Journalist Job Role

Journalist

A journalist is someone who works in the print, TV or online fields of media. Their job is to gather and supply information for the news.

Journalists have a strict obligation to be accurate, unbiased and fair when it comes to publishing their story.

As well as working on the news, TV journalists work on a number of fields, such as documentaries and current affairs.

Journalists have a lot of travelling to do when working, as they have to see what they are reporting on personally in order to make their story as accurate as possible. This can sometimes put them in danger, especially when entering areas of war.

Training schemes are made available by such companies like Sky or BBC. Competition for a job in journalism is incredibly stern after leaving university, usually starting out working for a newspaper before making the gradual step ups to the radio and then television.

Salaries are varied between national journalists and local ones. For a journalists with under 4 years experience you can expect an annual salary between about £15,000 and £25,000. For those with five to nine years experience it is about £22,000 to £25,000 and for journalists with 10 or more years in the job you can earn between £22,000 to about £40,000.

A trainee journalist's salary usually starts at £15,000 - although if you are working locally and not nationally it is £12,000. As you progress through training you can expect rises of about £1,500-£3,000.

Director Job Role

Director

A director, who can work on a film or a TV show, is the person who is in charge of the actors and crew on a set, deciding who to hire and coordinating their moves.

Working alongside a producer, directors develop a vision for a film. Once their vision has been established, it is then the director’s duty to decide how the film should look, turning the script into a structure of shots. They also help out the set designer and cinematographer with lighting, camera angles and lens effects. They can also have small parts in assisting with the editing, writing and financing the project. Storyboards are very useful for directors, especially when illustrating scene set-ups and camera angles.

The director also plays a vital role with the post-production of the project, working with the editor to capture the emotions of the actors and making sure the camera angles reflect the mood of the specific scene. As well as these many tasks, they also help out with the colouring and sound of a scene.

Actors are usually seen as the main draw for audiences, but depending on the level of the director’s success or fame, they can also be a big factor for people to watch the film or TV show. Although the producer is seen as the most important role behind the scenes, a director has total control on set.

Famous directors with a lot of experience can earn millions just for one movie, but for a newcomer you can expect to earn round about £40,000 annually.

You can earn approximately £5,000 a week for films with budgets under £500,000, about £8,000 a week for budgets between £500,000 and £1.5 million and just over £10,000 a week for budgets over £1.5 million. In order to earn this money though the filming must last at least 8 weeks.  

Scriptwriter Job Role

Scriptwriter

A scriptwriter is someone who writes the script for a film, TV show, video game, comic, radio programme, etc.

Scriptwriters are self-employed. In order to make money from one of their ideas they must pitch the script to a number of studios who then make the decision whether or not to purchase the rights to produce it. When the studio decides they are interested the script becomes known as an ‘open assignment’. Open assignments are a lot more competitive, and usually the professional script writers will win the race to get produced over an amateur. Well known scriptwriters can also be asked personally by the studio to come up with an idea, rather than creating something then entering a kind of lottery in the hope their idea will get picked up.

Once a script has been completed, they work closely with a studio representative – a director, producer, entertainment executive, entertainment lawyer or a literary agent. These partnerships then pitch the script in the hope to further the project. Scriptwriter rights are then agreed with the purchaser.

Scriptwriters aren’t involved with the actual development of the filming, although they can be offered positions as an advisor, and, depending on their experience, a producer or director too.

By having your script bought by a studio doesn’t necessarily mean that the project will go ahead, though. This could be for many reasons, the main two being the fact that they are many, many more scripts than there are directors as well as the simple fact that the studio’s interest in the project may fade.

Script writers genearlly take a 2-5% cut of the movies budget. So if a film makes £50 million then the script writer could earn between £1 million and £2.5 million. Obviously if you are a new comer working on an 'indie' film then the movie is going to cost much less thus meaning the script writer earns less. An indie film on average costs about $400,000 - giving the script writer a £8,000 or £20,000 wage slip.

Technical Jobs

Technical Jobs

Technical jobs have a certain element of creativity about them.

Camera Operators have to prepare the best shots possible to make the film looks appealing to the eye. A zoom could be useful if there is a hit-man pointing a gun out of a tower block window 300 yards away.

A Lighting Technician is someone who tries to capture the mood of the scene with how they light it. In a happy scene, the scene could be all lit up but if it was a sad scene, it could be quite dark.

A Sound Engineer is responsible for providing the best audio they can for the film, proving the most useful for an action movie as the sound of explosions, guns and fast cars are heavily heard in that genre of film.

A Computer Programmer has the big task of creating any visual effects, focusing on special effects and animation.

Marketing Jobs

Marketing Jobs

A Producer has he ultimate responsibility with all features of a film’s or TV show’s production, dealing with the distribution and finance corporations by organising the marketing and distribution of the completed project.

A Sales Executive’s job is to try and find a buyer to their companies’ services or stock, achieving this by upholding affiliations with current customers by the use of phone calls, e-mails and meetings as well as visiting possible new customers in order to attract new business.

Film Publicists assist distributors in deciding how to advertise a film with the purpose of expanding the audiences, putting great thought into the audience’s opinions that are conveyed onto the internet, TV, radio and print. As well as that, they must be effective at creating and increasing the general hype around the film – making more and more people want to come and watch it.

Managerial Jobs

Managerial Jobs

There are many managerial job types in the media industry. Here are two of them.

A Director is the person responsible for taking charge of all creative aspects of a film or TV show.  They are incredibly important in taking words from a page into moving images which make the final film or TV show. Directors have many different tasks, such as taking the lead in casting actors to roles, shot composition and editing, script editing and more. Although not necessarily in charge of the financial aspect of a project, they have to put a lot of thought into the budget, working alongside the producer.

Radio Station Managers’ job is fairly self-explanatory; they are the boss of a radio station. They are responsible for taking care of any problems that may occur during the production of a radio show, as well as working on the financial side of things – making sure they do not overspend. They are also in charge of the production team, overseeing their work in order to make things run a lot more smoothly in regard to the material, the target audience and the financial takings. They are vital in helping their radio station as widespread and flourishing as possible.

Legal Jobs

Legal Jobs

A Media Lawyer is someone who covers the media industry law affairs. A media law course is not always available at law schools. Media law is split up into 3 sections. The first is print media, which branches out to magazines, newspapers, print advertisements, etc. The second section is telecommunications, which covers TV and radio and the third is digital communications, such as the internet. Media lawyers have a lot of subjects which they take care of, such as the right to privacy and defamation.

Intellectual Property Lawyers refers to inventions or products that by rights are deserving of a copyright clause, so therefore their task is to take care of any copyright issues. They protect property rights and fight against infringement, negotiate and draft IP agreements and manage brands.