Thursday, 19 December 2013

Assignment 2: Skills Audit


L.O
1.     Understand freelance working in the creative media sector.
2.     Understand contractual obligations and financial issues in the creative media sector.
3.     Be able to plan for a professional development and skills maintenance as a freelance worker in the creative media sector
4.     Be able to develop a strategy to maintain workflow in a chosen freelance specialism in the creative media sector.

Different Sectors in Media

1.     Journalism
2.     Graphics
3.     Music Industry
4.     Radio and Television
5.     Film
6.     Interactive Media
7.     Games
8.     Advertising

Specialisms within

1.     Journalism:  - Journalist, Subeditors, photographers
2.     Graphics: - Artist,
3.     Radio: - Presenter, Producer, Advertising, Reporters
4.     Television: - Acting, Producer, Makeup, Sound, Writing
5.     Film: - Acting, Producing, Directing, Writing
6.     Interactive Media: -


Contracts

1.     Full Time: A job in which you are employed for 30+ hours of work. Contract for a set amount of hours a week, rolling contract. Set number of paid holiday and sickness benefit. No independence, tedious.  Gain experience and training; updating your skills for free. Suits parents.
2.     Part Time: - Fixed contracts (e.g. BBC employs on six months contracts) less security on a part time contract than a full time as you can be dropped when and as your employer pleases. Holiday and sick pay still available ‘Pro Rata’ means it depends on your contract; if you work a certain amount of hours then a certain number of hours will be allocated to you.  Suits students, or people wanting to build a reputation in the industry with a range of skills. Gives stability but with the chance to switch things up
3.     Freelance: - Employed on a job-by-job basis. For journalism it could mean by story, for a graphics designer per design. Effectively you are your own boss, you decide what time you start, finish, what days you want to work, whether you want to do the job or not, charge how much you want. You can’t make long term plans, have sick pay/holiday pay, You never know how much you will make one month it may be good pay the next may be very poor.
Costly business; paying for a computer and programmes.
Because you can set your own costs you can earn a lot of money.
You can go on a holiday when you want. Freedom. 

Thursday, 12 December 2013

Assignment 2: Evaluating Skill set


Website evaluation
www.creativeskillset.org

What do you think of the layout?

The layout of this website is easy to navigate around and is easy to find what the user wanted to. All the categories for the different careers are separated clearly.

Can you find what you want easily?

The Skillset website is easy to navigate around and links to my chosen specialism were quick and easy to find; you wont have to go through lots of pages trying to find what you need to.


For your specialism, is the info useful?

My chosen specialism is Radio Producer, the information given was very useful; they give an introduction which tells you the basics of the job, this is helpful because for first time users of Skillset having an intro of the job can help them decided if they really want to go into the career. They then have a section asking ‘what is the job’ and what routes to take if you wanted to get into the career. The website then tells you what skills you may need; this is helpful because then you may want to get into some work experience to not only build you skills but also your knowledge.
They also provide you with extra information on other websites that could help with future education in the field.


Training?

You can search different courses that will have a section on each course about the training that is offered to you if you wish to take this course on; such as training with different companies in your field.


Contacts?

Each course has a list of websites that you can contact for extra help on your chosen career; this is helpful to get your name out there and hopefully get yourself started in the field.


What other help?

If you cannot find what you are looking for straight away the search bar will find what your looking for; there are also links to a specific career with different careers within that field.