Scenario: You have been asked by an educational provider to write a report to be issued to a selection of students who have enrolled in a short course looking at potential career pathways for budding screenwriters. The provider has requested that you cover some key areas in a clear and logical manner relating to job roles and organisations within the commissioning process, alongside the expectations and legal/ethical considerations a writer must engage with in industry.
TASK
The assignment will take the form of written report, separated into three sections. Each section should clearly explain the sub headed areas, supporting a full exploration of the writer’s role in the commissioning process. Where possible, clear examples should be provided to support/illustrate material, and subject terminology should be used consistently and accurately. Include some visual material when appropriate (e.g. images that highlight points made about visual components, referenced within the body of the text).
WRITING FOR TELEVISION AND VIDEO
A written report on job roles and organisations within the commissioning process, alongside the expectations and legal/ethical considerations a writer must engage with in industry.
Section 1 - Commissioning
Job Roles:
Commissioning editors - often the senior editors responsible for selecting programme ideas and responsible for allocating funds. They often specialize in one specific genre and have creative input and oversee the writing process through production.
Producers - oversees all aspects of the production that doesn’t fall under the remit of the director (financial, legal, admin etc.). A producer may originate a project, pitch, organise and finance it and then attach it to a particular writer to develop.
Directors - responsible for taking the ideas and the script, as well as being responsible for pulling it all together. The provide the overall creative vision from which the editors can work from. They interpret the script how they see it working (a writer often has little to no control over this). An example of a director is Steven Spielberg, whose filmography is vast and numerous.
Script editors - edit scripts using analysis skills to identify problems, but don't create solutions. They help to strengthen and develop screenplays, providing a critical overview of the scriptwriting process.
Agents - find work for their clients and organise contracts, as well as negotiate appropriate deals. They build relationships with industry decision-makers and support and guide writers' careers.
Writers - are responsible for research and developing an engaging narrative. They write the screenplay to meet the brief in the appropriate format, sometimes working in teams.
Commissioning Bodies:
Corporations - definitely speaking, they are large companies or a group of companies authorized to act as a single entity and recognized as such in law. In the media industry, you will come across these corporations or companies that fall under single ownership of larger corporations, called conglomerates. They have complete ownership of all stages of production (funding, production, marketing, distribution, and in some cases exhibition). Examples of these corporations would be conglomerates such as Disney, Viacom and Time Warner Inc.
Independent production companies - these are not tied to any other company or grounded by ownership of another, thus they are independent. Examples of independently owned production companies would include Domino Recording Company, an independently owned British record label.
Independent directors - much like independent companies, they work on their own and are often hired by companies and act as freelance workers.
Organisations - there are also a number of organisations that are set up to assist prospective writers to kick-start a career in media. Examples include the BBC Writers Room, Good in a Room and the BFI Film Academy. The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain supports writers across media including film, online, radio, theatre, TV and video games.
Competitions - there are numerous screenwriting competitions available for entry with cash prizes. For example, the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting and Austin Screenwriting Competition - there is a proven track record of writers who have sold scripts, gotten representation, and launched their careers based on winning these screenwriting contests. In the UK FilmFreeway run three competitions, with all winners since 2013 being in pre-production or production, with some winning awards.
Section 2 - Working As A Writer
Professional presentation - as a writer, you must ensure you produce work using the industry accepted formatting standards. Films, TV, radio etc are all formatted to different requirements. Even something as basic as font used and size are crucial e.g. producers use the length of scripts to determine the length of films.
Agent representation - agents find work for their clients and organise contracts, as well as negotiate appropriate deals. The amount of pay the agent receives is all dependent on how much the client and the agents agree how much the fixed percentage is, which is usually between 10-25%. Some well known publishing companies will not accept clients unless they have an agent to represent them.
Royalty payments - payments that writers will receive from the sales of books and films along with the use of the script. Royalty payments are split up between the writer, the agent, and the producers.
Time management - ensuring time is divided correctly is very important when writing scripts. It is even more important when a script has been commissioned and the writer has to work with a whole team of people that are relying on the script to be done at a certain time. Deadlines must be met, and if a writer fails to meet this, then the whole production process falls behind.
Handing over control - once the script is sold the writer only has the rights that were agreed with the purchaser. Screenwriters are rarely involved in the development of a film. Sometimes they come on as advisors, or if they are established, as a producer. Although many scripts are sold each year, many do not make it into production because the amount of scripts that are purchased every year outnumber the amount of professional directors that are working in the film and TV industry.
Section 3: Legal & Ethical Considerations
Copyright - is a legal right that protects the use of your work once your idea has been physically expressed. You can't copyright an idea, but you can copyright your script. You can take extra steps such as registering it with a bank or solicitor, sending it to yourself special delivery, to prove the piece belongs to you.
Plagiarism - writers have to be very careful about how similar their products are to existing works. Plagiarism covers a spectrum for word for word copying to changing some words, to copying ideas and arguments.
Libel - refers to writing inaccurate and malicious things about an individual, group or business in a written text or a broadcast. Research by writers therefore has to be meticulous, so as not to court legal issues through misinterpretation.
Bias - can become an ethical issue when it comes to writing fiction. It means not being objective when it comes to a situation or topic being discussed or wrote about.
Censorship - the BBFC have strict guidelines about what can and can’t be shown on TV, video, games, radio and film. To make the subject matter appropriate some aspects may need to be cut/censored. This generally revolves around depictions of violence, sex, language, discrimination, drug use – who the audience is and how the material is presented.
Watershed - the point in time after which programmes with adult content may be broadcast. It divides the day into the overnight period where family-oriented programming suitable for children may be aired and where programming aimed at or suitable for a more adult audience is permitted.
Quantitative Research
Quantitative research is the emphasis of empirical data and analysis that has been collected through thorough research on a particular field, hobby or another point of interest. This is usually done with surveys/questionnaires, web analytics, as well as the use of both primary and secondary sources, depending on how the researchers carry out their methods of research.
In the media industry, quantitative research is used to get a general idea as to what a particular audience or demographics likes/dislikes, and how to better create or gear a product towards that desired target audience.
Above: obtained from strategyand.pwc.com’s 2016 Entertainment & Media Industry Trends article, the left-hand side chart illustrates 78% of consumers who subscribed to at least one streaming service. This is an example of quantitative research, and on my part, an example of secondary sourcing.
An example of quantitative research would, of course, be the use of pie charts, graphs and other visual representational summaries of a preference or opinion. Simple yes or no answers would apply, or even a ‘do you prefer x or y’ option without the need for explanation. This questionnaire, for example, would apply to the simple yes or no criteria:
Though an extreme example, the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign of then-leading GOP candidate, Donald J. Trump, saw numerous collection of quantitative data by the media and data collection agencies, to better report on the current state of the public and policy positions of candidates.
The survey above was used by the Trump campaign to sample supporters and voters’ opinions on the mainstream media’s coverage of the Trump campaign, and was used as a political tool to show they were being treated unfairly, thus gaining them more sympathy and support, to help push their narrative and lead to an eventual win.
Sticking strictly of the media industry however, why would one want to utilise quantitative research? There can be a number of reasons, and these can even apply to qualitative research:
Divide an entire market up into different customer segments, thus making it easier to target a specific audience and demographic with a product.
Divide a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways relevant to marketing, such as age, gender, interests and spending habits. This way, demographics can be appropriately identified and targeted.
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is usually described as exploratory research, and can often be attributed to primary sources; however, this is subjective and can be applied to secondary sources too. It is more often or not used to understand more complex and nuanced reasons, opinions or motives on a particular field or subject at the hand of being researched.
As for the media industry, researchers can ask the questions as to what an audience likes and why, giving them a better understanding of their target audience and the demographic, thus making it easier to produce a product that will prove profitable when it enters the market, and receive a warm reception. This effort to better understand human behaviour enables market and production researchers to help prepare a project for the positioning towards a target audience, as they get a taste of their likes and dislikes.
Above: Google Analytics shows online activity by those using Google, and this is used by media researchers to get an idea of a demographics tastes and likes, so that ads may be appropriately distributed online. Though narrowed down, it enables researchers to find out an individual’s variety of tastes, by referencing their search history.
Though perhaps not as logistical as quantitative research, qualitative tends to get down to the nitty gritty of society’s opinions on a brand, product, like or dislike. These can all be obtained from either primary or secondary sources, and there is a plethora of strategies that can be employed to gather qualitative data.
Below: a series of open-ended questions that allows a candidate to give their feelings and opinions on a project they are working on.
The methods of acquiring such data can be done so through “open-ended” questions, which allows the person to answer a question freely in whatever manner he or she chooses. Face-to-face surveys, opinionated questionnaires or even through observational analysis.
Field research can also give the researchers an idea as to what can apply to the product in order help make it relatable, say if you were scouting a location for an advert. Contextual inquiries also allow researchers to better understand where one is coming from when giving the case as to why they like or dislike the thing they are being questioned on.
So why use qualitative research as a method of gathering data? The reasons can be summarised quite simply:
To inquire about a target audience or demographics reasoning as to why they preference what they like, and use this information to better gear a product towards that desired target audience.
Understand where and audience is coming from and perhaps sympathise with their likes and dislikes, so we can the relate to them through the message of the product, and the product itself; what it can do for them.
Audience Classifications & Profiling
Audience is everything. Without it, what is the point of creating a product and putting it out in the market? There must be a thorough examination of one’s target audience before making the product you so wish to make a profit, as well as have the intended impact you want it to have. When it comes to audience, you may want to get to know the following when researching into the demographic of one’s target audience:
Age
Gender
Interests/Hobbies
Religion
Ethnicity
Proximity
Race
Social Class
Family
All these factors can come into play to help narrow down the individual and can be used to narrow down your audience. It enables market researchers and media experts to come to a conclusion as to what they want to proceed on doing.
This website will help in researching target audience and demographics in the UK. These statistics show weekly, monthly and yearly audience viewings. This week's top ten viewed programs on BBC One consists of The Great British Bake Off, as well as Eastenders. The most popular program from this week so far (in the UK) is The Great British Bake Off. Views are at approximately 13,290,000 million.
Based off these statistics, the best programming from August was that concerned with the sports genre, as the Olympics is having its aftermath affect, as well as other programs like Question of Sports making its mark.
In media terms the audience is any group of people who receive or consume a media text. They receive the text via media carriers such as newspapers or magazine, as well as TV, film, radio, internet etc. Audience is a part of the media equation - a product is produced and an audience receives it. TV producers need an audience for their programs, so they can finance them and make more that the audience likes. Advertisers need an audience who will see or hear their adverts and then buy their products.
A media text is planned with a particular audience in mind. They must think of the age, gender and what their interests of their target audience is. The TV audience varies throughout day and night, and both TV and radio broadcast 24/7. How do we know who is listening or watching at any one time? This is where audience research becomes important. A media producer must know who the next potential audience is, and know as much about them as possible.
There are three theories of audience that can apply to help us come to a better understanding about the relationship between texts and audience.
The Effects Model or Hypodermic Model
The Uses and Gratifications Model
Reception Theory
The Effects Model - the consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience. It is normally considered that this effect is negative. Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence. The power lies with the message of the text.
An example would be Fox News and its audience, who appear to a right-wing leaning demographic, mostly made up of seniors. This would appeal to their ideals and beliefs. In addition, the film Child's Play 3 was said to have had an influence on the murder of James Bulger in 1993.
Hypodermic Model - here, the messages in the media text are injected into the audience by the powerful, syringe-like, media. The audience is powerless to resist. Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.
Mein Kampf is an example of a media text being used in order to further a political agenda. In addition, Nazi Germany utilized various propaganda films in order to promote their standards.
The Uses and Gratifications Model - the opposite of the Effects Model. The audience is meant to be active and use the text for itself, not the text using the audience in order to influence them. The audience uses the media texts for personal pleasure and gratification, as well as personal preference. Here the power lies with the audience not the producers. This theory emphasizes what audiences do with media texts - how and why the use them. The audience is free to reject, use or play with the media meanings as they see fit.
