Working to a Brief
by Joshua Norris
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a brief is “a set of instructions given to a person about a job or task”. In the media industry, a brief is almost always given to a production team from the client regarding the work they are commissioning. There are several different types of brief, and we will cover them over the course of this essay.
Types of Brief
The first brief we’ll cover is the contractual brief; often one that springs to mind when you think of briefs and commissioned work. In this form of brief, the production team and the company have to sign a legally binding document - a contract. This may restrict the production team artistically and creatively, but it does mean that the client will also have to follow legal guideline. If the production team is knowledgeable about their rights then if anything goes awry with how they are treated by the client then the production team can sue - and vice versa.
The image above is an example of a contractual brief. We can tell because the language of the document is legalistic and incredibly formal. There is also contact information for both parties and a required signature by both parties, too. This shows that it is contractual, as the document would become legally binding.
Secondly, we get formal briefs. Formals briefs are presented in an eloquent and legal manner, but they are not legally binding/based. The rules and requirements are strict but this can also be a blessing to the production team as they know exactly what the client wants from them. They would usually be presented in the form of a document, either digital or paper.
Informal briefs are - you guessed it - the polar opposite of formal briefs. They have few rules/regulations and can often be a simple discussion between friends. Naturally, due to the casual nature of this form there are very little rules for both client and production team, and no contract is written/signed.
Cooperative briefs are where two or more production teams work together to complete the client’s demand. As there are several production staff/crews hired at once, more often than not the actual brief will be formal or contractual in nature in order to deal with the coordination of several teams/filmmakers.
Negotiated briefs are where a decision on the expectations from the client are discussed and decided upon by the production team and the client. This might then be presented in a formal, contractual style thereafter, as to reflect the decisions made by the meeting(s).
A commission brief is used when a larger media company hires the production company to create a certain product; the media company will have more control over what goes into the final product, but the profits are usually split between all parties involved.
A tender brief is where the company announces what they are looking for, and then various production teams pitch what they have in mind (and for how much money), and then the client will choose their favourite from the candidates. These pitches will include budgets, risk assessments, everything that helps convince the client to choose the team. We can tell the image on the right is a tender brief because it is asking for respondents to the brief. The fact they’re asking for several respondents, not one (as would be the case with contractual or informal) shows us that they are putting it up for tender.
How to Read a Brief
It’s hugely important to read the brief thoroughly, as if you just skim through it then you might miss important information regarding your work and potentially not get paid if you miss things out in the production. This becomes doubly important for contractual work, as a breach of the contract could subject you to legal trouble. If you do read the brief through and through, then you are more likely to produce something that the client is happy with.
First of all, you need to recognise the demands of the client. This could be easily spelled out for you in formal or contractual briefs, or it may be harder to discern when you receive an informal brief. It all comes down to how the client presents the brief and how easy it is to interpret.
A good place to start is by figuring out what priority the client holds each goal in. For example, if the client has stressed in the brief that the film needs to include an actor of a certain ethnicity or age, then it's obvious that you will need to focus on that. A large part of assessing the demands of a client is how they say things, not just what they're saying (this applies hugely in informal briefs, as you don't have a document for reference).
The nature of the brief is something that will often impact how you read it. For example, a negotiated brief is something in which you should be fine to read as you have already negotiated the expectations and demands from the client to yourself. This is a huge contrast to informal briefs because (as I mentioned) a lot of the time you don’t have a document to refer to.
Negotiating a Brief
First of all, you will want to discuss the brief as much as you can with the client before production starts in order to make sure you don’t get anything wrong. This information-gathering will also help you get even more of a feel for what it is the client demands; having heard it potentially face-to-face you’ll have a much clearer idea.
The level of client consultation on a project will vary depending on both your relationship with the client, how involved they are looking to get in the project, and finally what sort of brief you’ve been handed. First of all if you’re working on a cooperative brief, then your personal communication with the client might be smaller as you’ll also be having to put up with the other production teams and their own communication with the client. Whereas if you’ve been given an informal brief, you might be talking more with the client in order to gather their approval or disapproval on certain ideas you might have.
After that, it comes down to the client themselves. Are they happy to leave you to work, or are they looking to take a more hands-on role? This will naturally affect your consultation with them as they will be more willing to answer your questions and/or suggestions. You just have to decide based upon their manner and enthusiasm how much communication you have.
Discretion with suggesting amendments is something you’ll certainly need to bear in mind; is the client set in their ways and not showing any signs of changing the idea, or do they seem more open and flexible to change? Again, however, the type of brief always plays a part. With an informal brief you will probably be able to suggest the amendment easily, whereas with a contractual brief it would be difficult to say the least. If you are discreet with your suggestions, then you might have more room and time to be creative with your production. However, if you are overly discreet then you may find yourself leaning away from what the client demands; you need to have a certain level of communication in order to prevent yourself from straying off-track.
Opportunity
Naturally, you need to be able to assess what you are getting out of the brief. This could be new skills, for example. If a client is looking to hire you for some underwater shooting (and you’ve never done it before), then you would naturally look to pick up this skill during the role (and then add that skill to your resume). The clearer the brief, the more easily you can figure out what opportunities you will obtain from it. A formal brief would be a lot clearer than an informal brief, for example.
Secondly learning to multi-skill is also a huge help; instead of being paid for just one job role, what if you got paid for two? If you’re able to work both as an editor and an assistant director, for example, then you could potentially multi-skill both roles with the production and get paid for both roles as a result of your hard work. Being able to multi-task is a very useful tool of modern-day video professionals.
Finally you’ll want to think about the opportunities for working with others. If this is the biggest project you’ve worked on, and you know that there’ll be a lot of professionals there who have worked on much bigger productions than you have, you need to realise that them being there is a huge opportunity for yourself. You can network with these people and potentially get future work from this network you create. Aside from networking, you could also look to learn new skills from the other crew. If you know there’s a respected professional for their work with animals, for example, you might look to learn the tips and tricks from them directly.
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