Jobs in Media

In this essay I will be explaining what different types of jobs offer in the media industry and how they have their own special benefits and risks to them. There are a lot of jobs that revolve around the media industry but all are highly competitive. This makes the media industry one of the hardest to get into.

There are many different sectors of jobs in the media, as seen below:

 

·         Creative – A creative job in the media would require the employee to come up with original ideas and also expand and make those ideas broader. This type of job is very important to companies trying to come up with a top selling product. Without creative jobs in the media, well, there basically wouldn’t be a media industry! Creative jobs can involve roles like a photographer, web designer, script writer, set designer, cinematographer along with many other roles these are some of the most important. For example, a cinematographer would decide the best lenses and filters to use when shooting a scene because their job is to bring the story alive and make the audience wow.

 

·         Technical – A technical job in the media Industry would require the employee to use equipment such as lights and cameras and also use the technology such as computers. The responsibilities of this role can often be quite high because they will have strict deadlines and they also have to complete tasks just as they are told and complete them to perfection so everything will run smoothly for the company and all the other job roles working on the project. Technical jobs may include a Technical producer, Technical Director, Camera operator, Lighting director, Gaffer, Sound Recorders and Boom Operators. A lighting director for example would have to set the right lights for a scene and make sure that every light is pointed to everything needed in the shot. This can be difficult if there are lots of cuts from shot to shot.

 

·         Managerial – Managerial Jobs require the ability to look over other peoples work and to organise time effectively and productively as they are in charge of what is going on in every job role working on the project. If something is not completed by the deadline and they were not given suitable time for it, this would be a responsibility that would sit on your shoulders. A managerial role also requires excellent communication skills and team work abilities. Managerial Jobs would include roles such as Station manager, Floor manager, Production manager and Location manager.  A location manager would go on location recce’s and find suitable and safe places to shoot their scene. They will also have to write a report on the location and a risk assessment.

 

·         Editorial – Editorial Jobs are usual found in the Printing industry such as newspapers and magazines. This role requires a creative mind and also an eye for seeing mistakes and finding better ways to present the final product. This is very important because you would be the one of the last stops on the journey before the product gets published. This role also requires good communication skills and good English grammar as this is very important in the print industry. Editorial jobs include Newspaper editor, TV or Film Editor and Magazine Editor. Being a film editor is one of the most important jobs there is. Editing can either make or break a film. You would have to spend days looking through hours of footage and scenes to find the right flow and rhythm for the film.

 

·         Sales and Marketing – In this type of job role the employee would have to be good at communicating with other business to promote and sell their companies product. this is important because they will want their companies product to sell and make profit. This type of job requires good social and communication skills as you will be talking to various other companies trying to sell your company’s product. The employee would require these skills because sales and marketing is highly competitive. Job roles in sales and marketing may include Public relations officer, Film promoter, Publicist, Publicity manager, Marketing assistant and Marketing Executive.  If you were to become a film promoter you would have to go to companies and open events to try and sell your film to production companies. If you are good at selling a product then your film should hit the big screens in no time.

 

·         Financial - Financial jobs are those that require the person to generate revenue for the industry/business they work for.  They have to make sure the budget of the project is handled carefully, when and how to channel money into new projects and account for the budget at all times. If the budget is not looked after correctly it could mess up the whole financial state of the company and could ruin a project because they will not have enough money to fund various parts of the project. A financial role in the media industry is very important and has a lot of responsibilities. You will have the managerial personnel relying on you to keep their money safe and used correctly.  Financial jobs might include, Producer, Financial controller and Production Accountant. A financial controller would have to look after a budget for a film. They would have to judge how much money they can spend on each scene and even the actor’s wages. The last thing a film company would want is to go bankrupt after an epic explosion scene.

 

Contracts and Pay:

The media industry is very flexible and is changing all the time. This means that contracts are a lot more flexible too, a lot more than traditional jobs. This can be good and bad for the workers, but it all depends on how they are paid. Below are some of the most common contracts in the media industry;

 

·         Full Time, Permanent

·         Part Time, Permanent

·         Fixed Term and Freelance

·         Shift Work

·         Office Hours

·         Irregular and anti-social hours pay

·         Salaried

·         On Completion

 

Full Time, Permanent:

If you were employed on a full time permanent contract you would usually have to work 39 hours a week. A permanent contract means that you will be regularly paid each month or week depending on the pay roll system. Being on a permanent contract you will also gain company benefits such as paid sick and holiday leave each year.

Job roles most likely to be on a full time permanent contract are editorial, managerial, financial, creative and sometimes sales and marketing roles.

 

Part time, Permanent:

Being on a part time permanent contract means you will work a fraction of a full time contract but once again you will have a set amount of hours to work each week. Being on a part time permanent contract you will also as well as the full time contracts receive the benefits from the companies such as pensions and paid leave but things like the holiday are reduced because you work fewer hours on a part time contract.

The job roles most likely to be part-time, permanent are financial and sometimes sales and marketing.

Fixed Term and Freelance:

Both types of these contracts are similar because they are both flexible and do not last a great amount of time. If you have a fixed-term contract you may still gain company benefits if it is highlighted in your contract whereas, freelance you will not get company benefits because you will be coming in to do a single job for them, get paid and then move on to your next job. Freelance is a very risky way of earning a living because you cannot judge when you are going to have more work or less work to do for different companies. Also with freelance work, if you don’t have any work, you will not get paid. This is the main problem for that kind of work. There is a plus side to freelance because you can choose your own hours and holiday leave which is a great plus side because you would be so flexible.

 

Shift Work:

Shift work is when you are contracted to work certain hours in a day. This can mean you work from early mornings to the middle of the afternoon, or early evening through to the middle of the night. In my opinion there is not many advantages of shift work, but the main one would be that you have set regular hours that you know you will have to work. The disadvantages are that it can take up awkward times during the day and also mess up your body clock.

 

Office Hours:

Traditionally when you work office hours you would work 9 – 5 between Monday and Friday. There are many advantages to this, the main being that it is sociable hours and its regular work and pay. Disadvantages are you may not feel free enough but trapped in an office working like a robot.  

 

Irregular and unsocial hours:

Irregular hours would involve your employer asking you to work different hours constantly each time you go to work. This can be a big disadvantage because you will not have much notice and it could turn out to be very unreliable. There are also good advantages to this because the employee will probably get paid more due to the irregular pattern in their work.

Analysing an Epidsode of CSI

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

In this episode of CSI they had the typical structure of a crime thriller. The program starts with a harmony, in this case a basketball team winning a match within the last few minutes. Then after the happy scenes and the main characters targeted by close ups they move along to the disruption side which is murder. Once they have found out who killed the victim they make peace with the families involved and arrest the criminals involved in the crime. This structure is very typical of this genre of television programs and films.

The way the structure of the narrative is set out is like Todorov’s narrative theory. Todorov’s theory goes like this:

 

·         A state of happiness at the beginning

·         A disruption of the happiness by an action

·         A recognition of the action taken place

·         An attempt to repair the disruption

·         A redevelopment of the happiness

 

The typical genre conventions take place as soon as the program begins. In this particular episode the males are playing the rough sport whilst the females cheer on and dance around in skimpy outfits. This shows male dominance from the start. In most crime dramas the females are usually the victims of the crime. This is a very common stereotype and rarely do you watch a program where the female is the strong and determined detective solving the case whilst the male is the victim of the crime. However in this episode of CSI there are female detectives involved in the investigation. They also went against the general stereotype by having the killer as a female character. This subverts the general stereotype.

Camera work in crime dramas is a very important factor. Close ups are used to show expressions of the characters being murdered or the characters committing the crime. POV (Point OF View) shots from the characters involved also are great because they give a first person perspective on what is happening during that scene, this will make the audience feel what the character is feeling and they will also be able to see exactly what they are doing or planning to do. Quick cuts are also important when the crime is being committed because it will cause confusion to the audience and it will also capture everything that the directors want the audience to see when they are watching the most important bit of the program.

When the characters are happy during a scene the lighting will be bright and colourful, but once the murder had occurred and crime scene investigations started happening the lighting became very low key. This gives the audience a dull, gloomy feel to the scene. When you watch most crime dramas, if there is a murder it will take place at night, raining and possibly down an abandoned ally way. This makes the audience feel suspense and worry for the character in the program. The music will change dramatically once the murder takes place. All of the things that can add to suspense and audience mood changes will be thrown into that one scene. When there is a crime scene they will put the police tape across the surrounding areas so that the general public will not wander onto the crime scene. The yellow police tape is known worldwide and is very iconic. Anyone who sees that kind of police tape will know it is a crime scene.

Crime dramas also love to throw a lot of twists into their episodes to add confusion and questions towards the audience, for example, in this CSI episode they had a detective explaining what he thought could be the cause of death and how it had happened and then another detective completely ruled it out by saying it was someone else’s blood on the football field. They also had one of the main witnesses killed making her unable to answer any more questions or be of any help towards the investigation. That sort of twist can also add another form of destruction just when they are about to revisit happiness, this prolongs the investigation and also keeps the audience guessing, a good structural performance.

In this episode the social class that is used is middleclass. The victims and criminals where just your typical high school kids, this could influence people to believe that young people are into crime and have the potential to commit murder. A lot of the time in crime dramas they will have the binary opposites of social classes clashing against each other causing conflicts. The age of the kids in this episode ranged from 16 to 18. There was a mixture of ethnicity in this episode to create balance which didn’t offend anyone who might be watching. In crime dramas around 10 years ago they would really stereotype the males as criminals and also certain ethnic groups; this is now seen as discrimination and also not the case. Therefore programs now use more variation on their victims and criminals.

Contractual, Legal and Ethical Obligations

The media industry is very flexible and is changing all the time. This means that contracts are a lot more flexible too, a lot more than traditional jobs. This can be good and bad for the workers, but it all depends on how they are paid. Below are some of the most common contracts in the media industry;

 

·         Full Time, Permanent

·         Part Time, Permanent

·         Fixed Term and Freelance

·         Shift Work

·         Office Hours

·         Irregular and anti-social hours pay

·         Salaried

·         On Completion

 

Full Time, Permanent

If you were employed on a full time permanent contract you would usually have to work 39 hours a week. A permanent contract means that you will be regularly paid each month or week depending on the pay roll system. Being on a permanent contract you will also gain company benefits such as paid sick and holiday leave each year.

Job roles most likely to be on a full time permanent contract are editorial, managerial, financial, creative and sometimes sales and marketing roles.

 

Part time, Permanent

Being on a part time permanent contract means you will work a fraction of a full time contract but once again you will have a set amount of hours to work each week. Being on a part time permanent contract you will also as well as the full time contracts receive the benefits from the companies such as pensions and paid leave but things like the holiday are reduced because you work fewer hours on a part time contract.

The job roles most likely to be part-time, permanent are financial and sometimes sales and marketing.

Fixed Term and Freelance

Both types of these contracts are similar because they are both flexible and do not last a great amount of time. If you have a fixed-term contract you may still gain company benefits if it is highlighted in your contract whereas, freelance you will not get company benefits because you will be coming in to do a single job for them, get paid and then move on to your next job. Freelance is a very risky way of earning a living because you cannot judge when you are going to have more work or less work to do for different companies. Also with freelance work, if you don’t have any work, you will not get paid. This is the main problem for that kind of work. There is a plus side to freelance because you can choose your own hours and holiday leave which is a great plus side because you would be so flexible.

 

Shift Work

Shift work is when you are contracted to work certain hours in a day. This can mean you work from early mornings to the middle of the afternoon, or early evening through to the middle of the night. In my opinion there are not many advantages of shift work, but the main one would be that you have set regular hours that you know you will have to work. The disadvantages are that it can take up awkward times during the day and also mess up your body clock.

 

Office Hours

Traditionally when you work office hours you would work 9 – 5 between Monday and Friday. There are many advantages to this, the main being that it is sociable hours and its regular work and pay. Disadvantages are you may not feel free enough but trapped in an office working like a robot. 

 

Irregular and unsocial hours

Irregular hours would involve your employer asking you to work different hours constantly each time you go to work. This can be a big disadvantage because you will not have much notice and it could turn out to be very unreliable. There are also good advantages to this because the employee will probably get paid more due to the irregular pattern in their work.
 

Confidentiality

A confidential agreement in a contract is when the employee has to agree to sign a contract which means they are not allowed to say anything about the company’s product before it is published. This would include agreements like not telling people the plot or endings of films. This is a legal contract and cannot be broken.

Exclusivity

The employees will be asked to keep secrets from the general public and anyone who isn’t working on the film or production. These secrets will include not saying what the film is called, plots and your own involvement in the production. This also applies if you are writing or creating a video you cannot mention anything to do with the production, until the company allows you to.

 

Employment Legislation

                                                             

Employment Legislation is more commonly known as ‘Employment Terms and Conditions’. These terms and conditions are set to stop employees suffering and being put in a dangerous or unhealthy environment.

 

Health and Safety

Health and Safety is very important and every company, on the recruitment process, should go through and train their new employees on how to keep good health standards and follow the right safety procedures. By doing this, in the event of a fire, the employees will be able to evacuate safely and deal with the situation at hand calmly.

The BBC has requirements to follow if one of their employees is injured at work. “All accidents and incidents must be reported to BBC ORM on the BBC Accident Report Form. Serious accidents and incidents must be reported to BBC ORM by the quickest possible means. Where doubt exists about what constitutes a serious accident BBC ORM must be contacted for clarification.”

 

Codes of Practice

 

Codes of practice are set by the company to their employees so they know how to act when they are at work or maybe even out of work. They specifically set out orders of how to behave and stop certain unethical actions. Codes of practice however are not legally bonded by the law like regulations of the law.  For example the BBC has codes of conduct, “We expect independent producers to apply the highest professional and ethical standards in their dealings with BBC staff.” Having codes of practice, especially at a company like the BBC is very important because they are on show to the whole country.

Policies and Procedures

 

Film and TV companies will also have policies and procedures to follow to ensure that their movies and TV shows are ethically correct. The policies and procedures will also link to recruitment and how their staff is managed. The staff are frequently shown this by legalisation in health and safety and equal opportunities. The BBC has a very interesting policy, it states that advertising is not allowed on the channel; therefore it keeps the station clear from commercial pressures and influences. The BBC also protect children from viewing any potentially disturbing images or shows, this is the watershed policy. The watershed policy means that no violent, disturbing, frightening shows will be aired before 9pm.

Emerging Social Concerns

 

Broadcasting companies may also extend their ethical policies and procedures to dealing with emerging social concerns. These emerging social concerns might concern the discrimination of disabled and the elderly. Channel 4 however is dedicated to highlight people with disabilities. Channel 4 broadcasted the Paralympics in 2012 and they also have TV shows like “The Undateables” which involves showing people with disabilities such as Down-syndrome and Asperger’s syndrome. This show has a lot of different opinions flowing around it, the main concern is the title is given because the audience may see this and think that it is comical and will laugh at the people with disabilities.  

 

Representation and its Ethics

In the TV and film industries it is extremely important how something is represented and put across to the audience. One slip up in this department they could be labelled for something that they might not have intended to show. All of the different companies will want to express their own views and ethics, but they will not mean to show the wrong views. This could lead to viewing figures dropping and plenty of complaints from the public. A lot of religions are represented in films, and a lot of the time stereotyped. For example the Muslim religion is constantly portrayed as terrorists in films. This is because of a minority of extremists have made numerous terrorists attacks around the world. Muslim people should not be stamped with being terrorists! Stereotyping can be a very dangerous act, it could lead children who watch and take in these views, to believe them and act on them potentially with violence and racial abuse.

How Producers Remain Ethical and Objective in their Representations

Producers have a pretty simple way of following ethical and keeping objective in their shows and films. The simply require the experience of analytical lawyers, textbooks and previous examples of legal action. This will determine which is the best and preferable route to take in order to avoid subjectivity. From doing this, they can decide what to show, in terms of content, representation, story lines and even avoid and specific issue or group.

Channel 4 has had a heavy load of complaints for their shows “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” and “The Undateables” because they show unethical views on gypsies and discriminate people with disabilities.

James Cameron’s film “Avatar” was accused of being racist. People complained that only African American and American Indian actors played the Avatars. Their point was that because the Avatars are primitive, they believe that the producers are being racist and showing their opinion on these ethnic groups.

 

Proposal - Zombie Chase Scene

Proposal

For

Zombie Chase Sequence

Prepared

 

By

Ryan Slade

Media Production

30^th November 2012

For

Peter and Denise

Bracknell and Wokingham College

 

 

Copyright © 2012

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Introduction

 

Our media production will be creating a five to ten minute film. The film will be a zombie chase sequence and will be shot in and around college. We aim to create a new and exciting zombie chase. The target audience for our film will be people aged between 15 and 40. We believe that anyone younger may be frightened by our film and anyone older may not be interested at all. The film we are going to create will aim to frighten people and get people gripped to the chase sequence and feel the characters pain and exhaustion getting chased by zombies.

 

Synopsis

 

·         The story starts with a news anchor in a studio explaining the report that professors at a research facility have put an ill man into quarantine.

·         The camera cuts to the outside of the facility where the outside report is discussing the situation.

·         Suddenly, all hell breaks loose as an alarm sounds before the door bursts open and the ill man who looks like a zombie chases after the news reporter outside the facility.

·         The zombie gets closer to the reporter and then the reporter decides to run for his life.

·         The Reporter starts running through car parks and anywhere trying to get away from the zombie.

·         The zombie is relentless and does not stop chasing the reporter.

·         The reporter tries to contact the news anchor but there is no response just a crackling white noise.

Costumes

 

·         Suits (news people)

·         Make-up for zombies

Props

·         Masks with bloodshot eyes (for head, legs, arms) [should look blood-stained]

·         Zombie makeup

·         Ripped Clothes

·         Microphone

·         Desk for anchor

·         Scary wigs

·         Weapons (fake guns)?

·         Red paint (for blood in case masks do not look blood-stained)#

 

Cast and Crew

·         Nick (News Anchor and Zombie)

·         Calum (Zombie)

·         Ryan Slade (News Reporter)

·         Laura (Camera Crew)

·         Laura (Camera Crew)

Location

·         Studios

·         Classrooms

·         Outside the college

·         Inside media studios

·         Corridors

How many cameras will we need?

·         2-3 cameras may be needed

 

Expenses

There will be no expenses when we are making our film because our media production group will be using the equipment from Bracknell and Wokingham College. We will also be using the College editing software to edit and add special effects to our film. The costumes we can bring ourselves from home or we can use costumes from the media department. The make up is being arranged by the college and we will not have to pay for it.

 

We would be very grateful if you would accept our media production group’s film idea and help us create a gripping Zombie Chase Sequence.

The Devolpment of Editing

Before editing short films were made such as ‘Train Arriving at a Station’ where there was no editing used just a single shot. In this short film it does exactly what it says in the title, a single shot with a train approaching the station platform. Apparently when the audience saw this in the theatre they thought that the train was going to come out the screen and run them over! They thought this because they had never seen anything like it before. This was a big start to the film and cinema industry.

Since was first used around 1902 on the film ‘Voyage to the Moon’, editing has changed and improved an incredible amount, and for the better. Editing makes todays films what they are, action movies with their fast paced scene cuts and explosions. Horror films with the tense long scenes creating suspense and adding load jumpy music.

When ‘Voyage to the Moon’ was made they used a form of editing called a jump cut, for example, in the film a character hit an alien and then the alien disappeared and a puff of smoke appeared. They made this illusion by stopping the filming as the character hits the alien, and then when its not filming the alien moves and they set a puff of smoke off and start filming again, hence why it is called a jump shot.

There was two brothers known as the ‘Lumiere Brothers’ who made short films and screened them in cinemas in front of a live audience around 1895. The Lumiere brothers created and screened many other short films during 1895 including ‘The Sprinkler Sprinkled'. The Sprinkler Sprinkled was the brother’s first film to include some acting and humour with a faint storyline as it had a beginning, middle and end. It also had music in sync with the action. The Lumiere brothers were yet to discover the wonders of in camera editing or following the action. There was no manipulation of time and all the footage was shot onto film.

Then in 1903 two men called George Fleming and Edwin Porter directed and filmed ‘Life of an American Fireman’. The short 6 minute film had developed the use of a drama in the film as a woman is trapped in a house fire and rescued by a group of firemen. Like ‘Voyage to the Moon’ life of an American Fireman followed the action without any shot variation. But finally intercutting was used in film as the film switched between the woman in her burning house and the firemen on the way to save the woman, this creates more drama and gives the audience a kind of relationship with the character in the film. Intercutting also shows how far away the woman would be from her death or how close the firemen are to saving her.

 

Later in 1903 ‘the Great Train Robbery’ was shot. Like ‘life of an American Fireman’ it followed the action as the development of drama continues but for the first time shot variation was used as at the end instead of having the classic long shot a medium shot was used as a man shots a gun towards the camera. This would bring fear to the people sitting in the crowd because they would never of seen a shot like this and may of thought they are about to be shot themselves! 12 years after ‘Life of an American Fireman’ and ‘The Great Train Robbery’ a full length silent film called ‘Birth of a Nation’ was shot and directed by D.W Griffin. He tested the boundaries many things such as shot variation as he included a lot of close ups, intercutting as he created flashbacks and match cuts with seamless editing. Griffin was beginning to use many techniques of classic Hollywood editing.

 

The rules of classic Hollywood editing were finally created. The use of establishing shots to introduce your audience to their settings which would create the story and give a certain vibe of the setting depending on what genre of film it is, seamless editing so that the audience were barley unaware of change and many more techniques were part of the ‘Classic Hollywood’ editing, this would be used if someone was turning round or opening a door and they used 2 or more shots to show this without making it look obvious there is a difference. Despite these being the unwritten film rules a film named ‘Breathless’ was made. Breathless is a 1960 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It was one of the earliest, most influential of the French New Wave. It broke the rules of jump cuts as it jerked between shots making the film look messy and unedited. It was a confusing film for the audience to watch with no establishing shots at the beginning of scenes and the rule of 180 degree being broken; this meant that cars looked like they were coming from one direction then the other when in fact they were going the same way, this would be called poor screen direction in today’s editing world and it would not happen.