Letter to Flipside Media

To, Flipside Media

To whom it may concern,

I am not seeking the available job listed however I hope you will continue to read on and rectify the mistakes located within your advert.

Contracts are what bind you to your job and company on a legal basis and so it must be made clear the terms to be upheld by both parties involved. Since you have such broad hourly and salary rates I believe that this could be taken as deliberate misdemeanour on your part in order to trap people into a terrible contract and you do not even mention how the two salaries are linked and so legally this could be saying ‘you will work 45 hours weekly for the wage of £15,000 a year’ I’m sure this is not an intentional ploy but it is one which could potentially tie someone legally to a job that pays a pittance when compared to all the legwork involved, I hope this has been understood and will be dealt with accordingly.

My second point that requires addressing is about you seeking someone ‘male or female aged below 30’ Age discrimination is mentioned within the equality act stating ‘it is unlawful to discriminate on the basis of age unless the practice is covered by an exception from the ban’ which roughly translates into- if there is a role for example a part in a musical or something similar that doesn’t fit your description you are allowed to be relieved legally. The job you are advertising mentions only the role of a producer which I am sure you are aware doesn’t actively affect the aesthetics of thee role and so you have no reason not to allow someone that is of let’s say 60 years of age apply and have rightful claim to the job should his or her skillset meet your requirements. So again I hope this has been taken on board.

My third point I identified that during the brief of the planned production you mention ‘female victims and male offenders’ now this is a highly controversial point of interest in assuming that only a female may be the victim of rape, if this production were to go ahead you should definitely consider showing both sides of the coin; just because you don’t tend to hear about the males being the victim it doesn't mean you can just be ignorant at the fact that this sort of thing does happen. Not to mention you are plastering this image of young boys having the potential to stalk and attempt to rape young women which may give young girls ideas about screaming rape when it is indeed not true. Sexism aside, the fact that you would actually want to create dramatizations of these events could trigger a reaction in some girls that may have been affected by such things personally. Where my point is leading is that the way in which you wish to convey young males which is also your audience could be considered a breach of the Obscene Publications Act- 'if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it'. I believe that you would certainly be depraving all of those young people that were to watch your production since it singles out high school males and paints a rather ugly picture which is both unnecesary and offensive.

If you were to include real victims taking place in interviews you would usually need to keep their confidentiallity to the audience unless they were to state otherwise. You would definitly need to keep the confidentiality in the case of using a person aged 18 or below in your production and you should sign a confidentiallity clause that states that their identity would forever be shrouded in a veil of confidentiality. Ways you can keep someone anonymous are: Keeping them if filmed shrouded as a silhouette, using voice manipulation or using an actor in place of the actual victim so long as you state in the interview that this is an actor and not the actual person involved, also relates to the use of dramaterisations or re-enactments that you said you wished the production to contain.

Following the standard policy and procedures between an employer and employee, the person you are seeking would be covered from accidents or injury by you personally. However, all persons seeking to apply would not be employed under you personally until they had produced the documentary and in this situation they would not be covered by you or your company. What you are doing could be seen as borderline illegal or at the very least highly immoral. The way you can ammend this is by finding someone that wishes to apply, employing them on a trial basis while they create the production and this way they will be covered and you will not be open to scrutiny.

Copyright issues come into play when you say you require a 'popular music soundtrack' the issue regarding copyright would be with the codes of practise associated with permissions of copyrighted material AKA the 'popular music soundtrack' you are reffering to. Since the music is to be used outside of personal purchase usage then requirements of law state that you would need permissions from the origional owner company of the music, without it then the applicant using the soundtrack could potentially get caught up in legality issues and they may also be unaware of this, therefore you either need to seek the permitions yourself, warn people of the risks or even grant more funding towards them.

I understand that you have included the fact that if applied for then applicants must not apply for any other job that is similar in nature. This is fine and you have no issues regarding regulations here I just am checking to see if you have the appropriate clause in place for you to help you to enforce andunderstand the terms behind it; if this clause is not present you need to either get one in place or simply get rid of this restriction on the advert since you cannot legally enforce what you havent got in place.

My final point is again on the basis of discrimination and specifically the subject of promoting religious views and seeking to recruit young people into your faith. Saying not only that the application is restricted to those that are Christian in faith as well as the requirement to ‘promote the ideals of the Christian faith and encourage young people to contact [you] for further guidance’. OFCOM regulation specifically states that: ‘one must not 'seek to promote religious views or beliefs by stealth' or 'seek recruits' which is essentially what I just implied.

I am thankful that you have read and hopefully understand the rules that you have been breaking and seek to rectify them as soon as possible.

Yours Faithfully,
                           Guy Zawada