R093 TA1: Job Roles and Working in the Industry
Who does what, at which stage, and the difference between being employed and being freelance. Expect to name roles and say what they are responsible for.
Pre-production roles
Pre-production is everything before anything is made. These roles plan it.
| Role | Responsible for |
|---|---|
| Client | Commissioning the work and defining what is needed |
| Producer | The whole project: budget, schedule, hiring, and delivery |
| Project manager | Coordinating people, deadlines and resources day to day |
| Scriptwriter | Writing the script, dialogue or copy |
| Storyboard artist | Drawing the planned shots so everyone can see the intention |
| Concept artist | Producing early visual ideas for characters, locations and style |
| Researcher | Finding facts, locations, contributors and reference material |
The producer is responsible for the project: money, people and deadlines. The director is responsible for the creative decisions: how it looks, sounds and performs. A question asking you to distinguish them is asking for exactly that split.
Step 1 of 3 Pre-production: everything decided before anything is made.
Production and post-production roles
Production
| Role | Responsible for |
|---|---|
| Director | Creative decisions, directing performers and crew |
| Camera operator | Operating the camera to get the shots the director wants |
| Sound engineer | Capturing clean audio on location or in a studio |
| Lighting technician | Setting up lighting to achieve the intended look |
| Graphic designer | Creating visual assets, layouts and branding |
| Web developer | Building the website or web application |
| Games developer | Designing and programming the game |
| Animator | Creating moving images from drawings, models or rigs |
| Photographer | Taking the photographs the brief requires |
Post-production
| Role | Responsible for |
|---|---|
| Video editor | Assembling the footage into the finished sequence |
| Sound editor | Editing and mixing audio, adding effects and music |
| VFX artist | Adding visual effects and compositing elements together |
| Colourist | Grading the footage so the colour is consistent and intentional |
| Quality assurance tester | Finding faults before the product reaches the audience |
- Pre-production plans it: brief, research, documents, schedule, licences.
- Production makes it: filming, recording, designing, building.
- Post-production finishes it: editing, mixing, testing, export.
- Each floor hands something specific to the one above it.
- Skip the bottom floor and the decisions do not disappear: they arrive late.
Employment and working patterns
You need the difference between these, and the advantages and drawbacks of each, because it is a reliable source of four mark questions.
| Employed | Freelance | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid | A regular salary | Per job or per day |
| Work | Provided by the employer | Must be found by the individual |
| Holiday and sick pay | Yes | No |
| Equipment | Provided | Usually their own |
| Tax | Deducted automatically | Self assessed |
| Variety | One employer, steady work | Many clients, varied projects |
| Security | Higher | Lower, with gaps between jobs |
Contract types
- Permanent — ongoing, no end date
- Fixed term — a contract ending on a set date, common for one production
- Freelance — self employed, working for a client on a contract basis
- Part time and shift work — common in broadcast, where output is continuous
Media work is project based: a drama needs forty people for ten weeks and none of them afterwards. That is the reason freelancing is so common, and saying it is what lifts an answer from listing differences to explaining them.
Key terms you must be able to define
- Producer
- The person responsible for the project as a whole: budget, schedule, staffing and delivery.
- Director
- The person responsible for the creative decisions and for directing cast and crew.
- Freelance
- Self employed, working for clients job by job rather than for one employer.
- Post-production
- Everything done after filming or capture: editing, sound, effects and grading.
- Quality assurance
- Systematic testing to find faults before a product is released.
Flashcards
Say the definition out loud before you flip the card. Retrieving it from memory is what builds recall, reading it again is not.
Reach the top grade on this topic
Top answers attach the role to the stage and to a consequence. Not "the editor edits the video" but "the video editor works in post-production, assembling the footage into the final sequence, so if the camera operator failed to shoot enough coverage the editor has nothing to cut to and the problem surfaces weeks after the shoot has wrapped."
Mistakes that cost marks here
- Confusing the producer with the director. Producer is money, people and deadlines; director is creative.
- Describing a role by its name rather than its responsibility. 'A sound engineer does the sound' earns nothing.
- Putting a role in the wrong stage, such as calling the editor a production role.
- Listing freelance advantages without saying who they are an advantage for, the worker or the company.
The job title 'best boy' on a film crew is the chief assistant to the gaffer, who runs the lighting department. Neither title tells you anything about the job, which is why the exam asks you to describe responsibilities rather than recognise names.
Knowledge check
Exam-style questions
Five written questions in the style of the real paper. Write a full answer, then let the marker check it against the mark scheme.
- LA genuine pre-production role is named
- LIts responsibility is described, not just restated
- LA second, different pre-production role is named
- LThe second responsibility is described
A scriptwriter is responsible for writing the script, including the dialogue and the scene descriptions the crew will work from. A storyboard artist is responsible for drawing the planned shots in sequence, so that the director, camera operator and editor can all see the intended framing and order before anything is filmed.
- LThe producer's area is identified as the project rather than the content
- LAn example of a producer decision
- LThe director's area is identified as creative
- LAn example of a director decision
The producer is responsible for the project rather than its content: they secure and control the budget, build the schedule, hire the crew and are accountable for delivering on time. The director is responsible for the creative decisions: how the product looks and sounds, how performers play a scene and what each shot contains. In short, the producer decides what is possible and the director decides what it will be.
- LOne genuine disadvantage is identified
- LIt is explained rather than stated
- LA second, different disadvantage
- LThe second is explained
One disadvantage is that there is no holiday or sick pay, so any time a freelancer is not working is time they earn nothing, and an illness during a contracted shoot can cost them the fee entirely. A second is that they must constantly find their own work, which means unpaid time spent pitching and networking between jobs, and income that varies sharply from month to month even when the annual total is good.
- LA role appropriate to the product is named
- LA justification tied to this product rather than generic
- LA second appropriate role
- LA justification for the second
- LA third appropriate role
- LA justification for the third
A scriptwriter is required to turn the theatre's brief into a two minute structure with a voiceover, because at that length every line has to earn its place and that cannot be improvised on the day. A camera operator is required to capture the footage of performances and the building to the framing the director wants, because the quality of the original capture limits everything that can be done later. A video editor is required to assemble the footage, cut it to two minutes and lay the voiceover and music against it, because the pace of a promotional video is created in the edit rather than on the shoot.