Task 3

Task 3: Understand contractual, legal and ethical obligations in the television and film industries

When companies want to employ staff for whatever project that they are working on there are a lot of things that they have to consider. For example the company have to consider the contracts that they would be offering to their staff, the employment legislation, ethical and legal obligations.  There are many reasons why they have consider these things, some of these things are things that the law says they must do and the others are just ethical things such as religious issues.

Contracts

A contract is way for someone to prove that they have been hired by someone else to help them with a project that they are doing. A contract is usually written but at times it can be a verbal agreement. On the contract it usually says what the employee has to do in the job, their responsibilities for example the cameraman is responsible for what happens to camera equipment, work patterns and salary.

There are two types of contract types. One of these types of contract types is a permanent contract. A permanent contract is a contract that an employer offers to the employee and what it is, is that it’s a contract that has no time limit. This means that the employee does not only stay for certain time, they stay until they finish the job.

The other type of contact is a fixed term type. This is sometimes known as a temporary and on the contract it says how long the employee would stay with the company. Most of the time when a company is making a film they use fixed term contracts because they usually have a time span of how long it would take for them to make the movie. On the contract it would tell the employee how long they have to stay with the company and when the contracts starts and ends.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is important in any company because an employee should trust his employers enough to give them personal information and trust them enough not to do anything that would harm them to the information. The information that the employee gives to their employers is usually kept within the company, this means that the information is not shared with other companies. The information that the employers have from their employees is usually things such as their salary, personal information, jobs roles and other things.  All of these things should be cleared up when it comes to the contract talks.

Employment Legislation

Employment legislation is a set of rules that was made by the government for employers and employees to follow when they decide to work in the film industry. This is very important because it set of rules that they have to follow and if they don’t then they could be in trouble.  The types of employment legislation are things such as health and safety, equal opportunities, employment equality (age) regulations 2006, employer’s liability, employee rights and copyright

Health and safety

Health and safety is a very important when it comes to employment legislation in the film industry. This is because with health and safety the employer can check that the work place is a safe place work employees to work. This is because if there are hazards in the workplace then the employer can get into trouble because the employee can sue their employer if they get hurt.

Equal Opportunities

It is important that everyone that apply for a job in a company has to have equal opportunities because if the employer discriminates anyone in a certain way then it would mean that they would not be giving their potential employees equal opportunities. If this does happen where the employer is being racists or sexist then they could get into trouble. It is a law that employers must give their employees equal opportunities and not to judge the people by their race, gender or background. 

Employment Regulations 2006

The Employment Regulations 2006 act is a secondary legislation law in the United Kingdom that says employers cannot discriminate against their potential employees depending on what their age is. With this act if someone gets rejected from a job application because they are not old enough, they can get some compensation from the company that they have applied to work. If some is under the age limit that they need to be to work this act does not apply to them.

Employee Rights

Everyone who works has rights and with these rights they can do certain tings. For example an employee has the right not to be dismissed unfairly. They have to be given a written and formal letter, which says that they are no longer needed to be working at the company. If a company does fire someone verbally and now follow up with a written letter or proof that they fired them, then the company could get into trouble. The employee that has been fired can do things such as sue the company and get compensation form them.

Copyright

People copyright their products or ideas because the copyright law prevents other people form stealing what this person has came up with. For example companies copyright their products because they don’t want people copying their product. Film companies don’t usually copyright their films because sometimes other people make spoofs of that film copying some parts of the film. An example of this I the film ‘300 ‘and ‘Meet the Spartans’.

Codes of practice

There are many codes of practices that companies must follow when it comes to doing things. The codes of practice was made by the national association of broadcasters for television and they are a set of rules and ethical standards made for film and TV companies to follow. Some of the things that the codes of practice say companies must do is that they must not use profanity, not showing negative family life, they must not disrespect God and religious beliefs. If companies do not abide these laws then they could get into trouble with the law.

Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are used by companies to make effective decisions because they are a set of rules. These set of rules are like guidelines for companies to use and what they do is they tell people what they can do and what they cannot do.  These policies and procedures are important because they have a big affect on the production because the policies and procedures say what can happen when they are making the production.

An example a company that has a lot of policies and procedures is the BBC. On the BBC they have a range of policies and procedures that they must follow. These policies and procedures must benefit the viewers and the company. Other policies and procedures that the BBC has is the equal rights policy. This means that every can apply for any positions, but they have to be realistic.

Emerging social Concerns

There are a lot of emerging concerns that companies have to face all the time. Some of these emerging concerns include things such as how disabled people get treated by their employers. A TV channel that try’s to deal with a lot of these emerging concerns is channel 4. On channel 4 they try to show their views these things and make them aware of what happens with these concerns.

An example of a TV show that is on channel 4 and tries to show the emerging concerns is the Paralympics. When the 2012 Paralympics was on channel 4 was broadcasting it and while doing this they were also showing what people do when they are not competing. They also talk about how difficult life was for them.

Representation

When companies are making TV programs there are a lot of things they have to consider, for example the representation of social groups when they come to make the show. On channel 4 when they were broadcasting the show my big fat Gypsy wedding, they came under fire because of the way the representing the Gypsy community.  This show damaged the reputation that channel 4 had because once this was aired, the channel was being accused of racism and the negative representation of a certain social group. 

Race Relations Act 1976

The race relation’s act was made by the parliament of the United Kingdom to stop people being discriminated because of their skin colour. It is not only a person skin colour that this law prevents from being discriminated, it is also other things such as nationality and ethnic origin in the employment. An example of this law being broken is if a student was not allowed to study a certain subject because of their skin colour, race or religion.

Broadcasting Act 1990

The Broadcasting Act 1990 is another law that was made by the British Parliament and what it was meant to do was change the whole structure of the way the British broadcasting channels broadcasted things.

Obscene Publications 1959

The obscene publication act is also a part of the Broadcasting Act of 1990. What it is that it was made to prevent people from showing obscene things onto the TV for viewers to watch.  It was an offence against the government for someone to put obscene things onto the television.

British Board of Film Classifications

The British Board of Film Classifications is an independent organization, which splits apart film age groups into different ages. It is also known as the BBFC, which stands for British Board of Film Classifications. What the BFFC believe is that they are trying to protect the public form things that could potentially be harmful to them. A law that BBFC made with the help of OFCOM is that Nudity is not allowed to be shown before 9 O’clock.

For people to know what age group a certain film is for they usually look at the coloured triangle or circle that is on the bottom left side of the cover of the film. The different age restrictions are U, PG, 12, 12A, 15 and 18.