Creative Media Industry Awareness

Creative Media Industry Awareness

Know how the Creative Media sector is structured

 Describe the industries within the Creative Media sector

The UK Government Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) definition recognises twelve (12) creative sectors, down from fourteen (14) in their 2001 document. They are:

• Advertising
• Architecture
• Arts and antique markets
• Crafts
• Design
• Designer Fashion
• Film, video and photography
• Software, computer games and electronic publishing
• Music and the visual and performing arts
• Publishing
• Television
• Radio

 Describe cross-industry ownership in the Creative Media sector

Cross-industry ownership is the term for one company owning sister companies within different media branches.

Good examples of this are the BBC and Virgin.
The BBC were originally just television channels (BBC1 and BBC2), broadcasting entertainment and news across both their channels, but has since expanded into over 10 channels (BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, BBC News 24, Parliament, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC Alba and BBC America etc.), a publishing company for magazines and a worldwide television broadcast empire, BBC Worldwide LTD, as well as BBC radio stations and iPlayer. The BBC business spans Television, Radio, Publishing, and Software, computer games and electronic publishing.

Virgin, and its creator Richard Branson, managed to break into an array of different markets with the Virgin brand, and is perhaps one of the best examples of cross-industry ownership, due to the immediate differences between each of the brand labels Virgin has acquired over the years; including Virgin Music, Trains, Broadband, Phone, TV, Airways, Galactic, Money, Mobile and Holiday Cruises. It is doubtless that Virgin spans a plethora of markets and certainly has its fingers in a lot of pies.


 Explain the relevant relationships between a range of industries within the Creative Media sector

Most industries in the world often interact with others in order to create a more powerful effect on their target audience and the general public.
This would be, for example, one company hiring an advertising firm to promote them and help them to sell their product. While this is going on, the advertising firm may be establishing connections with a video production company to create a viral video or online advertisement to help spread the word of the product via the internet as well as through the traditional methods of advertising and selling the product to retailers.

Whilst the video may be in the first stages of production, the advertising firm may hire a "behind the scenes" photographer to help market the product a bit more, showing the viewer what happens on the other side of the screen; and alongside all this, the original company or advertising firm may suggest that special graphics are needed in the video, and pitch this to the video production company, who would subsequently contact graphics design companies who acts accordingly.

This creates a web of different companies working together on the same project, and the different sectors of the industry (in this case, publishing, advertising, design, film, video and photography).



Describe the stages of a specific Creative Media project life cycle

In the Creative Media sector, there are four stages in the project life cycle:
BIRTH (INITIATION) PHASE - Everything is defined and the first ideas for the project emerge.

PLANNING PHASE - The project is now planned out in more detail, and is given a bit more flesh and content, and is split up into different tasks and sub-tasks, with resources allocated to each, and an estimated completion time is established.

EXECUTION & CONTROLLING PHASE - The project is carried out, and all the relevant tasks are performed by the assigned people, and the deadline worked towards. This is perhaps the most important phase of the lot, being the phase in which the project tasks are performed, and in which quality and standards must be maintained in order to meet the client's needs.

EXIT (CLOSURE) PHASE - The project is completed, and the participants are debriefed, and the project manager ensures that the project is completed. Please see uploaded pdf for a more in depth life of a project explanation that is specifically created for one of our regular clients. 

Explain and justify resources required for a specific project

Every project requires different teams of people, each assigned to a different task. For instance, those working on a film would have the audio team, the lighting team, the special effects team, the make up team etc. whereas those working on a video game would have the storyboard team, the animation team, the concept artists, voice actors etc. so the teams vary from project to project as necessary, each working on their own section or task.

Describe the vision, mission and values of a specific Creative Media organisation

Different Creative Media organisations will have different goals and different projects. For instance, a television company will have different aims to a publishing firm, but ultimately their goal will be to produce something to please the client and complete the project in a reasonable period of time in order to generate a profit.

The aims and objectives of companies in any scenario can be brought under four generic categories:
REPUTATIONAL - most companies want to ensure they have a good reputation amongst the public, their target audience and their competitors. This includes advertising and publicising the company, in particular younger businesses, and those with fewer in their employ.
ADVERTISING - a more exact way of demonstrating a business's reputation, and is a way to spread the company's brand and get it out in the public consciousness, in order to get some attention from a target audience the company maybe hasn't tried to tap before.
PROFIT - the main goal of a business: to make money. Without earning capital and generating a decent income in order to pay taxes, bills and purchase new resources in order to continue to manufacture and research new products and maintain a steady profit to expense ratio.
FUTURE - future aims and objectives are similar in purpose to short- and long-term plans (usually 1-5 years). Company officials will discuss the best course of action for their short- and long-term goals for the business, in which direction they are headed as a corporation, and which way is the best to influence the course of the company in order to generate the best result.

Describe how a specific Creative Media organisation is funded, governed and regulated

An organisation can be broken down into several different departments, each with a different role to play and a function to perform. For instance, there would be a financial department, an administration department, a PR department, an HR department, Research and Development (R&D).

The role of an individual department can vary slightly from company to company, but are fundamentally the same. For instance, the Finance department would be responsible for tracking the company's income, expenses, allocating budgets to other departments for resources they want/need, liaising with suppliers and writing up invoices for clients, customers and/or retailers; whereas the R&D department would be looking into developing a new scope for business, and looking across the market for a gap that could be exploited, and comparing the product in development to existing models from competing companies, as well as any similar products in order to determine important defining factors such as price, size/scale, target audiences, ease of use, advertising methods, name and features.

The R&D department would also seek what customers want in the product, so may compile a questionnaire/survey (which would be conducted via the internet, face-to-face interaction, over the phone.) in order to gather information relevant to the product, and find out how to improve it by adding or removing features the consumers like/dislike respectively.

Explain the role of a specific team within the organisation

A specific team will have a tighter and better relationship with each other, as they are interacting with each other more and constantly assessing each other’s' strengths and weaknesses in order to maximise efficiency; whereas the relationship between team members and others within the organisation can easily vary from person-to-person, as one team member may have a friend in a different department, and may know other people from previous jobs, school, tasks or from out-of-work activities (such as the gym or sporting clubs), and as such, there could be people without the team who gets on with team members A, B and C, but doesn't get along with D or E.

Explain the relationship between the specific team and others within the organisation

A team will have numerous roles and responsibilities within that team, each person assigned to a specific task, usually playing to their stronger skills, and if need be, sub-teams are allocated. The roles usually vary from industry to industry, but there are a couple which apply across the board:
Project Manager - the leader of the team, the project manager is in charge of overseeing the project and quality controlling as the project advances. The project manager dictates which tasks are done in the project, who performs them and in what order they are done.
Salesperson - the person who pitches the product or product idea to clients or to their superiors within the organisation.
Researcher - researches the current market for the product the team is developing and designing. This includes looking for gaps in the market, researching similar products, price-checking, looking into the competition and finding out how best to improve the product.
Financier - deals with the budget and dealing with suppliers and retailers, dealing with expenses and profits, and how much capital is allocated where. 

Explain the individual roles within a specific team

Virgin group employee more than 50,000 people around the world operating in over 50 different countries. Virgin has main employees that are part of the Senior Investment Team. 

The individual roles in the company Virgin start from the CEO of the Virgin group and is responsible for the management of the groups capital investments and the Virgin brand. Next is the chairman of the Virgin group who takes care of the investment banking and business management. Virgin has many partners that are in charge of the different areas of the company. Each partner is responsible for that area. Some of the areas include the development and expansion, licensing the brand, financial and risks positions and external relations.

This is a typical companies business hierarchy:

Explain their responsibilities and outputs within a specific project life cycle

At the Radio Station role of the service manager is to basically be in charge of the whole service. The two assistant managers are in charge of the coordinators and the teachers in their area. One of the assistant managers is in charge of the curriculum and performance within the service and the other looks after the development of the service. Underneath the service manager on the hierarchy is the resources and support service manager who looks after resources, support and finance.

 As well as the managers, each member of staff has a different responsibility within the service. The support staff are in charge of a number of different things from sorting new registrations, workshops, music lesson counts, answering phones and dealing with parents, customers and queries. 

The finance staff are in charge of money income and outcome, looking after direct debits, bank details, bad debts, invoices and mileage claims. Resources are responsible for assigning/exchanging instruments to pupils or schools, workshops, repairing and maintenance.

Describe examples of interdependence between team members

In relation to where I work at the Radio Station we constantly rely on each other to complete the tasks that need to be completed. As a team we work together to pass on relevant information to other employees. Each part of the service work closely together to make sure that jobs are completed and all the correct information is being handed over in order to update old information.

 As the service covers a big area then it is important that employees know what is going on within the company and can depend on each other to get tasks completed. The finance team work closely with the admin team and resources if a new registration comes through then they will work together to sort out the fees, who will be teaching them, which instrument they will be playing and registering them on the database. If a pupil has decided to give up parents should notify admin who will print of a summary and update the system, then it will be passed through to finance, depending on their account the fees will be cancelled.

 Resources should then be aware that an instrument should be returned. Resources work with admin, teachers, schools and the courier to organise which instruments need to be delivered and where.

 Each section needs to work together so that the process runs smoothly and efficiently so that there is no issues down the line. The management and coordinators work with teachers to discuss who will deliver different workshops. All of the teams within the service will depend on each other to give the right information.