Level 4
Creative Enterprise
Evaluation
Throughout the year, the course consisted of the developing
our own creative business (my enterprise being a freelancer), attendance
several workshops with guest speakers to help build upon our knowledge of creative
enterprises as well as give us further ideas on professionalism and planning
for our business, undertaking work experience and developing our skills as
individuals in a variety of applicable ways that can be explored in the
creative area. In addition to this, we also produced a fifteen-minute short
film as part of our group assessment.
At the start of the year, I set out to develop a creative
enterprise of my own as part of the criteria for the course. To start this, I
had to undertake a series of research and development of other freelance
businesses to generate a general idea of what I had to consider as part of my
business – including copyright, GDPR, creative licenses and legislation/law.
During this phase, I had to refer to the gov.uk website to assist with my
enterprise as it informed me of the considerations I would have to take later
in the year. My business to begin with was not as strong as it could have been
but with due time, self-assessment and constructive feedback from my peers
helped build a better enterprise. An example of this would be the logo design
for my business – there were a series of designs I was unhappy with and
continued to develop and change them as time went by until I reached what I
thought was the final design. Whilst my final design was unique and strong in
the sense of its individuality, I discovered that many had thought that my logo
design could have been structured better and was not as legible nor
aesthetically pleasing. From this, I redesigned the logo structure and adjusted
the font to make it easier to read and suitable for the design. This and many
other parts of my feedback was tracked through a peer-assessment marksheet
provided for different peers to assess my work.
In relation to my venture, the legal and regulatory guidance
I had to apply was quite consistent. It was largely based around GDPR, consent,
licensing, copyright and insurance. GDPR and consent were quite important in
relation to my business as I would have to consider data protection and data
use when working with other companies and individuals. This would be largely
keeping contact details, possibly banking information (for invoices) and any
important information regarding health. Though I would not have too much of
GDPR and consent to apply to my field of work, they are both key elements of my
venture that I need to apply. When looking at copyright, I had to consider how
it would affect my enterprise and if it would a common occurrence. As a
freelancer working for other companies, I discovered it would largely not be a
direct concern of mine as I would most likely be using self-produced work
and/or the work of the business that I’d be working for. If I was to use
material that was copyrighted, I would have to ask the creator of said material
for permission or upper management of the business I’d be working for would
need to be in contact with the original creator. Insurances and licenses were
also important pieces of legal guidance that I applied to my enterprise –
insurances such as public liability insurance and buildings and contents
insurance were key for the legality of the business and were considered to not
only financially protect myself and the business, but the public and any
belongings that I had registered under my business were also guaranteed to be
safe. Licensing was not a large concern as it would likely be only creative
licenses that I would need to consider in my business – however, in addition to
this, I would have to consider that licenses may be required for certain work
placements; for example, if I was to do cinematography using a drone, I’d need
to consider owning a drone license to be able to use it for filming. The legal
and regulatory guidance applied to my business has helped to open my eyes to
the important details that I would most definitely have to apply or consider
when putting my creative enterprise out into the world.
During my independent work in the classroom, I had to research
legal and regulatory guidance to assist me in terms of developing an
understanding of the behind-the-scenes of setting up a creative venture. This
was largely provided through the gov.uk website and it gave me a sense of the
legal requirements and/or concerns I would need to apply when creating a creative
enterprise. An example of this would be GDPR and consent; this was mainly
looking at what GDPR consisted of, and how it would be applied to my business
as well as looking at the consent of data usage in my business and how it can affect
how a business works. Along with this, I had also researched copyright in terms
of the creative area, and it became apparent that this was going to be another
large part of creating a business. Throughout the course, I was aware of copyright and refrained from
using copyrighted materials as part of any of my work – however, I have
understanding of how to use copyrighted material with consent of the original
creator and how that would impact my business in terms of usable and unusable
material. Health and safety also played a big role throughout the year and was a
constant reminder of steps that we needed to take ensure safety amongst others
as well as working on class projects. This was done through risk assessments as
a way to see potential hazards for individuals and gave myself and others an opportunity
to analyse and assess the situation before then making it safe, so no harm could
happen to an individual nor equipment.
To conclude, I have to say that I have learnt a lot throughout
the year of the Level 4 Creative Enterprise course, and it has provided me with
a wider outlook on the creative industry. I’ve learnt about creating a business
plan and model; looking at what kind of audiences I am hoping to work towards
and looking at the overall analysis of my business (including a SWOT and/or
PESTEL analysis) to see how I can improve my business. I have also learnt a lot
about peer assessment from my other classmates. This knowledge has created a
more realistic and sometimes quite optimistic view about the course, as the
others have helped to analyse and critique my work in order to help me create a
better business and improve on myself, to which I am grateful for – this will
help me to realise in the future that I can learn from others to help improve myself
and my work to gain a better understanding of set tasks but to also create
better work for others to appreciate. In addition to this, I have also been educated
in relation to the guest speakers we have had during this course, such as
Johnnie Bayfield, Joe Cornish and Mark Finbow – all of which are part of the
creative industry and have provided their insight to help give a better idea of
how to create and work in the creative area. Overall, I would say that my next steps
after this course would be to carry on to university to study Digital Film Production
and use the knowledge gained throughout the course from both my peers in the
classroom and guest speakers to help produce exceptional work to give a boost
into the creative industry after finishing my university studies.
