it's being recorded. Internet Television/on-demand viewing is showing TV programmes online on a website and offers a wide range of programmes that have already been aired on TV. There are official on demand websites such as 4oD, BBC iPlayer and ITV player and also unofficial on demand websites which don't show content specific to certain channels. I think this is very good because if you've missed a programme, you can just watch it again in an internet browser and usually the programmes are available for a long time and of course if for some reason you can't watch something that's live, you can just stream it even if it's not as good as watching the actual thing on TV. It can sometimes lag or run slightly slow but it is still a very good way of showing TV content.

Digital Recorders are similar to VCR's in the way that you can record what's on TV, but it has been made much easier by things such as the Sky + box where you can easily record live programmes and save them on your box to watch at any time as opposed to having to fast forward through your video to find what you're looking for. You can also use it record an entire series simply by selecting one episode and setting it to record the series. Also it can be used to pause and rewind live TV and record specific parts of programmes. I think digital recorders are incredibly good because you can record what you want  and watch it at any point and it's easy to find and much more efficient than VCR recorders. The only flaws are how much space you have, usually they provide you with a good amount of space but it depends how much you want to record.

Pay Per View is a TV service which allows viewers to buy certain events to watch via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it instead of viewers being able to see it whenever they like like video on demand. Sky Box Office is an example of this, viewers can purchase films to watch when they're on, films that are too new to be shown on Sky Movies but are no longer in the cinema, also sporting events such as boxing matches are usually purchase only events. I think this is good because a lot of people will want to see things like big sporting events and will be prepared to pay for them, but with things like movies some people may not want to pay to watch it for a one off, but it is still quite an effective way of making money.

Film Based: CGI (computer generated imagery) is used in some films and is basically computer animation, some films are made entirely of CGI and contain a world and all characters made by CGI, films such as Shrek, Toy Story and Avatar. For example, in Toy Story, Buzz and Woody are both made from CGI and animated and everything else in that film is made from CGI. It can be used in films with humans though, an actor acts out all the movements of the character and then the CGI is added in afterwards. It all used mainly to create scenes that would otherwise be impossible to make, or just to make a film look better and can also be cheaper to make films if they're made entirely out of CGI. I think CGI is good because it makes some scenes that would be impossible, possible and I think it does enhance the viewing experience because they quality is better and in general it just looks better. I think some films have relied too much on the CGI used and not put enough effort into the actual story however, but films like Toy Story and Shrek are an example of films that have used good CGI and a good story. Overall it's more positive than it is negative.

Overall you can see that TV has changed and improved a lot over the years and there are so many different types now. I don't see much more that they could do with TV but they've got plenty so far so I think there will be more in the future.







references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_television
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-per-view
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CGI

Careers

Task One:

Good communication skills - Works well as a team; can listen to other people's ideas and incorporate them as appropriate

Good with IT software - Photoshop and Premier Pro picked up quite easily from college.

Good leadership skills - Listen to others ideas, make sure everyone is busy.

Task Two:

Part-time:

A part time job is very useful for students who have college and school as well as they can earn money whilst still in education. The hours will be less than full time jobs.

Full-time:

A job that takes up most hours of the week and leaves no time for education.

GCSE:

General Certificate of Secondary Education: exams that are taken at the end of high school.

AS/A Level:

Qualifications that are gained at sixth form/college, this is the step of education after high school and before Uni or a job/apprenticeship.

Level 1, Level 2, Level 3:

Level 1 is correspondent to one GCSE grade at D-G grade. Level 2 is equivalent to one GCSE grade at A*-C. Level 3 is equivalent to one to five A Levels at A*-C

Pass, Merit and Distinction (BTEC National):

The grades of the BTEC National courses.

• DDD - AAA
• DDM - AAC
• DMM - ACC
• MMM - CCC
• MMP - CCE
• MPP - CEE
• PPP - EEE

Vocational:

Courses that are vocational are directly related to occupation or employment.

Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree:

These are the levels of degrees given at University. Bachelor is the first level and is given after 3 or so years of study. Master's degrees are the second level and are given after varying amounts depending on university.

Task Three:

Film Editor:

As a film or video editor, you'll be responsible for assembling recorded raw material into a finished product that's suitable for broadcasting. The material may include camera footage, dialogue, sound effects, graphics and special effects.

Runner:

Runners act as general assistants, working under the direction of the producer and other production staff, to undertake whatever basic tasks are required to ensure the smooth running of the production process.

Task four:

National Press:

Certain national newspapers like the Guardian are required to have a section for job advertisements as a method of recruitment.

Trade Press: 

Trade press means that there are specialised magazines out there with job advertisements pertaining to a certain trade.

The Internet:

Jobs can be advertised on websites for certain companies which feature email forms and other ways to apply directly online, or jobs can be advertised on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Word of mouth: 

Word of mouth is referring someone to a job or the like by just telling them.

Internal Promotion:

This is all about working your way up the ladder within a company or place of work, for instance starting as a runner and ending up a director.

Personal Contacts and Networking:

It's important to build up a contact list of skilled individuals that you know that could help out with projects, or get you work with certain projects.

Task Five:

Task Six:

Showreel: 

A showreel is a short videotape containing examples of an actor's or director's work for showing to potential employers.

Personal Website: 

It can be a blog or a more traditional website which is full of work, contact info etc of the person.

Portfolio:

A portfolio (or e-portfolio) is a collection of one's work in its entirety, either paper based or digitally if its an e-portfolio. It's useful for taking to interviews and showing employers.

Task Seven:

Interviewing:

Do's:

• Dress smartly 
• Speak clearly and confidently. 
• First impressions really do count - studies show that employers make a decision about whether to hire you within the first seven minutes on average
• Find out where the venue is beforehand, how to get there and how long it takes
• Get your outfit ready the night before
• Find out what kind of interview it will be so you can prepare

Don'ts:

• Don't be late
• Don't swear or use slang words
• Don't slouch in your seat or do anything that makes you look uninterested
• Don't smoke
• Don't argue with the interviewer, no matter what.
• Don't let your nerves show too much

Presentation:

Do's:

• Check what is expected of you when invited to speak
• Prepare in plenty of time
• Establish a clear structure
• Prepare good, summarised notes
• Plan and rehearse the start with care
• Put pace and enthusiasm into your delivery
• Ensure you are clearly audible to everyone

Don'ts:

• Prepare too much material: check your timing
• Try to do without speaker's notes
• Read the script verbatim
• Start with an apology
• Risk weak or dodgy jokes
• Rock, sway or use repetitive gestures

Self-presentation:

Do's:

• Be confident
• Dress nice and smart but also appropriate for the job
• Consider your answers carefully
• Be nice to people

Don'ts:

• Don't use words that you do not fully understand
• Don't cut people off or not listen to them
• Don't hesitate too much

Task Eight: 

Training on the job / continued professional development:

This is simply learning how to do new things within the environment of a job, so one is learning new skills whilst also having stable income.

Sector skills councils:

SSCs help people find jobs within a trade or sector, and help them know which skills they need for what jobs and how to get there.

Career services:

These help students find temporary work such as internships, work experience and summer jobs that are related to their courses.

Self-training:

This is where someone teaches themselves a skill that they use later on in life, either out of necessity or interest.

Task Nine:

Job Roles

Ownership and Funding

OWNERSHIP

Public Service Broadcasting

A prime example of our country's Public Service Broadcasters would be the BBC. It's a PSB because it's not funded by the government or commercially through advertising. Instead they fund themselves through the national TV license fee, and their aim is to 'inform, educate, and entertain' as opposed to selling their audience to advertisers and exploiting them.

Commercial Broadcasting

Commercial broadcasters exist solely to make a profit. Their main income is usually through advertisers, so they function more as a business than anything else. Examples for these include ITV and Channel 4, and as a business their primary customers are, in a way, the advertisers - their product is the audience which they sell to the advertisers.

Corporate and Private Ownership

This is simply the difference between two types of company. If a company is corporately owned, it is listed as a public company, and a private company is one that is owned by an individual.

Global Companies

The name is fairly self-explanatory, as global companies are companies that span the globe. One such example is Sony, which is a company that umbrellas over many many different divisions and smaller companies.

Advantages of being global include vastly increased userbase, but problems include ensuring different markets and different cultures can identify with the product properly.

Concentration of Ownership

This is a term used to describe the fact that ~90% of media in the world is owned by just 6 companies:

Disney

News Corporation

Vivendi Universal

Time Warner

Bertelsmann

and Viacom.

An advantage of such a world oligopoly is that things can be better integrated with one another, and cross-platform communication is a lot easier, but a negative is that there is less competition and that always leads to an inferior product.

Vertical Integration

If you think of, say, film production as a grid of sorts, with a row of production studios, a row of distributors, and a row of cinemas, the 'vertical' and 'horizontal' analogies begin to make a lot more sense. Vertical integration is where one company owns a whole vertical column on this grid, meaning they own the studio, the distributor, and the cinema.

An example of a company that demonstrates this (albeit not in the film industry) is Apple. They own many facets of producing products like their iPhone, such as processor design and software development.

Horizontal Integration

If we look the other way on our metaphorical grid, there are also companies that own rows, meaning they own a few companies within the same level of production/distribution. An obvious example here is Disney, who own various other production companies like Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm.

FUNDING

The License Fee

This is the BBC's main form of income. It is unique in that it shows the BBC as a company funded neither by the government or by advertising, which means that it isn't government propaganda or exploiting its audience. This is integral to the beeb's image of total neutrality and lack of bias.

Subscription

Perhaps a classic form of funding, and normally billed as an opposite of sorts to one-off payment. Subscriptions are paid by the consumer on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis, in order to keep receiving the product that they are paying for. Some examples in the media industry would be MMO games such as World of Warcraft or Elder Scrolls Online, and subscription services for film include Netflix, Hulu and Lovefilm.

One-off Payment to Own Product

Perhaps the classicest form of funding, this has been standard in the film industry (and almost everywhere else) for years. After paying a one-time fee, the product is yours to own forever. Examples pertaining to our topic include purchasing DVDs and Blu-Rays, or permanent download options from services like iTunes.

Pay Per View

Similar to one-off payments in many ways, pay-per-view is rather self-explanatory: Consumers pay once every time they use the service, and have to pay again if they wish to use it again. This is common in wrestling programmes on TV in particular, but there are examples in other areas, such as services like iTunes offering 'rental' options on their downloads, or even cinema tickets.

Sponsorship

Vaguely similar to advertising but not quite the same, one or two companies will fund the product in exchange for short 'bookend' slots on either end of ad breaks during a programme broadcast, examples of which would be TalkTalk's relationship with the X Factor or Sure men for A League of Their Own.

Private Capital

This is essentially a slightly more contrived way of saying the producers paid 'out of their own pocket'. It's a useful way to start one's career and get on one's feet as demonstrated by Freddie Wong and the Rocketjump team who now have a financial relationship with Lionsgate after making 3-or-so minute shorts in their own time on their YouTube channel for 4 years.

Crowd Funding

Crowd-funding is a relatively recent form of funding, pioneered by websites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. Users can sign up for an account, and if they have a good idea for a product (anything from a film to a range of designer jars), they can start a project on the website. The project will remain active on the website for an average of 2 or 3 months, and during that time other users can 'back' the project by pledging a certain amount of money towards it. 

Development Funds

This is special money giving by organizations to budding filmmakers in hopes of keeping the industry fresh and exciting. In our country we have the BFI, who get lottery money to give to filmmakers for various projects.

Advertising

Between shows and programmes, TV networks run short, minute-or-so slots for your conventional TV advert. After the ad has been made, the company must pay the TV network for their slot, the price thereof varying depending on the time of day and the popularity of the programme the ad will be shown alongside.

Product Placement

A more subtle form of advertising, product placement is when products from a certain brand or company actually appear in the show or film. For the sake of consistency I will again use Sony as an example: In the Amazing Spider-man series, a lot of Sony products are in use by the characters. That example is slightly different to conventional product placement as a Sony studio actually produced the film, but usually product placement works a little differently.

It can work in one of three ways:

 - The product is deemed appropriate and beneficial to the scene by people working on the film; the company making the product is not contacted and no transaction takes place,

 - The filmmakers and the brand have a deal in which the product is provided for the crew in exchange for placement (for example if Coca Cola had a deal with a film there would be lots of free cans on set for the crew)

 - Similar to the previous arrangement, but instead of giving the product to the crew there is a more conventional monetary transaction and agreement.