Types of Brief

Contractual Brief

A contractual brief is a contract between a client and a production company. The production company is employed by the client and will go over the contract with the client before agreeing to the terms and conditions which are constructed by the client in an easy-to-understand format. If the production company break the guidelines set by the client in the contractual brief, they will consequently be led towards legal charges.

The client and employer may discuss the total project cost, as well as the other payments at specific times like: Contingency day cost, due upon signing of contract, due upon approval of storyboard & scripts and due upon final completion and delivery of all media. Payment to the production company is usually split in half, payment before the project, then payment once the project is complete for the client.

This form of brief allows the employer to analyse specifically what the client is expecting from them, and if they can provide it before signing, therefore the employer is given the final decision. However this means that the employer doesn’t know what to expect to provide the client before encountering the contract.

These contracts also have a big box for the client to describe the project and deliverables needed. If this box were to not be filled out in complete detail, it could be misleading and/or confusing for the employer, potentially leading to the client burdening the employer due to heavy workflow.

Negotiated Brief

A negotiated brief is discussed and negotiated between the client and production company. This allows both the client and production company to consult both of their ideas and wrap up how they will achieve their final product through the use of their creative ideas.

Meetings will take place for a negotiated brief, during these meetings; all details will be discussed until a brief is agreed upon, which both parties will end up signing and agreeing to. Due to the negotiation, it allows the client to have their own input included in the brief.

It is advantageous for the production company also as it allows them to gather ideas from other perspectives, leading to a brief that they may not have thought of before. This is likely to lead to less arguments and conflict as the company and the client are brought together to form a more sucessful brief overall that it suitable for both of them. However, there is a possibilty that the company and the client may disagree with the ideas suggested, which could lead to the creation of the brief being time consuming and a potential loss of a client for the company if they cannot come to an agreement over the ideas.

Formal Brief

A formal brief is a contract which details the rules and regulations for a company to follow – decided by the client – when carrying out the production of product they want, but only covers the information needed for the production and nothing else.

The formal brief is given by the client to the production company, which is agreed on between the two parties before the production is carried out. The brief contains only the details needed for the project, so it does not cover legal issues. One advantage of using a formal brief is that it is easy to read and simple for the client to understand, as it is open and only contains the information needed to produce the product, therefore it is not time consuming.

 

As the brief is decided upon before the project is carried out, it cannot be changed which is advantageous as it means that the contract will be stuck to. However, this could also be problem because it means that the company is unable to buy any more resources if they need to, due to how fixed the contract is. Also formal briefs are not always legally binding, so this could be risky for the client if the company breaches legal guidelines.

Informal Brief

An informal brief is created through informal discussions through the client and production company, such as over the phone or face to face in an informal meeting. The brief is formed through a number of informal meetings to discuss what each party requires. The terms are then verbally agreed on. Due to this, the brief is not down in writing therefore both parties must rely on each other to uphold their agreement based on trust.

An informal brief contains basic information exchanged between two or more individuals, groups or companies, without formal need. The brief does not contain any contracts or documents, but the brief must appeal to the client and company and be verbally agreed on in order for the project to go ahead without any formal contracts.

One advantage of using an informal brief is that there are no strings attatched, so the process is not time consuming and it allows changes to be made within the project without having to adhere to the terms of the brief. This makes it easier for both the client and the company, as if anything is not going as planned both parties can discuss changes to be made without the fuss of going against the brief. However as this brief is not written down, it can be disorganised and this means it cannot be assured that everything will go as planned. This is risky for the client as well as the company as there is no contract and both parties do not know whether they will have the desired outcome.

Commissioned Briefs

When a client or company hires an independent media company to come up with innovative ideas for the product that the client desires, this is a commisioned brief. An amibiguous description will be given by the client for the media company  to work with and develop the kinds of ideas the client desires from them.

The company will proceed to pitch the ideas that they came up with to the client, which the client then also adds their own ideas too. Therefore the final ideas the media company came up with, is their final input until the client has reached a conclusion with the final product whilst inputting their own ideas and are happy with the justification.

This type of brief means less work for the client, however the company should be getting paid well by the client and also a chance in obtaining a share of the profits. Therefore this could be disadvantageous for the client as well, due to them losing money for work which they could essentially be doing themselves, but might not have the time. However whilst the company they hired is doing work the client paid them to do, the client could be working on other projects in the mean time.

The client also doesn’t exactly have an effective part within the decision making, since the ideas are mostly revolving around the media company accordingly forming something to what they may not had anticipated.

Tendered Briefs

A Tendered brief is what a client will use in order to advertise that they want a media product. An ambiguous exlplanation is given as to what they require, resulting in multiple production companies responding to the advertisement.

These production companies then begin to produce a proposal that reveales projected costs and who will be producing the material that the client requires. The client then chooses the proposal which they admire most, contact the company that made it and then negotiate with them on how they can perfect their proposal.

This brief is similar to a negotiational brief in the aspect that a negotiation is involved once the media company is chosen by the client. It is also similar to a commissional brief due to the fact that in a tendered brief, the client is asking the media company to come to them with ideas up front. A commissional brief is very much the same in terms of being ready with ideas up front and then negotiatiing them afterwards.

A tendered brief  provides the client access to a much larger range of ideas from multiple companies. This provides them with many ideas they have not yet thoguht of, they can then incorporate some of these ideas for their own, or choose between them. However a disadvantage for this brief would be that not all companies that applied will get the job. A disadvantage for the client would be that there’s a possibility of no compnay applying, or no company applying with the proposal they’re looking for.

Cooperative Brief

A cooperative brief is when a company works with another company for a client. These briefs are usually done when the requirements of the brief request a specific set of skills that cannot be obtained by only one company. However the amount of work required might be abundent, meaning more than one company is needed to be hired to share the workload

An example of this brief being used in the industry would be Weta Digital working with the production team on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Weta Digital cooperated with other teams on the visual effects for Lord of the Rings.

An advantage to this brief would be that the client will be provided with a more thorough and open minded product because two companies will be combining their ideas. The two companies working on the brief will also be at an advantage if they are both organised, by dividing the times they’ll both work and what they will both work on. This can also help them evaluate on each of their strengths and weaknesses.

The biggest disadvantage for this brief overall would be the chance that the two companies won’t be able to work together very well, or at times be out of sync with one another. This can lead to bad reputation, or an unfinished product.