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Dear Mr Bean
My name is Jack
Church and I am writing out of pure concern for your job description for the
apprentice digital video production producer job. I have a
few things wrong with it and would like to point them out to you so
that you can fix it. As a professional media company I am horrified at the fact
that I even have to write this to point out these crucial flaws. The nature of this job is very broad so would need
to be addressed in a contract including the pay and hours and what the employee
is exactly being asked to do, the hours and pay have been briefly mentioned but
in the way you have done so there may be some concern without exactly
specifying it in a contract. You have mentioned in the job description that it
has got an exclusivity clause within in it saying that you cannot apply for any
other positions of this nature, such as a band or artist would not be able to
sign with any other record labels but they could go work in a game store if
they so wished because this is a position of a different nature. You
might also need to say in a contract whether there is any type of confidentiality
clauses, so you would need to say if there is any type of information that
cannot be talked about outside the work office such as how there was an extra
who worked on one of the Harry Potter films and had a confidentiality clause in
her contract so was then fired when she spoke about the production of the film
outside of work.
With regard to
the employee and their contract you should note that it is illegal to
discriminate against someone due to their age, race or gender. By saying that
you are looking for someone “aged below 30” you are therefore breaking the law
under The Equality Act, Miriam O’Reilly was sacked for being too old and was
award £150 000 for this. This act also covers equal pay so by saying the pay is
between £15 000 - £35 000 for doing the same job would infringe this although
this could be due to the amount of hours you are working as it is between 10
-45 hours so this would have to be stated in a contract. I should go on to state the video requested for
the application would not be advisable due to employers’ liability and
employees rights. If making this video as an applicant anything that goes wrong
such as anything health and safety related it would be on the
applicants head as opposed to the employers’ because they are not protected due
to not yet being employed. Employers are responsible for the safety and
wellbeing of their employees and are liable for any physical or emotional harm
as well as any employee acts or omissions whilst in their employment so if
you’re making this video for an application, you are not covered by this, so anything that happened would be the applicants fault. This also goes to cover
health and safety, some of the work required may be somewhat dangerous so it is
your responsibility to ensure their safety otherwise the employee could claim
compensation if they believe the employer is responsible so this is where the
employers’ liability (compulsory insurance) act comes in to ensure that a
minimum level of insurance will cover any such claims. If someone is willing to
pay they could be part of a trade union where their rights and interests are
protected as workers but as it will come at a fee, at the moment BECTU’s
freelance membership cost is only £120 for a yearly fee.
Due to the nature
of what is being asked it would be your responsibility as an employer to draw
up policies and procedures for the use of codes of practice so that you can
avoid problems down the line, although this is not law it is strongly advised
to avoid these problems and should be your responsibility as an employer to produce
and distribute them to employees down the line. When making a video of
this nature because you are asking for interviews with individuals who might
be/have been affected by the topic including female victims and male offenders the video would provide a unwanted representation for certain individuals and groups
causing issue as they would be portrayed in a bad and negative way. Social concerns would arise regarding the way these individuals and groups are
being represented and portrayed especially seeing as how the media has a big
impact on this. Newspapers can dramatically change the views of a particular person or groups to how they want society to view them as they have a drastic amount of power over the way society views people. This is shown in the way youths are presented in the modern day, the
media portrays them as being violent, bad mannered people but not all youths
are. It’s the social concerns tied to them and how these groups are affected by the media so a video of this nature would defiantly bring some bad representations and
social concerns to individuals or groups tied to this video.
You have said in
the job advert that you want this to be “shown to children at high school
promoting the No mean No date rape
campaign” and by doing this at a high school you would be violating the Ofcom
Broadcasting Code particularly the protecting the under 18’s and harm and
offence sections. It states that “Material that might seriously impair the
physical, mental or moral development of people under eighteen must not be
broadcast.” So by doing this video it would be a breach of the code. It then
goes on to say that “In the provision of services, broadcasters must take all
reasonable steps to protect people under eighteen.” So by that regard it should
be our responsibility to protect the under 18’s rather than trying to exploit
them for obvious reasons. It then says under harm and offence that “Programmes
must not include material (whether in individual programmes or in programmes
taken together) which, taking into account the context, condones or glamorises
violent, dangerous or seriously antisocial behaviour and is likely to encourage
others to copy such behaviour. (See Rules 1.11 to 1.13 in Section One:
Protecting the Under-Eighteens.)” So both of these come hand in hand and by doing
these video it would defiantly be a violation of this act. Not only is the
video violating that but it also violates the obscene Publications Act mainly
through the use of enactments and also by showing it in High Schools were the
age range is 11 – 16 year olds, it might be passed if shown on late night TV
but not by showing it in High Schools. This is inappropriate due to the BBFC’s
rating of such videos, a video of this nature would possibly be given a 15 or
even more likely an 18 but depending how strong the reenactments of the rapes are it might not even be allowed. The BBFC states that for a 15 certificate it can show "detailed verbal references to sexual violence (for example descriptions of rape or sexual assault in a courtroom scene or in victim testimony) but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification." Under the section of "what might be cut from an 18 work?" It states "where material risks harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society – for example, any detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use, which may cause harm to public health or morals. This may include portrayals of sexual violence which might, for example, make rape look appealing" Depending on the strength of the content being shown this video may not be appropriate at all never mind for being shown at a high school. Finally you
said to use a popular music soundtrack to relate to the target audience, this
would be a breach of copyright laws as it is intellectual property and protected
by whoever created it so would not be allowed to be put into the video unless
you already have acquired the permission from the owner of the content to use
it. I hope you understand the seriousness of the job advert and fix these
problems immediately before action has to be taken.
Yours Sincerely,
Jack Church
