Working patterns:

● Fixed term1
○ This type of working pattern mainly involves a person being employed for a particular
period of time or for a particular project. E.g. photographer could be employed to do
photography during a wedding and then edit those. They would be employed for that
particular project. Depending on location and experience wedding photographers can
earn from £500 - £2500 per wedding.

○
● Freelance
○ It is usually person self-employed. They can decide on what projects they are working
on if they have a few offers or few ongoing project that has similar deadline. They
usually can also decide on what hours they would like to work. E.g. going back to the
wedding photographers they have the hours they need to work, during the wedding, to
take the pictures but then they can decide when they are going to be editing them. If the
wedding would finish around 4am on Sunday while it started on Saturday, the
photographer can decide if they want to work on it on Sunday morning just after they
got back or if they want to get some sleep and work from around noon or if they have
another project to take photos on and then edit them on Sunday evening/night and
Monday afternoon. That could work for both advantage and disadvantage of the
freelancer. As one of the pros we could say that deciding on the hours they want to
work could be good for them because they have more freedom on arranging their
personal and work life. On the other hand, that could also cause the freelancer to work
constantly for much more hours a day than they would probably do as a regular office
hours worker. But that lead us to another aspect that some people could consider as a
pros, that is basically fact of working more hours could lead to earn more money by
taking more projects on. All of that, makes the freelance work being suitable for some
and unsuitable for others.

● Hourly rates2
○ This type of working patterns is mainly popular outside the media industry, however, we
can still find jobs that are paid on hourly basis. This way employees are getting paid by
the hours their worked rather than for the completion of a project or task. Example of
that could be any administrative or organisational job role, as well as runners.

1
​https://www.yourperfectweddingphotographer.co.uk/
2
​https://jobs.theguardian.com/jobs/media/
 ○ that gives around £12-£13/hour

○ That would be around £18-£19/hours

As you can see the hourly rate for administrative jobs can vary from £12-£20/hour depending on the
experience and the company that offers the position.

● Irregular patterns
○ We could say that irregular patterns are the most popular working patterns within the
media industry. As it could be expected of the name, irregular patterns involve working
within unusual hours. E.g. it could require work during the nights or in the very early
morning based on the production’s requirements. As an example we could take a look
at different actors that are expected to work during the night or in the evening in aim to
receive the desired shot by the director. That also mean that the production team would
be required to work those hours to be able to capture the shots in the way required.

● Office hours3
○ That working pattern is the most popular within administrative and financial roles across
media industry. They are usually contained between 8:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. in different
configurations. It is not really popular within the other sectors, however, even there we
could outline some job roles that are set within the office hours. For example, we could
take a look at social media manager/assistant roles. They are kind of merge between

3
​https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/social-media-manager/33939400?source=searchResults#/jobs/media-manager-jobs
 each and every type of roles within the media industry. It has a massive part from
creative and editorial roles in the process of creating content but still, they are mainly
present within the office hours pattern.

● Piece work
○ This type of working pattern involve being employed for a particular work. It seems
similar to the fixed contract, however, fixed contract is usually undertaken for the length
of the project while piece work requires the employee to create a certain piece of work
and after that the contract ends. To visualise it, I could get a piece work role to create a
promotional leaflet for a band or artist. That would involve taking pictures for the leaflet,
writing content and editing content. Once it would be done my contract with the
band/artist would end. There would be still possibility that they would like to work with
me in the future if they would be happy with the quality of my work.

● Shift work
○ Another working pattern that we could highlight is shift work. That involves working
different hours that are scheduled and are usually dependant on many different factors.
As an example we could take a look at the radio and radio-journalism. It will involve
working different shifts between different employees to make sure they are covered
24/7 and that the radio station works in a good condition.

Job roles4:
● Administrative5
○ As I already mentioned administrative jobs within the hourly rates, I would like to talk
about them in more details. The main responsibility of administrative job is to make sure
that everything is working smoothly and promptly. Administrative jobs usually requires
working with finance, payroll, HR and other general duties like: updating the website
with relevant content, being the contact point for the department and managing the
office and premises. It will help the company to make sure that it runs appropriately and
is well organised. That will improve their working ethic so they can get more
opportunities to take in future what would mean increasing profit for the company.

● Creative
○ Another really important job roles within the media industry fall under creative category.
This contain any job title that is involved in the creative process of making the final
product. As an example for it we could highlight roles like: director, music composer,
make-up artist etc.

● Editorial

4
​https://www.slideshare.net/gemmapryke/job-roles-within-media-industry
5
​https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6621613/departmental-administrator-production-/?LinkSource=PremiumListing
 ○ Editorial job roles involve anyone who is responsible for preparation and selection of
content like video footage, written sources and sound. It is used to condense, modify,
organise and correct the sourced materials to achieve the desired outcome. Most of
those roles are widely hidden behind the title of “editor” and then depending on the job
description, it could be figured out of which content, in particular, needs to be edited as
part of the role.

● Financial
○ All of the job roles under financial department involves the employees that are
responsible for dealing and controlling the finance of different areas within the
production. The main duties for financial department in the media industry involves
budgeting and controlling the expenses throughout. In addition, that also take in dealing
with payments for employees, saving money and usually borrowing money for the
production needs.

● Management
○ This is mainly responsible for most efficient use of the resources. In media,
management is divided into different sectors. The manager most often supervises all
aspects of production work, but they don’t have that much control over the set where
the supervising power is left to the director and producer.

● Organisational
○ These job roles involve highly organised people who have exceptional skill to show
attention to details. The main responsibilities includes coordinating people and items to
make sure that everything goes according to the plan. That everything is meeting the
deadline. Organisational job roles are also responsible for positioning items and people
and making sure that everyone has a job within the process.

● Research
○ Job roles related to investigating different subject with open minds to gain new
knowledge and facts, get new theories or ideas and solve existing or new problems. It
involves finding out information on particular topic that the job role is assigned for the
employee.

TYPES OF CONTRACTS

● Exclusivity contract6
○ Within the media industry, exclusivity contract could be used for buying the option to
use script or idea and ensuring that the seller wouldn’t sell it to someone else once the
first company would still be deciding on either the want to buy it fully and then have the
rights to the product or if they don’t want to take on this production. It secures the

6
​https://www.rocketlawyer.com/document/exclusivity-agreement.rl#/
 company to have time to think about it without being worried that the competitive
company would outbid the offer and bought the rights to the script or idea before.7 As
an example of how it could work, let’s assume that I would be the writer and have
written a script. I could submit it, either to BBC or Tiger Aspect Production, for the
commissioning process. I would sign exclusivity contract with the BBC what would
make me being unable to sell the script to different company, in this mock situation
Tiger Aspect Production, for a particular time. During this time BBC could either buy the
rights to use my script or decide that they don’t want to produce it and then I could sell it
to Tiger Aspect Production.

● Confidentiality contracts
○ Other known as non-disclosure agreement. This type of contract deals with the flow of
any confidential information. It is used in the situation when some kind of confidential
information is passed by one person onto another and at least one of them doesn’t want
the information to be released further in any way. In the media industry it is mainly used
for things like script proposals so the TV station or production company signs
confidentiality contract with the proposer, so the proposer can be sure that the company
will not steal his idea. It is also widely used for any roles that involves flow of personal
data of employees and companies, so job roles within financial, management and
organisational departments will have those type of contracts signed.

EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION
● Health and Safety
○ In every workplace there has to be Health and Safety Executive who among local
authorities is responsible for making sure that all the requirements from Health and
Safety at Work Act from 1974 are being meet as well as other Acts and Statutory
Instruments appropriate for the working environment. In media industry that could
include producers responsibilities of making sure that the actors and crew are working
in good conditions and in minimised risk as well as making sure that there is taken
proper care of the employees. E.g. Health and Safety Executive has to provide the
actors who are working on a set with a large amount of lights that generates heat, with
relevant amount of available drinks to avoid dehydration as well as provide with
immediate medical assistance/first aiders in case of an emergency.

● Equal Opportunities
○ It’s a policy implemented in each and every company. This is a manifesto that the
company puts their commitment towards the fairness within the workplace. It secures
the employees and prospective employees’ equal rights. If in any way that is not
proceed within the company, that stands against the Equality Act 2010 that specifies 9
different characteristics that are protected from discrimination.

7
​https://www.pandadoc.com/exclusivity-agreement-template/
 ● Employer’s liability
○ Employer’s liability is a insurance and policies that the employer has in place to ensure
that if anything happens to their employees they will be covered in that case, if any
accidents would occur as well as any errors would be made by the members of staff.

● Employee rights8
○ Employees are entitled to some particular rights, like: Minimum National Wage, sick
pay, holiday pay and at least the minimum holiday leave etc. Employee rights are
dependant on two factors. One of which I have already mentioned is protected by law
and is called statutory rights. The other factor is dictated by the terms stated in the
contract of employment, which however cannot take out the statutory rights.

● Trade Unions
○ Organised group of professionalists, worker in a particular trade and groups, that are
formed to extend their rights but most of all to protect the already existing ones. To put
that in other words trade unions are responsible for taking care of the employee’s best
interests in a particular profession or trade sector.

● Intellectual Property
○ Intellectual Property is the protection for anything that is physically or digitally created
by a person. Two most common types includes:
○ Copyrights, that secures any content created by individual,from being stolen or copied
illegally, e.g. movie, song, script, computer game, photos etc. and,
○ Trademarks, that could be logos of the company, name of the company and any of the
designs for the products made by the company.

LEGAL & ETHICAL

● Race Relation Act9
○ It’s a first UK legislation that prevents discrimination on the race and ethnicity
background. It was first established in 1965 and then it was developed in 1976. At
present the aspects it covers and prevents discrimination against are: race, colour,
ethnicity and nationality in education, public functions, services and goods sector and
most of all the employment.

● Broadcasting Act
○ Within British law system there is many different broadcasting acts involve. The most
important point in all of them is regularly about keeping the market as an oligopoly and
prevent one company becoming a monopoly in the broadcasting.

8
​https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/worker
9
​http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1965/73/pdfs/ukpga_19650073_en.pdf
 ● Obscene Publication Act10
○ Law that protects people from inappropriate content by implementing age rating for
different media products depending on the content within it. This Act classifies any
content published for financial or critical profit, tending to deprave or corrupt the
audience.

● BBFC & Ofcom

○ British Board of Film Classification and the Office of Communication are two
organisation that have an influence on the current film and TV market in the UK. BBFC
is a non governmental organisation that is responsible for film classification and putting
age restrictions on the products to protect people at certain age from inappropriate
content for them. Ofcom similarly to the Broadcasting Act is promoting competition on
the market and tries to prevent monopolies to occur. By doing so it works for the
interest of citizen and consumers. It also helps to protect the public from offensive
materials.

● Codes of Practice and Policies & Procedures

○ These are all the organisational actions undertaken within the pre-production,
production and post-production process to make sure that the company/project is
obeying with all of the legal as well as ethical regulations that have to be considered for
the product to be published without any legal issues. That includes: getting copyrights
permission to use location, other people’s materials and content, any documentation in
relation to immigration of workers as well as getting permission to use someone else’s
appearence within the project.

● Representation11
○ It is the way, media portray different social issues, people’s characteristics and present
events. That is also dictated by cultural competence of the audience in understanding
the media text.

10
​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscene_Publications_Acts
11
​https://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/z9fx39q/revision