Research into Three Job Roles

Writer:

Writers are involoved in the creation and development of a story, fiction or non-fiction. This covers a wide range of jobs within writing; screen writing, radio scripts, poetry, authors, material for the theatre, magazine and newspaper writers and many more. Most writers are freelance and work for themseleves, this means they also have to support themselves through the training and education it takes to become a writer. 

Although any graduate has a chance at becoming a writer it helps if you have studied literature, media studies, creative writing, journalism and performing arts. All these subjects give you an understanding of the skills needed to become a writer. You can also have a chance at writing without a degree, creative talent is more valuable to employers over qualifications. Work experience is beneficial, if you have experience it shows you have the basic understanding of what is expected and how to handle rejection.

There are many skills needed to be a succeesful writer, here are some:

• literary skills;
• imagination;
• determination and enthusiasm.
• self-discipline and time management skills;
• IT, web, typing and editing skills;
• excellent research skills, both literary and business-related;
• the ability to work to tight deadlines, while also maintaining attention to detail;

It is important for a writer to have determination and enthusiasm for the work they do because they only have a certain amount of time to create a certain piece of work and if you are uninterested and easily distracted youtr never going to make deadlines. This is also why writers needs to make sure they have excellent time management skills because every opportunity they get counts.
Career development:

In order to progress in your writing career it is essential to be marketing your name and work as much as possible. Writers often have their agents to deal with this but it is important to look out for opportunities yourself. This could be by creating a website, blog, interviews, workshops and signings.

Around 60% of writers are part-time writers and only earn up to £5,000. Although full time writers earn much more, for example, a script writer for radio can earn up to £52.67 an hour and £104.34 an hour for a TV drama. Authors can also sell the rights to their novels for over £100,000 according to the salary data collected in May 2010. The more experiecne you have within the writing sector usualy means the higher your salary, people with up to 10-15 years experience can be earning up to £120,000.

Research into Three Job Roles

Radio Presenter:

When listening to the radio, radio presenters are the people who are there to keep you entertained. Depending on the station they are on it can differ from 80% talking and taking in questions from the public to 20% talking and basically just introducing songs.

In order to become a radio presenter you need to have hands-on experience of presenting and come across confident through your voice alone, this can be achieved by doing small radio presenting in student or hospital radio. You can also get into this field by taking an undergraduate degree or post-graduate diploma in radio or media production. You can also work your way up from entry level roles within the radio without any experience or a degree.

As the audience of the radio show can only hear presenter’s voices it is important for them to have great communication skills in order to connect with the audience. As the radio is live presenters need to be able to work under pressure and react quickly to anything that might go wrong. It is very important for radio presenters to have excellent time management as the producers of the show rely on them to start the live show at a certain time. If they are late or don’t show up the producers will have to find a replacement, which could lead to something going wrong as they aren’t ready.

Radio presenters rarely work a 9am-5pm shift; usually their hours are long and unsocial. Early morning and evenings till late night are usually the shifts they receive and most presenters also work all through the week and weekends. Radio presenters all usually earn a different salary depending whether they work part or full time, starting salaries can start as low as £14,000 and can reach up to £100,000+.

Research into Three Job Roles

Director:

Being the director of a film interests me as it is an exciting and fulfilling job, but it can also be a very hard one. The responsibilities you have start from controlling every step of production, from auditioning actors, supervising the crew and having the final say on what special effects/music and scenery are used to create the final product. When in control of all these people it is easy to lose track when things go wrong and people start to stress, so it is important for the director to keep calm throughout production as it is essential towards final outcome. 

Most directors are usually successful through their talent and experience alone, all’s it can take in the media industry is to have talent and know people in high places. Although, this isn’t the case for all directors some have to work their way up through years of education. To be accepted in this highly competitive program you must have either a bachelors or associate degree which can be achieved at universities and there are also specialised schools associated to just film and are highly competitive to get into. You can also get into the career through 2 or more years of experience, an example of how you can achieve experience is applying to work on a movie set as an assistant.  Once you have your degree or experience (or both) you then have to complete a written exam and other assessments in order to bag a director’s job. It is quite a hard process to become a well known respected director but the outcomes make it worth it.

It is very important that the director’s professional behaviour is excellent as the whole cast and crew rely on the director to carry out each step of production. Without the director present production is put at a standstill, or production carries on without the director in hope everything is going how it should. If the director doesn’t approve of the decisions made that days production will have to be done again leaving the company losing money. Therefore it is important that the director is present for every single day of production. If the director isn’t approachable or doesn’t communicate with cast and crew this will affect the final product as the lines of communication aren’t connecting with each other so it is vital directors have good communication skills. As the director is responsible for all parts throughout production they need to have excellent personal responsibility ensuring that they are reliable, have good attendance, commitment, and time management. 

In order to be a director you need to be flexible as the hours can be throughout the day from early morning to all through the night. The hours will be irregular and the pay can be earned from how much the overall project takes in or a company will employ the director and give them a set amount of money. Although, some directors demand both a profit from the projects money made and money from the employer they are working for.  

Financial

Anything that involves money and the finance of a company is under the financial sector. They can be involved with raising money for films and gaining advertising space for the company they work for. Examples: Line producer; Line producers are the key managers during the production of a motion picture. They work alongside the director supporting visions given by the director, but they do not have any direct influence on the production or narrative of the film. They are more involved with the budget and physical production needed in order for the production to move forward. Auditor; An auditor is someone who overlooks an individual or companies financial records (bank statements, paychecks and tax refunds) and information to make sure everything is in working order and their information agrees with the information they have given out. Because of the amount of time it would take to go through every single piece of paper work auditors usually have to use their experience and judgment to determine if the information is correct.

Legal

Media lawyer; a media lawyer mainly focuses on providing a range of legal services to sectors within the media industry. They usually dedicate themselves to one type of media law; cases are usually within law defamation, contempt, media law privacy or censorship issues. Because of the attention entertainment companies and people who work within the entertainment business receive the media laws are becoming common in many countries, farthing the need for media lawyers. Executive producer; these are the people that are representing a financial investment in a film project, like the film studio or distributor but they aren’t involved in day to day production.  It can be someone interested in the project, the author and an actor in the film who has been present throughout production of the film or initiated the film to the studio.

Administrative

All facilities need an administrative sector within their work place, a school, retail business and a large movie production, these are a few examples of facilities that admin is crucial in. Researcher; these are the people within the sectors that collect the necessary research needed by the company. For example, a researcher working on an upcoming movie would be researching the latest box office takings for similar genre films and effective ways to connect with their target audience. This allows the director/producer of the film to give the audience what they want, reflecting in a larger success for the finishing product.  Secretary; secretaries, no matter what sort of organisation they work for are known to be very well organized and are in control of keeping the office running smoothly. Secretaries have many tasks within their job role, taking calls, scheduling meetings; managing filling systems are a few examples of the many jobs they undertake. Skills needed to get a secretary job are usually minimal, as long as you’re organized and have skills to operate the office equipment and typing skills.

Managerial

Director; the director is the person that’s in control of the production team. They are in charge of telling everyone else what their jobs are and how to do them. Project manager; the project manager has the overall responsibility for the success, planning and execution of a project. They are in charge of everything from cost to risk analysis. Station manager; A radio station manager is the person with the responsibility of the day to day operation within the station, managing all departments, scheduling on and off air staff and more. They are the people with the responsibility of hiring people and also oversee their training given from department managers. Being within a managerial sector gives the person a huge amount of responsibility to make sure their project is going smoothly and everyone knows their jobs and responsibilities. To be within this field you need experience to be able to handle with the many situations you will face as a manager you also need good communication skills to be a manager as there is a lot of communication between other companies and your employees. Listening skills, leadership, administrative and financial skills and focus and other skills needed to succeed in a job within the managerial field.