Monday, 23 June 2014

Unit 8 stuffs


Analogue:
Analogue is the broadcasting of encoded audio signals, transmitting sound waves, and video waves showing what colours have to be used, and the brightness of the colour.
The earliest analogue televisions originally used spinning disks with holes imprinted in to scan an image, with another disk to then recreate the image on the television, but since the creation of the Cathode-Ray tube, that spreads or 'writes' the image faster and more efficient than the disk method. Whereas recently more and more people are moving from analogue to mediums such as digital and satellite, with Sky being one of the most popular in the UK. 


On-Demand:
On demand having only recently become popular down to the releases of several on demand internet resources, some of these being ITV player, BBC iPlayer, and 4oD. In 1994 in England a VOD service formed a major part of the Cambridge digital Interactive Television trial- Now known as Virgin Media. These on demand services having recently been promoted by several other platforms such as Xbox and playstation have become one of the most popular forms of viewing media. These services can also be used online to view programmes you may have missed, there footage on the demand services are deleted after several weeks to make more room for new programmes to get uploaded onto the site. By 2006 there were 142 VOD services available in europe, and by 2009 this number had increased to approximately 650, that was mostly down to the increasing popularity of television shows and party because of the lack of time people have throughout weekdays to watch certain shows.


Internet:
The internet has developed over the years from having to use services such as AOL to BT infinity ever since the creation of computers in the 1950's. Several causes for the development of the internet are due to the companies that use it as a medium, for example the company Youtube work entirely over the internet, and other sites such as ebay and amazon for example. The use of the internet has also developed along with itself from being restricted to only using it from computers to now using wifi and 3G to access the internet on mobile devices. Using the internet has also been a popular medium for film and television production studios to sell productions not just to computers and other mobile devices but also on gaming consoles that have begun to partner up with these companies to further push sales and audiences. 

Pay Per View:
The term "pay-per-view" did not come into general use until the late 1980s companies like the american TV stations  HBO and Showtime stated using a pay per view system to make a small amount of extra cash on there wrestling programs with prices ranging from £3.99 to £49.99. Now though this has spread to this UK and channels such as sky box office provide a pay per view service on all big boxing matches. The future if this service is looking good as you can now buy daily subscriptions to sky sports which is the most popular pay per view service in the UK.  Pay per view is where something on television will be broadcasted for a set price and to watch this you would have to buy the channel, the programme is then broadcasted at a set time where you would have to tune in to watch the channel. An example of this would be watching sky box office and buying a film to view that would begin at the same time as everybody else watching it. People in the UK can access pay per view services via cable, satellite and over the internet, with sports covering most of the available programmes as of 2009. 



Shooting on Film 

The first digital cameras were developed in the late 80's and were used only on very high budget productions. Until this time all cameras used film to shoot on. Though today there are many ways to shoot a movie digitially there are still many directors and film companies which prefer the good-old fashioned method of shooting on film. Movies today which are shot on film include Django UnchainedThe FighterThe Master and Lincoln. This proves that film is very much alive and will never be fully replaced by digital as it has the backing and is the chosen method of big directors such as Quentin Tarrentino and Stephen Spielberg.  Cinema goers also have been used to the "film look" and to change to digital would upset that trend. This is similar to the circumstance last year when viewers of The Hobbit complained about the newly introduced 48 fps because it moved from the standard 24 fps.



High definition

 Modern-day HDTV as we know it was started in Japan by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation in 1970.  The JBC in 1980 came up with the concept of which included, among other things, the definition of wide screen format and 1100-line scanning structure which was the basis of HD. After 35 years of development, high definition television is finally available in the consumer marketplace. a 1080p HDTV offers about six times the Quality of a rahular 480p SDTV signal. HDTV also features a wider (16:9) aspect ratio format which is closer to what the human eye sees.  The future of HD is in jerpoady though as the new higher resolution 4K HDTVs will soon take over.  



digital Recorders

As I mentioned earlier the first digital cameras were developed in the late 80's and were used only on very high budget productions and at the time was a revolutionary technology as it cut out so much of the then considered costly and inefficient process of shooting on film. There are disadvantages of shooting digitially for reasons such a you can't achieve the true "film look" that film obviously can and unlike when shooting in film everything has to be backed up after each shot. But the advantages outweigh the disadvantages such as you don't have to wait for the film to be developed and more majorly there is no cost of the film your shooting on. Films such as the hobbit, the hunger games and sky fall are examples of fils shot on digital recording equipment. 






Job roles and working patterns


Job Roles:
Management

Production Managers run productions for  the Producer and the Line Producer. They help to determine the most efficient and economic way to schedule shoots,also to negotiate business deals for crews, locations and technical equipment, and make day-to-day production decisions. They have to be excellent communicators and prepared to work very long hours, and also be able to react calmly under intense pressure. The job is usually quite challenging but well paid, usually on a freelance basis. To gain a job in this sector you must have a lot of experience in the industry.  

Creative

Some examples of creative roles would be directors, script writes and casting directors. These jobs are mostly dedicated to making the film accurate and realistic for the audience, in horror films for example these people are very important as make-up managers would be included as a creative job roll. Directors work for very long intensive hours as they control lots of aspects of production and are involved in all of the film. There are several director roles in every production, there is the Film director, Assistant director and second assistant director.

Editorial

Editorial jobs in the television and media industries mostly include you having to edit and produce productions and publish content, these editorial jobs vastly range throughout industries as they are needed in jobs such as Newspapers, online news and many other productions. When in an editorial job you often work from offices and at home and are expected to wok to deadlines like technical jobs sometimes for journalists and other colleagues, you often co-operate with other groups of people, often research teams. The average salary for somebody with an editorial job is around £25,000 and have entry requirements of a Higher National Diploma.


Technical

Some examples of technical roles in Television and films would be such jobs like sound editors, Foley sound editors, Camera men and really just any technical roles that require techniques as such. These roles would often require you to create products, like certain shots or sounds that would have to produce to the employers specifications, they would often be working on set of a production and co-operating with directors.
The wage for these kinds of jobs start around £23,000 and could go up to £40,000 with working hours typically 9-5 and could be more as deadlines are sometimes set so extra hours would be needed.


Research

Research job roles include Location, cast, audience and production research. These jobs often work along side other jobs in the same industry, an example of this would be people in financial jobs within the industry. Research would often be done in pre production.There are several different types of research that would be requested, quantitative and qualitative, and primary and secondary. People with these jobs would first work for minimal payment or for free before getting a full time job. Freelance and short term contracts are often used for payment. 

Financial

Jobs within this sector would include, accountants or financial management, the wages can vary depending on previous experience, they can go up to 38-45,000 pro rata. These jobs would work along side most of the other roles within the industry, for example some of these jobs would work along side organisational job roles. These roles would require you to constantly watch over the funding of the production, you would be payed per contract for a fixed rate and would have to work for a fixed time. 

Organisational

Directors are the head of all roles in the film industry.  They decide what happens in the film or programme. Sometimes they are assigned a script to follow but they can sometimes write their own which they can change freely. Directors are paid an annual sum of £70,000 on average. Some well known directors are, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan. Producers are also in charge of a lot of job roles, as you can see in the image below. The producers and directors are often involved in most if not all of the jobs under them in the hierarchy. As directors such as Quentin Tarantino do, directors that are involved in every aspect of a production are known as auteurs.


 Admin

Administration roles include such jobs as Marketing managers. These jobs would include having to constantly monitoring the market for any trends, exploring ways of improving existing products and also identifying productions that have been successful. Jobs within this sector would regularly work with researchers on a regular basis, they would mostly work from an office or at home for on average 37 hours a week. The average salary for an administration job is £25-30,000. These jobs often require training, and the qualifications needed for these jobs are usually a higher national diploma, or a degree.

Working patterns:

Shift work

This is where someone would be given a select shift- time period to work in. These shifts are divided up into day, and night shifts. Some Jobs within the media industry that are based on shift work would be mostly administration jobs. Advantages to doing a shift job is that the employee behind the job will turn up at a set time and leave at a set time, making the job easy to control.

Fixed Term:
Fixed term working patterns are where an employee works to a specific contract that both starts and ends at a particular time. there are several special rules for being on a fixed term contract. The jobs that often would be on a fixed term contract would be research jobs, as film studios would often hire somebody to research for example the geo demographics of a specific films audience. The advantages of this are that as an employer you know exactly what you are going to get at the end of the term therefore making it a very safe way of collecting primary information. 

Office hours:
Office hours are the hours of which business would normally be conducted,9-5. jobs within the media that go on office hours would be Administration and research jobs, with specific roles being marketing design and direction and product improvement. With the marketing working in conjunction with the research team, working with focus groups and then improving the products marketing campaign.

Freelance:

A Freelancer doen't work from 9-5, as they can spend their own allotted time on a project. jobs within the media are not set hours and take a long time to complete,examples of these jobs would be editors. People on freelance will often be set a deadline for the completion date and will do the job in their own time for a set fee upon the jobs completion. 

Hourly rates:
The hourly rates depend on what job it is; an example of this would be that a cameraman gets payed £23.84 an hour, the minimum amount being £10.05 and the maximum amount £39.71. The hours you would normally do as a cameraman would alternate depending on the filming times and often work long shifts covering days and nights. 

Piece work:

piece work is when someone makes a piece of work and gets paid for it. this work takes as long as it takes to complete. An example of this would be set design. Piece work would often include signing a contract with a set deadline and payment with the employee working in their own time as long as they can just 

Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Understanding Developing technology

Analogue:
Analogue is the broadcasting of encoded audio signals, transmitting sound waves, and video waves showing what colours have to be used, and the brightness of the colour. 
The earliest analogue televisions originally used spinning disks with holes imprinted in to scan an image, with another disk to then recreate the image on the television, but since the creation of the Cathode-Ray tube, that spreads or 'writes' the image faster and more efficient than the disk method. Whereas recently more and more people are moving from analogue to mediums such as digital and satellite, with Sky being one of the most popular in the UK. 

On-Demand:
On demand having only recently become popular down to the releases of several on demand internet resources, some of these being ITV player, BBC iPlayer, and 4oD. In 1994 in England a VOD service formed a major part of the Cambridge digital Interactive Television trial- Now known as Virgin Media. These on demand services having recently been promoted by several other platforms such as Xbox and playstation have become one of the most popular forms of viewing media. These services can also be used online to view programmes you may have missed, there footage on the demand services are deleted after several weeks to make more room for new programmes to get uploaded onto the site. By 2006 there were 142 VOD services available in europe, and by 2009 this number had increased to approximately 650, that was mostly down to the increasing popularity of television shows and party because of the lack of time people have throughout weekdays to watch certain shows. 

Internet:
The internet has developed over the years from having to use services such as AOL to BT infinity ever since the creation of computers in the 1950's. Several causes for the development of the internet are due to the companies that use it as a medium, for example the company Youtube work entirely over the internet, and other sites such as ebay and amazon for example. The use of the internet has also developed along with itself from being restricted to only using it from computers to now using wifi and 3G to access the internet on mobile devices. Using the internet has also been a popular medium for film and television production studios to sell productions not just to computers and other mobile devices but also on gaming consoles that have begun to partner up with these companies to further push sales and audiences. 

Pay Per View:
Pay per view is where something on television will be broadcasted for a set price and to watch this you would have to buy the channel, the programme is then broadcasted at a set time where you would have to tune in to watch the channel. An example of this would be watching sky box office and buying a film to view that would begin at the same time as everybody else watching it. People in the UK can access pay per view services via cable, satellite and over the internet, with sports covering most of the available programmes as of 2009. 

Monday, 9 June 2014

Ethical, legal and contractual stuffs



Codes of practice,

Codes of practice are rules that workers in a workplace abide too keep up with the standards that you are expected to uphold by the company evolved. For example the BBC have a code of prectice which states that there is no extremely explicit material to be shown before 9.30pm. These codes are agreed between the BBC and the UKTV regulation authority.  These rules are put in place in order to protect the nation from harmful imagery even though at times the regulation authority may take it too far.  


policies, procedures,

All major decisions that are decided within a company are decided by following the policies and procedures. They are more than often kept as filed and documents within the office should anyone be unclear on the rules. for example the BBC The commissioning procedures state that they must look at all new BBC new program applications equially rather than accepting a popular idea. 



social concerns and expectations,

Racism, sexism and general prejudice are issues which are found in every workplace. Many workers are negatively effected by racism and similar discriminative behaviour.  Over the years many acts and regulations  have been established, such as the Race Relations Act of 1976 in order to irradiate all prejudice behaviour in a working environment. 



representation eg; individuals,  

This is how specific items and people are represented in the media an television industries. For instance cigarette advertising has been banned on mainstream UKTV since 1997 in order to protect the public from its dangerous harmful effects. Another main concern of studio executives which hasn't been banned is the advertising of alcoholic drinks. The UKTV regulation authority is very strict about what can be shown and what cant.  When the media decides to show a certain group of individuals eg (deferent races) there are very clear guidelines to follow to insure that those individuals are not represented in a way which they don't like.



religions,

The United Kingdom regulation authority is extremely careful how religious groups are portrayed in the media. UK television channels must stick to the rules and guidelines when a program or advert of theres regards religion in any way. For example When the archbishop of Canterbury speaks on the news or on national television what he says will be very strictly monitored to insure that he does not offend and members of other religions. When any religious figures are shown on Tv may steps and procedures are taken make sure that all thats said is in keeping with what members of other religions would call 
respectful.
Race Relations Act 1976 (and later amendments);

This was created by the parliament of the United Kingdom to help prevent discrimination on the grounds of races and ethnicities. Items covered under this act are races, ethnicities, and national origins in the context of employment, the provision of goods and services, education and public functions. The race relations act also helped establish the Commission of Race equality that allowed the view to review the legislation, that was created to make sure people were following the race relations act.
This act uses the previous race relations’ act from 1965 and the race relations’ act from 1968, then later being amended by the Race relations act of 2000. Thus creating a duty on public bodies and employees to promote race equality and demonstrate these procedures that aim to prevent race discrimination effective, further advertising the act preventing race discrimination.
This act has been recently replaced by the equality act as of 2010, thus consolidating previous laws against discrimination in the UK.

Broadcasting Act 1990 (and later amendments);

This broadcasting act is a law created by the British parliament, and is often said by critics and supporters as a quintessential example of Thatcherism.  The primary objective of this act was to rein form the complete structure of British broadcasting. That had recently been described by Margret Thatcher as the ‘Last bastion of restrictive practices. The act came about after the findings from the Peacock committee. This broadcasting act in television allowed the creation of a fifth analogue television channel in the UK, that is now known as channel 5, and acted as a catalyst for multichannel satellite television. As for its impact on radio is allowed the launch of three independent national radios stations and began planning the idea of community radio stations that were developed in the 2000’s.

Obscene Publications Act 1959 (and later amendments);

This act was a product of an act of parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament. Before this act was published the laws on creating obscure material was governed by the common law case created by R v Hicklin, of which had no intentions for artistic merit or public good. After several failed submissions of a new draft for the bill through parliament, a viable bill was finally introduced to parliament by on Roy Jenkins, and after being given the royal assent on July 29th 1959, the obscene publications act came into play. This act created a new offence for publishing obscure material thus repealing the offence of obscene libel that had previously been used and also allowed the Justices of peace to issue warrants for the police to seize such materials.
At the same time this created two different defenses for the laws, the defense of innocent dissemination and the defense of public good. This act has come into play in several high profile cases, including the trials of penguin books for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Oz for the Schoolkids OZ issue.

British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)

The BBFC, or the British board of film Classification, also known originally as the British board of film censors is a non-governmental organization. Funded by the film industry and made responsible for the classification of films that have been produces and shown in the UK. Its main requirement is to classify videos, DVDs and to a smaller extent, video games s of the Video Recordings act of 2010. The company is financed from the fees it gains from charging films and videos and is a non-profit company.

Monday, 10 February 2014

Ownership and funding in TV and Film

Non Disclosure agreement:
Also known as a confidentiality agreement is a legal contract between at least two parties that highlights confidential material, knowledge or information that the parties would like to share for some reason, and to restrict access from third parties. The agreement keeps the information confidential, A non disclosure agreement would often be signed by two companies when they need to understand each others business. Employees often sign non disclosure agreements with employers preventing the employees from giving away company owned information or material. 


Code of Practice:
A code of practice is a set of guidelines and rules that are followed by members of some profession. These do not normally have the force of the law behind them. The code was made by an agreement between the BBC and ofcom due to clauses 5K.5, and 13C of the BBC agreement, the intention of thus code is to make sure that there is a thriving independent supply market. the code also shows that the BBC have a role to help and support independent production survey. 




Health and Safety at work:
The health and safety at work act was made in 1974, also referred to as the HSWA is the primary piece of  legalisation for health and safety in Britain. the main function of this is to maintain health and safety in the workplace. Because of this lots of things will have been changed in the workplace, and example of this would be having to use specified chairs for office workers to prevent back ache, and regular breaks in office jobs to prevent headaches from computer glare. 



Equality Act:
Made in 2010 this act legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace, and also in wider society. The introduction of this one act replaced all existing laws on discrimination, as before the act there were several different laws for discrimination,the sex discrimination act (1975), Race relations act (1976) and the disability discrimination act. The act sets out the different ways in which it is unlawful to treat someone. 

https://www.gov.uk/equality-act-2010-guidance

Employers Liability act:
The Employers liability act was made in 1969, and it's main function is to give an employer a minimum amount of insurance against employees if they believe that the employer should be sued if they have had any injuries or illnesses that may have been caused by the workplace that could be blamed on the employer. This act allows the employer to meet the amount of compensation but whereas if the accident would relate to a motoring then the cost would be down to their motoring insurance. There is another act like this that is virtually the same apart from the fact that this covers the public and other businesses, this is known as public liability insurance.  



Trade Union:
A trade union is an organisation that is usually full of members that are workers  or employees. Trade unions main functions are to negotiate pay and conditions, discuss changes, like redundancy, discussing concerns with employers. To join a trade union you can ask a union representative about joining. If the union rep allowed you to join you would have to fill in a membership form to complete. When in a union you would have to pay a membership subscription to pay for the union work. 


Intellectual Property:
Intellectual property is where someone would get exclusivity over certain creations. This gives people exclusivity over things such as musical, literary and artistic work. The more common types of this are trademarks, industrial design rights and trade secrets. Intellectual Property was first grated legalised power in 1867 when the North German Federations constitution legalised power of Intellectual property. 





Copyright:
Copyright is a legal concept, that is used by almost all governments. Copyright gives the creator of a certain piece work exclusive rights for the use, and distribution of their work, giving the creator of the work the chance to financially earn from their own work before other people can use it for their own use. An example of this would be a photographers picture that they would use for money, before allowing other people to use it. Copyright was first sought after following the invention of printing press as the thought of people copying books and selling them as their own was unfair for the original creator. 
Similar to trademarks copyrighting can lead to legal action if a product is used or copied without permission from the original creator. 
In some cases having the copyright symbol on company logo can help the company when it comes to profit and customers as it can make the company look more prestigious because of the money it costs to pay for services such as copyright and trade marks. 




Trade Marks:
A trade mark is what you can use to distinguish your product from your competitors, preventing other companies from copying your branding and/or products. Common trade marked items would be logos, mottos and titles. The only way to register a trademark is by getting in contact with the Intellectual Property office. Other than protecting your products bigger companies such as Nike and Adidas use their logo as a marketing tool so that customers can recognise the brand.
Registering your products for a trade mark gives you several advantages such as: 
It will put other people off using your trademark without your permission.
It makes it much easier for you to take legal action against anyone who does use it without your permission. 
It allows Trading standards officers or the police to use criminal charges against counterfeiters that use your trademark. or licence it allowing other people to use it as you please. 
Trademarking means that it is your property, therefore allowing you to sell it to who you please.