Current
Practices in Corporate Video Production
In
this essay I will be talking about the legal rules and regulations in the video
production industry as well as ways of abiding to them and examples of
corporate videos doing so. We will talk about copyright, privacy, defamation,
fair use, ethical, releases and also technologies.
Copyright:
‘the exclusive and assignable
legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print,
publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.’- Google.
More
simply put, copyright is a right given by the creator of a product (print,
film, artistic, music) to someone so they can use the product in their own
production. Without this given right, the product cannot be legally used in
another product that is released to the public, and the user of said
copyrighted product can be persecuted.
There
are number of ways around running into copyright troubles during production of
a corporate video. For example, there are websites that provide royalty free
music which means you can use that music without breaking any copyright laws
because the producer of the music hasn’t copyrighted the music. https://incompetech.com/
This
is a corporate video by Apple™, as a big company they can afford to create
their own music for their videos so they don’t breach any copyright laws.
Privacy:
Legal
privacy in the context of video production means the court will balance
someone’s right to a private and family life against the media’s right to
freedom of expression. Basically, People of public interest are often in the
eye of the media, and privacy law is what ensures that the person of interest
has as much privacy as possible while also allowing the media to express their
legal right to publish what they see and hear.
There
are a number of aspects that prohibit the media from invading the person’s
privacy: reporting
stories about people’s personal or sexual lives, finances, information about
their health, or filming them in their house without their permission. It can
even sometimes include situations where the person is in a public place - for
example, at a funeral. These are all breaking privacy law and the offender can
be persecuted.
For
example, if the corporate video was in an office and you shot someone on their
computer, if the computer had personal information on screen, that footage
would not be published otherwise the publisher could face persecution.
Defamation:
The
law of defamation allows individuals, companies or firms (‘claimants’) to sue
for damage to their reputation caused by material that is published and which
makes slanderous comments about them. It is considered defamation if something:
exposes them to hatred, ridicule and contempt, disparages them in their
profession, trade or office, causes them to be shunned or avoided, lowers them
in the estimation of right-thinking members of the public, etc.
For
example, if a company was to claim that their product was superior to another
companies, that could be considered as slanderous and defamation.
there
are a number of mediums in which defamation can occur: Newspapers; other
printed media, broadcasting on radio or TV, On the web, including social media
websites, online forums and microblogging sites, etc.
Fair Use:
A fair
use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and
“transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a
copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright
owner.
On
this website, there are a number of cases in which content was used in and out
of fair use.
Ethical Issues:
In
context of corporate video, ethical issues are cases of a company, product or
individual being represented in a way that may portray them as prejudice or
offensive.
For
example, if, in a video, an office was shown and all the employees were
Caucasian males, this may raise complaints that the company is prejudice
towards women or men of other ethnicity.
Releases:
A
release is a form of written legal permission that, in the production of a
video a person, their work or their property may be used and published. Without
a release, you are not legally allowed to publish footage containing an
individual, their work or their property, otherwise you may face legal action.
For
example, if you had footage in which an individual is seen and identifiable,
you need a talent release from them, otherwise they could persecute you.
Technology:
There
is a variety of different technology involved in corporate video production,
this includes, computer software, cameras and other hardware. Production
companies tend to not have as big of a budget as film production companies may
do, meaning the technology they use has to be affordable as well as good
quality.
Camera: Cameras used in
corporate video production tend to be DSLR cameras, as they produce good image
quality and are affordable. An example of an affordable camera good for video
production is the Canon EOS 700D. This is a cheap DSLR camera commonly used by
students, in colleges/universities and by low budget video production
companies. You can find this camera for around £300-400 on the internet, this
is a low cost considering the quality of the camera.
Hardware: There are a number of
other bits of hardware involved in video production, specifically involved in
the filming part. During filming you may need use of artificial lighting,
different lenses for the camera, tripods, microphones etc. and as a small
corporate video production company you may be on a budget, in which case you
may not want to buy the higher tier products. An example of good quality,
affordable hardware is the Joby GorillaPod, this is a versatile tripod which
can be reshaped to suit any surface and hold the camera stable at a straight
angle. Toy can get this for around £15-20
on the internet, this piece of apparatus is often used by YouTube vloggers but I imagine it was originally intended for nature filmers needing to set up a shots on natural, uneven surfaces like rocks.
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