Unit 8: Contracts

Contracts in the media industry are different from contracts in most other fields of work, this is because in the film and TV changes occur all of the time meaning that contracts must be flexible.

Freelance
More creative and technical jobs in the media industry such Camera Operators or D.O.P's are freelance. This means that the person is self employed and works on a temporary contract that only lasts a certain amount of time and may not have the same amount of benefits as a full time contract. The reason that freelances are common in the industry is that because once a freelance has finished their work on a production they are no longer needed and can leave, if they were on a full time contract and were no longer needed on shoot but still being payed it would be a waste of the production company's money. This is why contracts must be flexible. Freelances are in charge of finding their own work as they are not attaches to a company, they work for themselves giving them more flexibility between jobs.

Full / Part Time Contracts
Only some lines of employment in the industry are offered full time contracts, these are usually managerial or office based jobs and are usually permanent contracts unlike freelances who have temporary contracts. A full time contract is 39 working hours a week and can offer many benefits such as a pension plan, holiday time and sick pay. If you are on a permanent contract then you are classed as a regular member of the crew appose to freelance's who will come and go jumping between different crews and jobs. A part time contract is similar and offers similar benefits but they may be reduced, like a permanent contract you still have a set amount of hours you are expected to work a week but these hours are less and as a result offer less pay. Part time contracts are often only temporary.

Hours
Due to the fluidity of days on set some shoots may run longer than excepted or into the night. As well as this night shoots are very common as some scenes may need to be shot in the dark, to compensate for this workers paid extra for having 'anti social hours' these are hours were shooting runs over or if the cast or crew have to be on location very early or very late in order to set up or get the shot at the correct time of day. This is very common in the industry workers should expect long and hard days which may have anti social hours. Appose to these 'anti social' or 'irregular' hours crew members who work managerial or financial jobs often work 'office hours' traditionally this is 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. These are common hours for full time managerial contracts.

Live Shows
Crew who work on live shows such as news broadcasts and 24 hour radio stations will work in shifts. This means that they do a certain job for a certain amount of time until their shift is over and someone else comes in to take their job. Shifts can be long or short and may sometimes be night shifts where somebody has to work through the night in order to cover their shift.

Pay
It is very common in the industry to not be paid until the project is completed. This is known as being played on completion and is common as most workers are commissioned to create a certain project, if they do not completed this they are not payed. Simple. You must completed the piece of work to the standard that the contract states and completed for the date that it is due to be completed. If you do not do this you may not get payed. Freelancers with more creative roles are usually paid on completion where as managerial and financial roles tend to be paid on salaries. A salary is a set amount that you are paid annually which is split up and given to you monthly.