Friday 4 November 2016

Understanding Contractual, Legal And Ethical Obligations In The TV & Film Industry

Contracts - legal agreements that relate to your terms of employment. If you are offered any contract, read it carefully. You need to be clear about:

  • What you are being asked to do.
  • What you will be required to do.
  • What payments you will be receiving. 
A contract of employment will typically have 'small print'. You will need to scrutinize any clauses (short paragraphs) to check that you understand the implications of what you are signing. Confidentiality clauses and exclusivity clauses are common in film and TV industry.

Confidentiality - spoken, written, acted on, etc., in strict privacy or secrecy; secret etc.

Exclusivity - defined as a state of being limited or hard to access. An example of exclusivity is when a club only lets in people who are extremely wealthy and powerful. An example of exclusivity is when there is only one company which is licensed to make action figures of a popular character.



Employment Legislation 

The Equality Act: discrimination on the grounds of race, gender or age is illegal. This is likely to be a consideration when employing staff, cast and crew and when individuals, groups and related issues are depicted on screen. For example, BBC's Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly was awarded $150K after being sacked on the grounds for being 'too old'. Here is her case via The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jan/11/miriam-oreilly-bbc-ageism-victory?intcmp=239

The Equality Act of 2010 replaced:
  • Equal Pay Act 1970
  • Sex Discrimination Act 1975
  • Race Relations Act 1976
  • Disability Discrimination Act 1995
  • Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
  • Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003[5]
  • Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
Employers/Employees - responsible for the safety and well-being of their employees. They are liable for any physical or emotional harm as well as any employee acts or omissions whilst in their employment. See the following: Harrison Ford's Star Wars injury results in $2m fine for British production firm

Trade Unions - exist to protect the rights and the interests of the workers. You have to be a member of a union to get those benefits so members pay yearly fees. BECTU's freelance membership cost is currently $120. They are generally an organized association of workers in a trade, group of trades, or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests. 


They come together to achieve common goals such as protecting the integrity of its trade, improving safety standards, achieving higher pay and benefits such as health care and retirement, increasing the number of employees an employer assigns to complete the work, and better working conditions

Ethical Issues

Codes of practice are not part of the law. They exist usually to protect the consumer of the citizen and have a powerful role in the TV and film industry. Employers are responsible for drawing up policies, procedures and codes of practice that are specific to individual institutions. CoP are designed to promote good practice and to avoid legal issues 'down the line'. 

Codes of Practice (CoP) - sets down the responsibilities of employers in the regulation of social care workers. Again, this is the first time that such standards have been set out at national level.

Policies - a set course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization or individual.

Procedures - an established or official way of doing something OR a series of actions conducted in a certain order or manner.

Representation: the way in which people, places or events are presented in the made can be problematic. As you know audience opinion on certain topics is easily manipulated depending on the way the media portrays it. Think Amy Winehouse - http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/07/amy-winehouse-where-should-the-media-have-drawn-the-line/

Through media presentation, audiences can favor or reject a person, group of people, place, event etc. Some have argued that the media can create, or exacerbate social problems. Thinking about the way youths are portrayed/represented by the media; how would you think older generations would view you? Looking at this from a political standpoint, Vox completed a survey in the United States that concluded a number of demographics overwhelmingly agreed with democratic-socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on his political ideology. See here: Poll: most voters say they're open to a political revolution to redistribute wealth.

Of course this is restricted to the U.S. Meanwhile in the UK, you can again look at recent political events such as Brexit to see the split in demographics: 
Legal Issues

Regulators: a regulatory body exists to create and enforce rules based on law. Their main aims are to protect viewers and promote healthy competition between organizations. The British Broadcasting Corporation (a.k.a. BBC) has its own CoP, and (as you know) also issues its own production guidelines for the programs it commissions. 

"The BBC exists to serve the public, and its mission is to inform, educate and entertain. The BBC Trust is the governing body of the BBC, and we make sure the BBC delivers that mission." -http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/

The Office of Communications (Ofcon) is Britain's media regulator and is required by The Communications Act (2003) and The Broadcasting Act (1990) to draw up a code that they can then enforce.

Obscenity - lawyers may be needed to check whether a production infringes The Obscene Publications Act (1959). Factors such as age range of the time a production is broadcast can affect whether or not the material is deemed obscene. For example, the American version of Skins was criticized in America for being obscene. The first U.S. series opened with scenes of nudity in which the actors/actresses were under the age of 21 years old. 

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is an independent body which classifies films and videos in terms of age suitability. Their criteria dictates their implemented age rating for various media products. 

Intellectual Property (IP) - results from the expression of an idea; it might be a brand, an invention, a design, a song or another intellectual creation. IP can be owned, bought and sold. IP lets people own the work they create. The internet has made IP a huge issue. For example, the unauthorized us elf copyright material on YouTube and illegal video downloads. An example of this would be the following: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11737505.

Copyright - protects written, theatrical, musical and artistic works as well as film, book layouts, sound recordings, and broadcasts. It protects a written piece or recorded work from being copied or used by anyone else without the copyright owner's permission. 

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