Codes of practice

It’s regulation time!

Media is stuffed with regulatory requirements that act not just as rules but also guidelines to help assure everything is above-board and legal. While it may seem counterintuitive to put rules on art the codes and practises are critical to avoid being sued or fined massive amounts of money. 

The official definition for regulation is:

How can you stick to the codes and practices?

There are so many different factors at play depending on where you are filming so let’s focus on trying to create a piece of creative digital media in the city of London. London is the third busiest city in the world for filming and there is a film or TV crew on the streets almost every day of the year, so sticking to the rules and regulations is vital as you don’t want to be a public liability in one of the busiest cities in the world. The official film London website brings up some of the regulations that need to be discussed. http://filmlondon.org.uk/filming_in_london/planning_your_shoot/legal

Minimum wage

As you are filming in the UK there are laws you have to abide about paying workers even if they’re just doing work experience. If you need more information about this to calculate your expenditure there’s some guidelines here. With the monumental demand for more video games in recent years many game developers have been overworked and underpaid, for example, poor budgeting in the California based game company TellTale lead to a collapse, leaving many unemployed and questioning their workers rights. Now developers get their national minimum wage as well as paid leave if wanted.

Statutory obligations

Filming on location is massively overcomplicated, with the countless pages of information on every little detail. For those curious here’s a file of all the minute missteps one might make. Here’s an image that sums up location filming in London:

Child performance licenses

Children in films are a bad idea. First of all, the acting is a hit or miss and an even worse headache when it comes to laws. If the child is in school you must ask to get time off or provide onsite education/boarding school. If the child isn’t from the UK then this raises even more issues about accommodation and hours of work. During the production of Matilda (1996) the 9-year-old star’s mum unfortunately passed away due to cancer. Because of this Danny DeVito and his then wife/costar Rhea Perlman took care of Mara making sure everything went swimmingly with production.

Media insurance

This must be dealt with as early into production as possible as all UK productions need Public Liability Insurance in order to receive permission to film or carry out commercial photography. This will cover any injuries on set or any damage to 3rd party equipment. This insurance policy is only relevant if you follow the health and safety guidelines. For a London shoot this will cost you the low low price of £2 million and even £5 million in certain locations, however, for students this should be covered by their college or university. 

Filming people/buildings

There is no particular English rule about image rights however, a general rule of thumb is to ask for consent of anyone unintentionally in the image. If a person does not give permission it is critical you find a way to remove or obscure them from the final product to avoid lawsuits. Similarly, certain buildings in London require special permission to film because under the Designs and Patents Act of 1988 buildings are considered copyrightable – you may not even be able to recreate them using VFX or matte paintings. 

How to avoid issues like these in pre-production

• Make sure to follow the guidelines of the main regulatory body in the country or sub section of media you’re in. For example, OFCOM deals with radio and TV regulation in the UK and they have varying rules to regulatory bodies in other countries like America (FCC)
• Again make sure to obtain public liability insurance so everything is covered.
• The rights to any music used in your audio visual production
• In detail risk assessment forms
• On camera release forms to ensure all actors are on board with the use of their image.
• Location recces to make sure a location is safe and legal.

In conclusion

A failure to follow the rules and regulations of a media product can lead to injuries or unnecessary risk which can easily be avoided by following the codes of practice during the pre-production phase. Ultimately, the production of a creative digital media production does not put you above the law so it is important that no matter how low budget you are adherence to the rules is not only vital but also essential. On the other hand, films like This Is Not A Film decided to go against the laws of their country to purposefully create a piece of art that landed the director in jail for espionage. Overall, in my opinion adherence to the rules and regulations is effective in the pre-production phase as it keeps a media product in check and lawful, however, the codes and practices can also stunt art, my advice (which should be taken with a grain of salt) is to shoot what you want to include in your piece regardless of minor inconveniences.