L4 Creative Enterprise Evaluation

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.