Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer

15th June 2015

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to bring awareness of some issues in this job application, the job application is for a male/ female christian under the age of 30 who are willing to work between 10-45 hours per week in the Production industry. The role itself includes; Writing proposals, pitching to clients, client contact, managing budgets and so on and so forth.It sates that, "to apply for this job you must plan and produce a short documentary that can be shown to children at high school promoting the No means No date rape campaign, including female victims and male offenders who will talk candidly; complimenting the interviews with re-enactments, dramatizations and a popular music soundtrack that will appeal to the target audience".  The job itself is a reasonable offer but, the application - a short documentary - is absurd and quite frankly unethical for both the victims and the audience. 

In the advert you state that "if successful, you must not apply for positions of this nature". If you sign a contract for a company, the exclusivity clause would then be infringed and you wouldn't be able to apply to another company whilst still being an employee at said company; if in the same line of business. I would expect there to be an exclusivity clause in the contract providing I am successful.

The Equality Act protects discrimination on grounds of race, gender or age as it is illegal. The application states that you are looking for a 'man/woman, below the age of 30 who is christian,' however this conflicts with Equality act as both age and religion are both Chapter 1: Protected Characteristics, therefore specifying that you are seeking someone of both an age lower than 30 who is also a christian. This is a 'direct discrimination' as you are not giving people of a different belief or an age higher/ lower than 30 an equal chance at applying for said job (1).

Employer's liability is the act that if an employee is harmed or injured (mentally, physically  or emotionally) that the employer would be held responsible, speaking of the video terms; if the applicants were to injure themselves in any way, the act would not be applied as they have yet to become an employee, same goes for the employee's rights. 

A trade union, for example BECTU, exists to protect the rights and interests of workers. But again, this only applies if they are successful in attaining the job. If the candidate is a freelance worker and they were a member, this would apply to them and they would have some protection.

Codes of pratice are not law but they do help avoid legal issues. For example, the employer will research and read acts and decipher what is relevant in their industry. The applicants should be given the relevant codes of practice that they could follow to avoid legal issues.

Representation is the presentation of an individual or a group of people (good or bad) to an audience / public. Your job advert asks you to interview "female victims and male offenders" which would portray all females as victims and all males as 'bad' and immoral people. According to Wikipedia (2) 12% of boys and 3% of girls reported committing sexual violence against their partners which shows that although a large proportion of assaults are committed by males, there are also female offenders. The impact of this is that it gives a biased view of males and females and how its is one sided. This causes social concerns and unrest in the public, mostly with parents and teenagers. Teenagers already have bad press and this would then create more negative press towards them. Older viewers; employers, people on the street etc., will therefore view them differently even if the way they are represented is false.

In the advert you state that you wish to "compliment interviews with reenactments and dramatizations" (3) of rape that can be shown to children at high school. I think this would be very traumatic for them and "might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of people under eighteen must not be broadcast" (4). As children are below the age of 18 (roughly 12-16) their minds are still adapting / growing and may not be able to handle such sensitive topics.
The obscene publications act (1959) states that "an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, 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" (5). This means that the dramatizations and reenactments would be deemed as obscene not sue to the subject necessarily but because of the age that it would be broadcast to.

According to the BBFC, videos that involve the following, cannot be broadcast to people of a lower age than 18:

• very strong violence
• frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***') and / or very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’)
• strong portrayals of sexual activity
• scenes of sexual violence
• strong horror
• strong blood and gore
• real sex (in some circumstances)
• discriminatory language and behaviour (6)

This conflicts with the job advert because you wish to broadcast it to high school students and they are of a younger age group.

Finally, you state that you wish to compliment the interviews with 'popular music soundtrack'  this is difficult to do as the Intellectual Property Law also states, "protects the legal rights of creators and owners in relation to intellectual creativity," this is your, "patents, trade marks, designs and copyright." So, this is including 'music' the cost for the rights of this is expensive and you state in small print that we will be '"reconpensed up to the value of £20." That would not meet the costs of the music for the video. (7) 

Yours sincerely,

Charlie Brodie

(1) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/13
(2) Christine Barter, Melanie McCarry, David Berridge and Kathy Evans (2009).Partner exploitation and violence in teenage intimate relationships NSPCC, pp. 81 (or more)
(3) class job advert
(4) http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/protecting-under-18s/
(5) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/section/1
(6) http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/18
(7)http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/LegalAreas/CopyrightIPR/IPREssentials.aspx