Up & Down Photography

Fashion Photographer

Terry Richardson is a Fashion Photographer working for himself on a free-lance contract. On his CV, Richardson has worked for Marc Jacobs fashion designer, ALDO, and Tom Ford. This is a dream job for me, as I am passionate about photography and would love to be a fashion photographer.

To become a fashion photographer, Richardson would have studied and NVQ, SVQ, BTEC, or have an apprenticeship in photography, as well as having had gained good experience and inspiration in photography working as an assistant for a photographer, also having great organisation skills, knowledge of business, having good communication skills, giving big attention to details, be ambitious and self-confident.

To get to where Terry is today, he would have networked, self promote himself through social networking sites and broadcasting his portfolio through the internet, and also worked as an assistant for established photographers in order to gain valuable experience and learn.

 

Entertainment Journalist

Giuliana Rancic is an Entertainment Journalist who works for E! Network television channel, presenting as an anchor for their celebrity personality news updates. Giuliana has a contract with E! that permits her to work shift-hours.

Rancic has various skills acquired for this certain role, including having good communication skills, the strong ability to enthusiastially tell stories and entice people in them, great time keeping skills and good general writing skills. Beside the general and transferable skills, Giuliana would have studied a degree in journalism, or a BJTC accredited course.

To acquire this job role of presenting, she would have networked with various TV personalities, and made useful contacts through going to university.

 

Director of Photography

Peter Thornton is a Director of Photographer (DoP) currently working on Hollyoaks television show, this is my dream career route. Peter Thornton has a free-lance contract, though has a full-time job role on the Hollyoaks TV set.

To become a Director of Photographer, Thornton studied an MA in Cinematography, and Level 3 Photography. As well as these qualifications, he needed to have skills such as good understanding and technical knowledge of cameras in general, know various lighting techniques, have an artistic vision, hold the ability to give and recieve specific directions, have great communication skills and be aware of all health and safety regulations whilst on set.

Peter was recruited for this particular role on Hollyoaks by networking and self promoting himself on the internet, by putting his portfolio and CV online.
Also, Thornton would have worked his way up in this job role, firstly assisting other photographers in order to gain experience and become confident in the job itself.

What kind of jobs are availible?

Professional Working Practices in the workplace are a set of official rules that all employees have to strictly obey in order to ensure that they will not be misleading, harming or offending any members of the public viewing audience.

Technical jobs in the creative media indsutry involve setting up and operating the equipment recquired, ensuring that all things for the production are done in the quality expected.

– Lighting Technicians work on a freelance contract, earning around £30K a year, depending on what media production they worked on.
A Lighting Technicians main responsibilties on the job include properly lighting the filming set to who the director requires it, recquiring good communciation with collegues, and also ensuring that all of the equipment used is kept clean and in a working order, setting up lighting before a shoot starts, and testing the equipment. Obviously, thses responsibilties would change depending on what particular set the lighting technician is working on.
There are various skills and qualifications recquired to work as a Lighting Technician, such as; having the ability to take orders and follow them accurately, have good communication skills so to listen and give feedback to the employer/director, have a creative eye and for details, flexibility is recquired as the job could take a lot of hours work, and also the ability to work in a team.

A lighting technician for example in The Apprentice is Roger Williams, who has also worked the lighting for other productions such as ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘Later with Jools Holland’. Here is a video of the ending credits where Williams himself is credited for his work on the show

– Camera Operators work on a freelance contract, and earn on average £60K annually.
There are various skills and qualifications that are recquired for this particular job role, which include; being able to work within a big team of people, and have good communication skills as the Camera Operator is required to work very closely to the production team in the pre-production process, they need to have very good skills and knowledge on how to work a camera, advanced knowledge on the camera lenses and camera accesories, have a creative mind, and a lot of patience.
A Camera Operators main responsibilties on set whilst filming is to ensure that all equipment is in working order and prepared in time for filming, all shots are creative with good composition, and that everything is in shot of the frame.
To get promoted to a Camera Operator, they would have to gain valuable experience beforehand, such as being an assistant to a Camera Operator, working as a trainee, a Director of Photography, or/and a runner.

Ric Clarke was a camera operator and supervisor on the TV Show ‘The Apprentice’. He is also credited in the video above, as it is the same show. Ric Clarke has also worked on other productions such as ‘The Culture Show’ and ‘Conspiricies’.

– Sound Technicians work on a full-time based contract, which will earn them around £30,000 a year.
The sound technician will obviously set up their equipment required for the job, ensuring that everything is in its proper working order before hand, then capturing audio/editing.

Craig Jager is  ‘sound effect editor’ who worked on Disneys “The Duck Tales” He has also worked on the set of “The Gladiator” Here is a video with him being credited for his work

Creative jobs in the media entail thinking of original creative ideas, and researching that idea to ensure that it will work:

–Model Makers work on a freelance contract, earning on average £30k.
The Model makers are responsible for creating the model props to be used in the actual production, so they have to ensure that it is what the director exactly wants of them to produce.

John Blundall is a model maker for Thunderbirds. He would have made all of the puppets and other props for the production therefore is credited in the credits of Thunderbirds.

Editorial jobs in the media for an example is…
– Script Editor whom work on a freelance contract, which will then earn them £60k a year.
The script editors main responsibility would be ensuring that the script is exactly how the director desires it to be, and making sure it is perfect to send out to the crew in time for the production to take place.

Simlar to Script Editors, a Script Supervisor reponsible for the script on the Thunderbirds was Sylvia Anderson. She is also credited in the credits, in the same video as but in above.

– Director of Photographers (DoP) work on a full-time contract, earning on average around £40-80K a year, depending on the media product they are working on.
The DoP would firsly ensure that all of their required equipment is working properly before starting on set. After this, they would set up their camera on the correct settings (apurture etc) and the lighting is correct in order to take their photos. They would report to the Direcor on the set, who would tell the DoP exactly what styles of shots they want from them.

A Director of Photography who worked on the production of Thunderbirds is John Read. Here is a video of the credits for Thunderbirds where he is credited for his DoP work.

– Public Relations Officers can earn on average £70k, although this would obviously all depend entirely on the type of set and production that they are momentarily working on. The PRO would oversee all of the Health & Safety required to be checked over for the production to take place, obviously keeping within the laws protecting the crew members and also members of the general public.

K.J. Abraham Lincoln was a Public Relations Officer.

-Production Accountant earn £40k whilst working a freelance based contract for the job.
The production accountent is responsible for the productions budget, ensuring that all payments required are being taken care of, and there is enough money left if required to pay for other production problems.

A location accountant who worked on the production of film ‘Golden Eye’ is Jean Meagher. His work is credited here:

A freelance contract is a contract between the employer and employee which will see the employee to be called in to work whenever time is required off of them, so this would mean quite irregular hours apposed to a full-time contract where you would have strict set hours to work from.

A full-time contract is where you have an amount of set hours to work for (For example 8am-7pm every weekday). The pay for full-time contracts are inevitably slightly more than a freelance contract as it is a stable job, and more hours are most likely to be more time-consuming on a full-time job.

Shift work is where you actually have set hours, yet it isn’t quite full-time jobs. Because of this, the pay would be significantly less.

Voluntary jobs are completed, yet the employee would have no pay for successfully doing this work. Voluntary jobs are great for experience, therefore vital if you are only just starting out in the harsh media industry.

How The Creative Media Sector is Structured

Within the creative media industry, there are various different sectors which include; TV, Film, Radio, Music, Print, and the Web.

The TV (television) sector includes all of the individual channels we watch, which broadcast different programmes to all of its viewers. There are public service broadcasters (PSB) which intends to be for the public viewers benefits, rather than the commercial side. A big PSB channel, for instance, is the BBC (British Broadcasting Channel), whose broadcasting is funded by TV Licence frees.

I have researched into companies within this media sector, with the first one being ITV.
The television broadcasting company ITVplc is one of the largest commercial channels in the United Kingdom, broadcasting programmes via their channels (ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV and +1 channels) and also providing content to the public online, allowing them to catch-up on their programmes, and also enter competitions.
The vast majority of ITVs revenue, unlike the BBC, comes from advertising on their channels, whilst also recieving more income from call-in competitions and voting shows, and sponsorships. This income would be split up, and given to each section of the ITV company to be spent on their productions, and online website.
There are a number of key people working for ITV plc, including Archie Norman who is the chairman and has been since January 2010. He works alongside the chief executive, Adam Crozier, working in this position since April 2010. ITV has been broadcasting since the year of 1955, which was soon after commercial broadcasting was actually first made possible in the UK in 1954.

Viacom International Media Network company own TV channels such as ComedyCentral, MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1. As well as these television channels, Viacom also own Paramount Pictures Corporation which gives its viewers access to film productions popular amongst young teenagers with Nickolodeon Movies.
The main key people in Viacom are Sumner M. Redstone who is the executive chairman and also the founder, working with Shari Redstone who is the vice chair of the board, and also Phillpe Dauman who is the chief executive officer.
Viacom was founded in the year of 1975 first establishing itself as a public company collaborating with Columbia Broadcasting System Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.

Another company within the TV sector is Channel Four Television Corporation which is a publicly owned media company owned by OFCOM, and was founded in the year of 1982.
Channel Fours key people include Lord Burns who is the chairman, and also David Abraham who is the CEO.
Aswell as owning television channels such as Channel 4, Film 4, 4Music, 4Seven, E4 and +1 channels, they also provide an online website where viewers can watch programmes and read up on their favourite TV shows.
Channel Four are funded by commercials which are shown on their TV channels, and also on their fore mentioned company website, with advertisements shown on the websites page and during ‘4 on demand’ programme viewings.

The film sector covers film production companies who produce films, DVDs cinematic pictures and short films.

A very well-known company within the film sector is Disney Television Group, which was founded in September, 1995. Disney own media company’s such as The Walt Disney Company, and own The Walt Disney Studios.
A key person working in the Disney Television Group is Anne Sweeney who is the president of the company, and also the co-chair of the Disney Media Network. Vice president of the Disney Television Group is Kevin Brockman, who also works for Global Communications.
Disney Television Group own and broadcast other channels such as Disney Cinematic, Disney XD, Disney Junior, and Disney Channel.

Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. was founded in 1918, with founders Albert Warner, Harry Warner, Sam Warner and Jack Warner. Key people who now currently work for Warner Bros are Barry Meyer who is the chairman, and Jeff Robinov who is the president of the company.
Today, Warner Brothers Entertainment can take credit for producing over 6,650 featured films, around 40,000 television programmes and also an estimated 14,000 animated productions.

Another company is DreamWorks Studios, founded in 1994. Dreamworks was originally founded by director Steven Spielburg who is the principal partner, Jeffery Kalzenburg and David Geffen, with Stacey Snider being a key person within the company, working as a co-chairman.
Dreamworks Studio currently has an ongoing collaboration with Walt Disney Studios which started in 2009, which means Disney will market DreamWorks productions and then publicise their filmsvia company Touchstone Pictures.

The Radio sector includes digital broadcasted radio and online podcasts, with separate categories within this media sector, including the publicly-funded radio, commercial radio, and voluntary radio stations.

One big radio company is Heart, (owned by Global Radio) which is a wide network of 17 local radio stations broadcast throughout the UK.
Heart radio first started broadcasting in September 1994. It was recorded that in September of 2010, Heart Radio grasped an audience of 5.90%

Virgin Radio International  is another radio company owned by the Virgin Media Group, who broadcast to Europe, the North of America, and Asia. They have approximately 30 million listeners in these country’s.
Key people working for Virgin Radio are Ian Grace, who is the company’s president; Mark Fisher being the chief operating officer; Eric Lai who is their financial director; and Geoff Holland who is the programme director.
Virgin Radio Internail was launched in 2001, and now take in the revenue of $150 million annually.

Bauer Media Group own the radio station Bauer Radio. Formerly, this station was owned by EMAP Consumer Media, but was sold to Bauer Media Group in 2008, who then renamed the station ‘Bauer Radio’.
The Bauer Media Group also own other radio stations, such as Kerrang!, Kiss and Magic.
Key people in the Bauer Media Group are Yvonne Bauer, who since 2005 has been working for the group, and since 2010 has full responsibility of the media group company.

The Music sector covers a massive area in the creative media industry, with various record labels, broadcasting music company’s, and downloading online.

EMI Records (Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd) are a record company in Britain, who were founded in 1931. Annually, they bring in a revenue of £1.072 billion. with an estimated 5,500 employees working for them.
Key people within EMI Records are Roger Faxon, who is the company’s chief executive, and Shane Naughton who is the CFO.

Vevo is a is a music entertainment company, who puts music videos online powered, owned and operated by Sony Music Entertainment, Abu Dhabi Media Company, E! Entertainment and Universal Music Group with before mentioned musical entertainment company EMI licensing their content. This public service was formed in December, of 2008.
The videos are viewed in various country’s, servicing the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Brazil, South Africa, France, New Zealand, and Australia.
Vevo have a net income of $150 million. Google and Vevo both share the revenue, which they receive by advertisements on their music videos and website.

Spotify Ltd is a commercial music streaming service which provides it many users with content from a large range of both established and independent record labels, such as Sony, EMI, and Universal.
This musical entertainment company was formed in October of 2008, and now has on average twenty million service users, with around five million of those paying the company on a monthly basis.

The print sector of the creative media industry is the magazine publications.

Condé Nast is a print publication company based in the United States, New York, who were founded in the year of 1909. Key people in Condé Nast are; Charles Townsend who is the CEO, and Robert Sauerburg working as the company’s president, along with many more.
The publication company Condé Nast publishes popular magazines such as Vogue, Teen Vogue, Glamour, GQ, and Vanity Fair.

Bauer Media Group  is a media group working in many sectors in the media industry. In particular, they publish magazines, including titles Bella, Take a Break, Heat, FHM, Zoo, Rail, Empire, Garden News, That’s Life!, TV Choice, Total TV Guide, and many various puzzle and quiz publications.
The Bauer Media Group earn around $2.129 million a year, incoming from their many publications as well as other media products in other media industry sectors.

News International Group Ltd is a print publishing company, owned by News Corporation, who publish newspapers such as The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun. NI Group Limited were founded in February of 1981, with the company’s key people being Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Tom Mockridge.
The News International headquarters are based in London, in the United Kingdom.
News International were undergoing court action due to allegations of a phone hacking scandal, which led to Rebekah Brooks resigning as chief executive of News International.

The Web creative media sector is a big industry, that includes social networking sites, search engines, and computer software.

Facebook is a very popular social networking website which was launched in February, 2004. There are an estimated one billion people who use the social networking service, on their computers and mobile devices.
‘Facebook’ was founded by Mark Zuckerburg whilst he was studying in Harvard University.
Initially, Facebook users was limited to just Harvard students, which then gradually expanded to other colleges, then proceeded to expand, and now is available to anyone over the age of thirteen.
The revenue earned from Facebook is 3.71 billion dollars annually. As the Facebook service is free for its users, it earns it’s income from advertisers, and online gaming where users pay or advantages in the games.

PayPal is another media company based on the internet, which enables its online service users to make and receive payments over the internet, as a modern alternative to the traditional way of making payments.
The company PayPal were founded in the year 1998, in the United States of America, California, by Patrick Dupuis, working with the company’s President, David Marcus.
In the year of 2002, PayPal collaborated with online selling website ‘eBay’, allowing easier and more secure forms of payments for service users whilst paying for items on the eBay website. PayPals annual revenue is on average, 4.4 billion U.S Dollars.

Google is a very popular and well known search engine on the internet, with where you can type words into its search bar and receive it’s results. Google own an advertising company called ‘AdWords’ which provides Google with the majority of their overall profit, with their annual revenue totaling up to $50.17 billion.
The founders of Google are Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with Eric Schmidt working as the executive Chairman. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in the year of 1996 whilst they both attended the University of Stanford, and they now both own around 16% of the company.
The British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) are a big media company, whom own various media products within each separate individual sector. They inevitably have a Trust Unit like many companies, which oversees everything the company does, such as all of the BBCs finances, what they produce, maintenance etc.
The Trust Units offices are mainly based in the city of London (Great Portland Street) with smaller sections of the Trust unit being based in other areas such as Birmingham, Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff. In these offices, around 70 employees work in various categories for the Trust Unit.
The Trust Unit itself is completely separated from the rest of the BBC generally, and this is so they (the Trust Unit) can provide the BBC with great service and advice, and also protect their independence on a whole, and their staff that work for the Trust Unit, meaning that TU employees report only to Trustees, and not any other member of the BBC that is separate from the Trust Unit.

The BBC are a PBS (Public Service Broadcaster) which actually means that they aren’t funded by commercials/advertisements such as for instance how the ITV, Channel 4, Sky are funded, but they get their money from the viewing audience who pay a Licence Fee in order to watch and have access to all BBC services, like TV, Radio and Web services.

Included in the Trust are individual sectors made up of five teams, consisting of the Direction Team, Strategy, Governance, Editorial and Communications.
In brief, the Direction Team generally support the Chairman and also Director in their specific job roles by managing their schedule and giving them appropriate advice. Beside this, they maintain the IT section of the BBC, the accommodations  the training, induction, and business continuity.
Strategy basically keep an overview of anything new in the BBC or changed/improved services, testing them out to ensure that they are suitable to the intended target audience. Also, they check over and take responsibility for any public policy negotiations with the Government and/or industry.
Governance team are very professional in supporting the BBC and have policy advice for the BBC. This team basically makes sure that all trustees are capable and supported in order to do their job role in the Trust Unit.
Editorial runs through all complaints made regarding the BBC, they also support and give good advice to all trustees, and ensure that all correspondence is marked down and sorted out appropriately.
And finally, Communications develops the safeguarding toward the general reputation of the actual whole Trust, and see if everything is understood by everyone properly (e.g Media representatives, audience, trustees). They do this by handling any communications whatever form it is, and advice correspondence appropriately on what to do.

The actual content of the BBC are – Journalism, Vision, Audio and Music, and Future Media & Technology.
Journalism includes all of the news that the BBC will report on, such as world wide news, sporting, and general news and traffic updates which are broadcast on their radio stations.
Vision is all of the BBCs visual productions on TV channels (BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, CBBC etc.) where they initially produce and then commission new shows to be broadcast.
Audio & Music includes all musical and audio edits on their tv shows and mainly radio stations, (BBC1 Radio, 1Xtra etc.)  such as commissioning bands and music for them.
Future Media & Technology are all of the BBCs interactive media services which are available to the users, such as their apps like BBC iPlayer, websites, and red button TV services. They would commission all services included in this.

The BBCs professional services include their finance, property workplaces (offices, where they are based), and their training services for their employees.
The Finance department are responsible for the BBCs general finance, of which they would receive from the before mentioned Licence Fee which each Household in the UK has to pay in order to have access to the BBCs many services. Annually  the BBC would receive on average £3.5 billion each year from the Licence Fees alone, which they then split between each individual sector across the BBC services and productions.
The Workplace department would maintain the property’s which the BBC use, such as their studios (which they also rent the facilities out to, for example, the ITV which of course brings in another income) and the offices used. Also, they would look at the specific environment that the workplaces are in, and think of new ways to expand or develop/improve on, if necessary.
Training services for the employees would include getting their employees to acquire new skills necessary for their specific job roles, and also training them up before hand so they are generally ready for the job and all of it’s many requirements.

And also, commercial groups within the BBC would manage all of the advertisements for the BBC, and generally managing the recording equipment and recording facilities (studios) that would be rented out to other various media companies, to expand on the BBCs profits/income.
For instance, the very popular TV show named “Dr Who” was then sold on to America so they could broadcast it, then bringing the BBC more profit from the specific show.

The Public Service Broadcasting (For example, the BBC) make their money from Licence Fees and or funding from renting our their facilities.

Opposed to Commercial Broadcasters who get their money from advertisements on the TV. (Being paid to show the commercials) for example, ITV, Channel 4, Sky…

Music Video Evaluation

I have really enjoyed creating a music video for this particular video production assignment, and I feel as though I have learnt a lot of various new skills from the experience, especially with the pre-production planning of the video and also using the editing software, Final Cut Pro.

Our group worked really well together, all cooperating and listening to each others suggestions and helping each other with certain aspects of filming, such as continuity and acting. At first, we did struggle to come to a final decision about the story line of the music video, and also what actual music audio we would create a video for, but soon managed to overcome this by talking through ideas and agreeing on some ideas put together as one.
I do feel as though I perhaps completed more paper based work than other members of my team, mainly due to me taking over slightly in the pre-production process to better our idea so we would achieve a good grade as the outcome. My team were happy with this though, and went along with my ideas and theirs put together, ultimately working as a really good team once we had started actually filming.

While we were filming, our group worked really well together, taking directions off of the director, which was myself, suggesting ideas on camera angles such as composition, and helping each other to act.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed taking up the role of director, taking lead in the group and overseeing things. I feel I’ve learnt a lot from it, learning new skills such as leading a group, and being more creative with ideas. It has helped my self confidence also, as I’ve had to speak up and believe in my ideas.
We came across a few problems whilst filming, such as the battery not being fully charged, and also continuity, though these were easy factors to overcome once we had sorted them out properly.

I am pleased with my final product, as I feel that the music video looks really good, conveying what we wanted it to. I am also quite pleased with the way I have edited my video, ensuring that each of my cuts were on time with the beat of the music audio to give the video a good flow to it.
Also, although we did come across a few minor problems during the filming process as I forementioned, the viewer of the video wouldn’t be able to notice this as we were successfully able to overcome them, which I am also pleased about.