1. Working to a Brief
LO1
Name

2. Contractual Brief
Definition
This kind of contract is where a media company signs an agreement to complete a specific
task, by a specific time for a specific fee. Everything is pointed out and the project must
run exactly according to the contract. It is important that you read the contract carefully
before signing it so that you are not agreeing to do anything that you do not want to or
cannot achieve. If either party does not stick to what was agreed in the contract then
they will be found in breach of contract and could face legal action such as being sued.
Advantages
• You will know everything that will happen during the course of the project, and if you
stick to it, you will have proof that could support you.
• You know what you are and aren’t allowed to do so essentially, you cant lose.
Disadvantages
• It doesn’t leave much leeway for creativity.
• If you don’t read it properly you could do something slightly wrong and be held to legal
action.

3. Formal Brief
Definition
This kind of contract is where a client provides a media company with a brief that simply
establishes the product that they want to be made; it only contains the necessary
information that you will need to complete the project. You would need to meet up
with the client in order to discuss anything that is not mentioned in the contract. Both
of the parties will formally agree on the project however, this kind of brief is not always
legally binding and therefore such serious action might not be taken if either party went
against their word.
Advantages
• If there is not such serious legal action potentially binding then you will be able to do
certain things that are not in the contract and not be held in breach of contract.
• There is a lot of leeway for creativity here.
• If you can sit down with the client and discuss all aspects of the brief then you will feel
comfortable with what you can and cannot do.
Disadvantages
• This contact type only contains the bare bones and this could sometimes result in the
client responding to your work in a negative way if it was not what they imagined.

4. Informal Brief
Definition
An informal brief is most likely to be a verbal agreement. There is no written or
documented contract involved in this process. The client and the company will
discuss and agree on the project and what they want from it. There will not always
be a set completion date.
Advantages
• This kind of brief leaves the project open for you to do almost whatever you want
with it.
Disadvantages
• This type of brief can sometimes be risky because there is no contract involved, so
there are no set-in-stone guidelines as to what you can and cannot do.

5. Co-Operative Brief
Definition
This is where two or more production companies are hired to work on a specific brief
together. If there is a disagreement between the two companies then there would
have to be a negotiated brief introduced and submitted to conciliate both of the
companies involved.
Advantages
• The work for the project can be split between two companies.
Disadvantages
• Disagreements between the two companies that are involved are likely.
• You may have to compromise some of your original ideas in order to please the
other company and the client.

6. Negotiated Brief
Definition
If there are two or more media companies working on a brief together and they
disagree and/or have conflicting ideas regarding the project then they would have
to negotiate that brief. The negotiation brief would be there to change the original
brief in order to please the two production companies and also the client.
Disagreements could be on anything from the visual style, content, presentation or
even ensuring that the project and the finished product stay within the boundaries
of legal, ethical or regulatory obligations.
Advantages
• If you are having problems with the other company they can be sorted out in an
official way that will be contracted and cannot be broken.
Disadvantages
• You will have to compromise your original ideas in order to work well with the
other company.

7. Commission Brief
Definition
This kind of brief is where a large media company hires an independent, and most likely
smaller, media company to create a product for them. The brief will be negotiated
between the two companies rather than the client deciding exactly what will happen on
the project. After the project has reached completion, then the finished product may
be used by the larger media company for another external client. The independent
production company will be paid for making the product and may receive part of the
product’s profit when it is released for public consumption.
Advantages
• If you receive profit every time the product is sold, broadcast or published (depending
on the product) then the money would be constant and of a good level.
Disadvantages
• Your product could be sold on to another company and they could then take some of
the credit for the product that you or your company created.

8. Tender Brief
Definition
This is where a client publishes a media product that need to be made for their
company, on a global or a local scale. They can do this by placing an advertisement
in a publication or on television. A production company will then create a brief,
proposal and a budget that will then be pitched to the client. There could be
several production companies that do this to try and claim the project for
themselves. The client will then decide on the best proposal and idea and will offer
the project to that production company. The brief for the ‘Recipe Cards’ project
could be considered a tender brief.
Advantages
• You can decide what you would like to do for the project as long as you stick to the
main focus of the product that has to be made in the end.
Disadvantages
• It may be difficult to think of a brief and a proposal for an already set product.

9. Competition Brief
Definition
This kind of brief is created by the client and then made available to all participating
production companies. Each company will complete the brief. All completed projects
made by the production companies are the judges and the best is awarded the project
or has their project published. The client will only have to pay the company that wins
the competition brief, that is if they choose to pay anyone at all; it is acceptable for
them to not pay anyone for their work if it is stated before hand. The brief for the
‘Recipe Cads’ project could also be considered a competition brief.
Advantages
• You are completely free to make whatever you want, you can be creative and make a
unique project/idea.
• You can decide on all aspects of the project yourself.
Disadvantages
• There is a possibility that you will not get paid for your efforts.
• There is a decreased chance of winning, the more companies that enter, so your efforts
and work could just be disregarded.

10. My Brief
Which structure/structures will the Vegetarian Recipe Cards brief use?
Reference your reasons for choice/choices
The Vegetarian Recipe Cards project brief could be considered a tender brief and also
a competition brief.
It has aspects of a tender brief because The Vegetarian Society has stated that they
want a set of 8 vegetarian recipe cards. As the production company, I know the
product that I have to create but it is up to me how I approach and execute the
project.
Where as the project has many aspects of the tender brief, the overall idea could be
described as a competition brief because everyone who is taking part in the
project and creating the recipe cards is competing to have theirs published by The
Vegetarian Society.

11. Reading the Brief
Why is important to thoroughly read your brief?
You should read the brief thoroughly and carefully so that you know what is fully expected of you
throughout the course of this project. You can also identify the nature and the demand of the
brief.

12. Reading the Brief
What is the nature and demand of the Vegetarian Recipe Cards brief?
The nature of the brief is what has been asked of you, what the final product is etc. It is important
to know the nature of the brief so that you can create the product by sticking precisely to the
guidelines.
The demand of the brief is things such as time constrains, man power needed etc. Demands are
useful to know because they can tell a company for example, how many people they will
need on their team to stick to deadlines etc. and how much work each person should be
doing to achieve the work by a certain time.

13. Negotiating a Brief
Why is it important to discuss the brief with your client prior to production?
Whatever type of brief you are given, it is important to discuss the brief with the client. It is
important because this is your chance to raise any concerns about the project and offer
ideas towards the project to make it better on a whole. You can use this discussion time to
‘green light’ ideas, in other words make sure that any ideas you might want to contribute to
the project will be allowed and approved. If you just put your own ideas into the project
without discussing them with the client then your project will not match the original brief
and the project will be wrong and not match.

14. Negotiating a Brief
What are the advantages and disadvantages of employing discretion with a brief?
Advantages
• You could do all of your work without a distraction.
• Information that has been supplied by the brief may be vague so you can interpret it in a
creative way to make the end product better.
• You can try/add new and interesting things that might make the end product better.
Disadvantages
• The client could give you bad feedback on your ideas and this could cause you to lose faith in
your idea.
• Adding your own ideas could sometimes compromise or conflict the brief and the client
could hold you in breach of contract.

15. Negotiating a Brief
Are there any potential legal/ethical/regulatory issues with the brief’s proposed product?
There are constraints of a brief that could affect how you execute the project:
• Legal/ethical – You need to look at any laws that may apply to the brief, the end product and
the process of production. The laws could be to do with, copyright, Intellectual
property, privacy laws, race, discrimination. There may also be some government acts that
you would have to look at. For example, making the recipe cards may include us looking at
the Health and Safety Act 1974 to evaluate the way that we are telling people how to cook
things so they do not get harmed while doing so.
• Regulatory – We will have to consider some regulatory bodies regarding the brief such as the
ASA (Advertising Standards Agency,) and some governmental regulations. The ASA have some
rules to do with food and food production; they say that you can not advertise harmful ways
to do things, especially to children. This could come in handy with the Recipe Cards project I
were to base the series of cards on children’s food.

16. Negotiating a Brief
Amendments you have considered to;
The Product
The final product may need changing due to the fact that it is too ambitious or not quite what the
brief requested. There may not be enough time to finish what you wanted to do. The product
may also have to be changed due to the it breaking a law, regulation of governmental act.
The Budget
Changes to the budget will often be due to not having enough money to complete what has been
briefed or requested. If this is the case, then the budget will have to be decreased, or the
project will have to be downsized to say within the budget.
The Conditions
The brief will state the fee that the production company will be paid due to completion of the
project. This may need to be changed if the company gets paid too much or too little for what
has been briefed. If the contract has already been signed without making the change then it
will be most likely that the company will be paid the original amount as it is very hard to try
to get paid extra if the project were to overrun.

17. Opportunities
What opportunities could this brief allow you to explore?
Self Development
This project could help me develop skills such as my cooking skills, my graphic design skills and also
writing large essays and chunks of writing.
Learning new skills
This project will teach me new skills such as writing copy for all of the paperwork that I will be doing.
Multi-skilling
During this project I will have to perform several different tasks all at once, I will have to do the graphic
design for the recipe cards, the copy of all the paperwork, the photography and also the creation of
the recipes and food. Hopefully, this will help me to gain time management and workload
management skills.
Contributing to a brief
Because the brief is quite broad and vague, I would have a lot of scope to do whatever I want. I will
come up with an idea for 8 vegetarian recipe cards that will have a theme across them such as
vegan and vegetarian cakes, or vegetarian children’s food. I will then present my idea to my tutor, (I
would present the idea to the client if I were a production company,) then if the idea is good
enough and OK’d, I will go ahead and begin making my recipe cards.