Client Brief

This is my client brief for a creative futures module, where we were able to ask questions on what the client wanted and we then had to write a brief for said client, so i then had to write a brief for this client on the answers to the questions i was asking.

Brief Client Proposal

Client Base themes,

built city,

City and the people,

Abstract

31st may 2019 

20 potential pictures 

Last time commissioned photography was paid around 1500 pounds 

Were able to choose how we want to display the product 

Accessed by all ages 

Engage our older generation 

Also need to engage up and coming modern society 

Dynamic image to Wrexham without it being a lie

More real images, compared to manipulated images

Iconic buildings and spaces also less known places as well 

How people use the city and how they would use technology within the city 

Want to show Wrexham as a safe place to live 

Want the photographs to speak for themselves 

Photos would be used for brochures, leaflets, websites and mainly the city technology platform

Maybe use consent forms if you are taking images of people within the city 

Feel as though if they need to be taken seriously and believe it would raise awareness of the struggles and beauty of the city

All to our own brief and talent 

Could do a small video and could be a separate part of the proposal 

Don’t want static pictures of locations or flowers they want reality 

Modern photographs of places of interest 

Could use examples but also if you were to do that you could be giving the game away 

Not specifically gender specific but needs to appeal to a healthy cross section 

No specific time of day that they want photos from

Can be natural can be staged but its up to you the photographer 

Look at castings for yourself as well 

These are my notes from the client proposal that we had to ask questions to get the answers to then be able to come up with a client brief for said person.

Creative Futures – Evaluation

Creative futures week, was a week of talks from all different people, some were about art, some were based around normal life and getting taxes paid etc, it was interesting but some of the people could’ve given advice rather than just talking about their career in the industry they are involved in, so some of them in my opinion were a bit pointless and a waste of time compared to others.

Some of the talks during creative futures week, were really informative and helpful and some of the people that came to talk were also really interesting and engaging which made you want to stay longer just to listen to them talk, but with others it didn’t really come across that way it felt like a chore to be there as some of them also looked and acted as like they didn’t want to be there either. Some of the talks also seemed like a bit of an ego boost for some of them as they just talked about them and didn’t engage the audience whatsoever which was a bit annoying.

Furthermore, Dan Berry’s lessons, these were really helpful and informative as he gave some really good advice to help us later in life when it may come to having your own business or having to help other people with jobs, it came with some really good advice of how to deal with problems such as these, where it comes into costs and talking to people you don’t know.

Also, Lisa Evans’ lessons who had to cover for Dan were really helpful as well, as she helped us be able to write a brief for a client if we were commissioned to do work for said person, or a company, they tell you what they want and then you offer what you can in accordance to their plans. She was really helpful as she came across as really professional in the interview process of which we had to do, and she was also able to step out of that role to give us advice on what to do with the answers she had given us.

Lastly, my own work within creative futures, the portrait, landscape and documentary shoots, these were a task we were given by one of the lecturers I enjoyed a couple of them but I struggled with the documentary photography as I wasn’t sure what to do with it, some of my own shots that I have done as well, such as family shots or just portrait shots to build a portfolio, I have really enjoyed as I am also trying to build the confidence in myself to talk to strangers who may want their photos taken.

I have also done a lot of film reviews of films I have watched in the last year, which I have enjoyed and I also feel they could be relevant to stuff I have been doing within this year, but also some of them are just because I have felt like doing them, to be able to make videos or film reviews in the future if I start doing them now I think I will find it a lot easier in the future when it comes to doing reviews etc.

PDP: Family Birthday

These are a few shots i took from a family birthday, surprise party that was organised for one of my grandparent’s 70th birthday, some of these shots i’m happy with but some i’m not so sure of because i used the flash on the camera so i think that played a factor in it where it changed what the photo could have turned out like if there was no flash.

Documentary Photographs

These are a few documentary photographs i took of me spraying some old pieces of wood i found lying around, because i thought it relates to my work within the graffiti side of things, so i thought these would work pretty well because of the relation in my work.

I enjoyed doing these pieces as i was just experimenting with spray paint for the first time, so i was also interested to see how they turned out as well.

Dan’s lecture 2 notes

These are my notes from the second lecture Dan Berry led which was also another very interesting and helpful lecture, which gave us a lot of good advice.

Creative Futures 2 – Lecture 1 28/1/19: Dan Berry

Be good

Costings Brief

Market Research Brief

Simulated Client Brief

‘Image Makers’ 

How do you create income?

Why is this important?

So we are prepared for the real world after we finish uni such as the business side of things

What do I wish I was taught at uni?

Get some work experience somewhere and if your good someone will hire you (not great advice)

Ask Questions (even dumb ones)

What do you need to know to work professionally?

What do you need to be?

Be good

Be visible

Be ambitious 

Be well behaved

Be paid

Freelance work is competitive, often lonely, time consuming, difficult and frustrating

It is often (but not always) a meritocracy

It takes a lot of hard work

You are in charge of running your career

No-one else is really looking out for you

Your career has already started

People often talk about luck

Luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation

Being Good: 

1. Your work will need to look at least as good as every other professional out there working today
2. The people who are likely to pay you to do this do not want a nasty surprise

A scenario: 

You have a good portfolio and someone sees it

They expect work of a similar quality of course

You do a sub standard job for them 

They think what the heck just happened?

And then don’t get given work ever again

Sub standard work:

Not to the expected quality

Not the right resolution or format

Not on time 

Bad communication

Standard work:

To the expected quality

In the resolution or file format the client asked for 

On time

Good communication

Appeal:

Your work will need to appeal to someone

If your work doesn’t look good and doesn’t appeal to anyone then you are very unlikely to find work

How it normally works (mostly) for freelances:

You do some things that look great

You show them online, you enter comps, send them to people you want to work with, you tell them you want to work with them

You continue working

Someone gets in touch to see if you want to do some work for them, they’ll pay you!

You agree a price and terms

You do rough pieces and send them to them

They make suggestions and changes

You take on board suggestions and make the changes 

You finish the work and send it to them with an invoice

They pay you, you save 20-50% of the money to pay your tax

You put that work online/in your portfolio

You carry on working

This is very basically what the job is

How it normally works for publishing:

You do some things that look great

You show them online, you enter comps, send them to people you want to work with, you tell them you want to work with them

You continue working

A publisher gets in touch to see if you want to work with them and they’ll pay you

You agree an advance/page rate and terms

You do rough pieces and send them to them

They make suggestions and changes

You take on board suggestions and make the changes 

You finish the work and send it to them with an invoice

They pay you, you save 20-50% of the money to pay your tax

You put that work online/in your portfolio

You carry on working

This is very basically what the job is

However:

What if you’ve got this great idea for a photo/film you want to do?

Step 1: don’t wait for permission, just do it

Step 2: research – who would publish/print/buy this thing?

Step 3: ask them if they are interested hopefully they are

Step 4: do the work show as many people as possible

This doesn’t apply anymore because of things like kickstarter and patreon

Those things are great but add to rather than replace traditional finding models

Difficult questions – sooner rather than later:

How good do you want to be?

Are you as good as you want to be?

Are you doing everything you can to get to that level?

Do you really want to do it?

Do you know anything about business? (You are a business now!)

Do you know anything about marketing? (You are in charge of your own marketing!)

Do you have a plan/backup plan?

What is your dream job?

Do you know what you need to do to get that dream job?

Write it all down and make plans and check your progress against those plans

Do you know how to find out about this stuff?

How do you measure your success?

I am successful because I have a lot of:

Money 

Likes 

Commissions 

Good reviews

Social media followers

Satisfaction

Figure out what your measures of success are, is it a healthy way of thinking about your career?

Does your mum like what you do?

Do your friends from school think your work is amazing?

Next steps:

Keep notes during these lectures

Use your notes to identify what you want to get out of the lectures

Try and find answers to your questions

Bring your questions to these lectures and we will talk about them

Dan’s lecture 1 notes

These are the notes i have taken from dan berry’s lectures, with the subject he was going on about i began taking notes as i believe they were able to help me, later on when it comes to using the advice he gave us.

Creative Futures 2 – Lecture 3 4/2/19

Be Visible:

If no-one knows what you do or sees your work, then it may as well not exist

Opportunity:

Things that are good but you may not necessarily like or enjoy them, but they are good for you and your career

Opportunities come easier if you work for them

First:

What are your ambitions and aspirations?

What do you hope to be able to achieve?

Get paid, make a comfortable living

You need to be more specific

How would you do that?

basically you get your work commissioned to do work similar to what you are already doing

Audience

You need to find ways to get your work out to a wider audience

You may have come into this with a very clear idea of what you want to achieve as an image-maker

Lets call this your ambitions

The things you want to achieve

You may have enquiries from all sorts of places:

Animation projects 

Computer games

Film work

Branding/advertising

Interactive projects

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take (Wayne Gretzky)

Who is your audience?

Depends on what you are doing

You may be tempted to think of your audience as just normal people

The people that you should want to see your work are the people who pay for images

Art directors, graphic designer

Who are the audience for your work?

People who can help your career

Social media

There are possibilities for a career as a social media superstar

Youtube, instagram, twitter etc

If this is a primary career option, work out where your money comes from

That job is to be a content producer but you need to know if it is going to be a solid career

You have to strike a balance between spending time actually doing the work itself and publicity

It often feels that you have to remind people that you exist and that you do things

Apparently Thursday is the best day to send your work somewhere as it apparently is the best day and its mid week and just before the weekend

Trying to build a reputation as someone fast, dependable, knowledgeable and good to work with

Visibility alone isn’t enough

Be visibly good

What can you offer?

Is your work: 

Funny, profound, cute, scary, silly, clever, relatable, beautiful, niche?

These are the kind of classifications people will put your work into

How do you want people to describe your work?

How do you want people to describe you?

What are the characteristics of the kind of people that you want to work with?

Social media: 

Interesting insights, no moaning, constructive (cool)

No insights, moaning, destructive cynicism (moody)

Who would you prefer to work with?

Your work isn’t judged only on its quality

People take notice

Bad reputations are difficult to get rid of

Be well behaved

How do you find out about stuff?

Websites:

A current and up to date view on the artists work

Really nice pictures

But

Low resolution so that are harder to steal, 600px wide

Website 

A current and up to date view on the artists work

How-to blog posts present the artist as an expert

Really nice small pictures so they want to return

A simple way of getting in touch 

But

You probably don’t want your unsecured email address just on the web

Put it behind a secure contact form that uses a capture thing to stop bots

Website:

Work on multiple devices and doesn’t need extra weird plugins to function

Not covered in banner ads, no popups 

Simple 

3 clicks

If a visitor to your site has to click more than 3 times to find what they want they leave 

Or if you look for more than 15 seconds and don’t find what they want they leave

15 seconds feels like a long time to be on the web

If a visitor to your site is confused they leave

Don’t put weird categories as it confuses people and they leave

And thats if they get to your site in the first place

If you build it they will come

Give people a reason to go to your website

Don’t be fooled into thinking that everything happens online

Events:

Go to them!

Talk to people, ask questions, be interested, make friends, find out who does what.

Get excited about other people’s successes.

Exposure 

You may get asked to work for free as it would be ‘great exposure’

Exposure Is the same kind of thing as visibility

Don’t work for free!

Unless you believe in the cause

Unless you owe someone

A free magazine with a circulation of 100k wants to put your work on the cover

It’ll be great exposure

Who do you want your work to be exposed to?

100k pensioners?

100k art designers?

100k cyclists?

100k medical professionals?

Exposure by itself isn’t inherently good or bad

If you are going to work for free you may as well do self-initiated projects to help you stay visible

Finding clients

How do you get the people who would pay for your work to see it?

Fishing method:

1. Bait your hook (nice photos/films)
2. Cast your line (let a lot of people see it)
3. Sit back and wait

Hopefully someone will bite

Opportunities come easier if you make them happen yourself

You have to be more motivated

Writers and artists year book 2019 (Joanne Lewis)

Check the websites of the companies you want to work with – do they have submission details?

If they do have submission points, read the small print

Submissions

You need a pitch!

Are you an artist?

Are you a writer?

Unfortunately we cannot respond to every enquiry we receive 

Find an agent

They will take a cut of any money that you get from work they get you  but will actively try to get you work

Google film/photography agency

Different agents have different specialisms and interests. Do your research and find one that is a good fit for the work you want to be able to do.

Include a call to action:

Something that tells someone what to do next

Decide what your call to action is 

Hire me! Remember me!

Pay me to show my work!

Use your notes to identify what you don’t know about the industry you want to go into

Try and find answers to your questions 

Bring your questions with you to the next lecture

Creative Futures – Costings Brief

I was given a task where i had to find out some costings of certain products with certain specifications, such as a 48 page book full colour binding, pin badges with backing and packaging, a3 prints, and greetings cards, i didn’t have to choose all four of these to do so i went with the book and the a3 prints, as i believe they would be the ones out of the four that i would most likely use if i was to have my own business.

this task wasn’t the easiest to do because we also had to get quotes off the suppliers from the websites that we had been looking at for these prices, so included in this task we were told we had to make a spreadsheet of the costings and also get screengrabs of the email conversations that we had been having with the suppliers.

These are the two screenshots of the website and of the small email conversation i had, but with the email i think it was an automated answer, because of the reply that i recieved.

Costings Spreadsheet

Portrait Photography

Some of the shots I have here are from Manchester, where me and a friend from university went round Manchester specifically the Northern Quarter looking for graffiti, some of the stuff we found was really interesting and I thought we could use it and it would work as a very good backdrop for some portrait shots.

I used self portraits because I had a bright yellow jumper on with a graffiti style drawing on the back of it of a skull, so I thought using that would be a very good idea to use that as a subject as well as the graffiti in the background and I believed they worked very well together and added a lot to the photos in different ways.

These photos, I really enjoyed doing them as I could express myself in a way that I hadn’t really been able to do before, so I found it really interesting and really enjoyable and I found them very fun because of how the colour depicted them in the way that I wanted them to do.

The difference between these photos is that I have made the background darker so the subject being me stand out more as it is a portrait shoot, and I thought it would add more effect to the photos as well because of how I stand out in them.

Creative Futures – Charley Wiles

Putting your foot through the door 

She is doing an MDes in Graphic Design

She used to be a part of the GOWales program 

She is from Mostyn 

Went to various high schools applied for uni thinking why not 

She has various jobs 

Self photographer at theatre Clwyd 

It started at creative futures where she went to speak to the director of Theatre Clwyd and this is how she started 

She emailed a few people who knew each other but she got a placement there

Theatre Clwyd 

She felt stuck and wasn’t sure what she wanted to do 

She did a few small bits 

Had a small conversation with someone in the team about how she did photography 

It sparked an interest in photography with this photo 

She was credited and it was a start, small photo in a program 

She has learnt a bit more from that first shoot about lighting and how that changes stuff 

She was also asked to take photos of a pantomime 

Which she was really happy with 

It hit a spark and she thought this is what I want to do 

She was emailed later on by someone at theatre Clwyd and she was going to be paid 

She became self employed because of this shoot, the musical  was called the assassination of Katie Hopkins 

She doesn’t edit her photos just sends off raw images 

She does stuff with mind the gap 

Her photo was then published in the London Times Newspaper

A week later it was in the independent 

She thought she’d reached her goal 

She has framed all of her pieces as she is proud of them 

She was credited in the independent and the times

All of this happened in weeks 

BBC News had released an article with her photos that she was credited with 

Katie Hopkins didn’t enjoy the musical, she also protested against the musical with a truck in London and she sent it to North Wales 

All of the work she showed was degree show stuff 

she wasn’t sure what to do after coming back to uni 

As she had already got her goals of having photos on the BBC

She felt very lost 

Still figuring out what she wants to do 

Classes herself as a photographer and graphic designer 

She changed her ways she thought she needed to get a grip 

She is intending on going to one event every month to build her portfolio 

Just to get out of the house was a good thing 

Should be able to express your work how you want it to be expressed 

Try and gain as much experience as possible 

Think before you do things 

Don’t rush 

Take your time with things 

Experiment 

Enjoy life as much as possible 

Express yourself through your work 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions 

Creative Futures – Gareth Taylor

Shooting the News 

He graduated in 2005 from Glyndwr University

The course wasn’t called film and photography it was called moving image 

Shoots with the BBC News welsh news and s4c 

He is a senior camera operator for BBC Wales, he works mostly with Wales today at 6:30pm, 1:30pm and 10:20pm and he also works with s4c at 9 o’clock every evening 

6 crews in the North

Do go across the border to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds 

Do also go abroad for events such as the rugby or the euros 

Work 4 10-12 hour days in a week 

In the north its camera crew and editors 

They are called shoot edits 

Edit on laptops out and about 

Primarily working on final cut 10 on laptops 

But in studio they use QEdit 

Spend a lot of time travelling 

Sometimes take part in the rallying 

BBC proms has been filmed by one of his peer crew 

A lot of the promo he showed us was shot on iPhones 

Use iPhones with a gimbal

Use MacBooks where they can send it live straight away compared to how it used to be 

Took photography on more than video 

Worked on external projects, community projects 

Started with the BBC because of a project called creative nation 

Getting contacts will help you 

Gaining experience will also help you in a big way 

Keep in touch with people 

Worked as a technician teaching people basics how to edit etc

On top of doing freelance

went to work with the fire service as they wanted a digital media person 

Reporting on major incidents

Accidentally pushed him into the news side of things 

Really enjoyed it because of the adrenaline and he was there for 7 years and he was pushed to other places to do media for other people such as other police services etc 

Moved from ENG cameras to shooting on DSLR which gave him a bit more freedom with shooting 

But do shoot more on ENG as its quicker and simple to use in less time and they are more resistant 

Read the skills and stuff on applications to see what they want it might help you 

Try not to blag things if possible 

Full time limit that they have to film things is an hour to an hour and a half 

Some things just fall into place 

he has moved up the rankings in the BBC

He was thought to not have much experience but he then surprised them as he knew a few different things because he did freelance 

Shot the news recently in Wrexham last week where a young lads sheep was stolen near rossett

He never knows what job he is going to do, from one day to the next 

Took them just over an hour for them to film it 

He normally finds out roughly how long the clip has to be, for the news

1:30 – 2:30 mins pieces for the news

Sometimes it can be very close cut to being put on air 

Doesn’t always get a say in the edit 

Always shoot your best stuff first 

Sometimes journalists pull out so sometimes they have to ask the questions 

Certain things for social media is normally shot straight down the barrel as it has to be put in portrait so it works 

Sometimes you can’t shoot things in the background because it isn’t relevant to the story 

Get kicked off places quite regularly as they are not allowed to film there, so have to find a public space 

Top and tail shoots so the main person has to do a live intro and outro to footage that is already there

Sometimes have to change things at last minute due to certain circumstances 

Sometimes it can change really quickly