Risk Assessment 1

Risk Assessment for initial ideas for our animated short film

Copyright is a legal right that was created by the law of a country, which grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited time, with the intention of enabling the creator to receive compensation for their effort. Copyright is a form of intellectual properly applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive. Copyright protects the physical expression of ideas. As soon as an idea is given physical form, e.g. a piece of writing, a photograph, music, a film, a webpage, it is protected by copyright. Copyright is a property right and can be sold or transferred to others.

Intellectual property rights are the legally recognised exclusive rights to creations of the mind. Owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of assets such as musical, literary, and artistic works, discoveries and inventions, and words, phrases, symbols and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights, trade dress and trade secrets. Intellectual property is either protected automatically from theft or copying, or it can be register it to protect it. By knowing your rights and having the right type of protection, you can stop people stealing or copying: the names of protects or brands, inventions, designs or the look of a product or things that are written, made or produced.

Our animation is fully original as our characters, storyline, music and ideas are all made up by ourselves, so we will have copyright as our company. We could also put trademarks on our company and characters if we feel this is appropriate. Our animation is completely unique, we have not taken ideas or character designs from any other company, and the music we use will be totally original. Therefore, we do not have to contact anyone for permission to make our 2D animation. One thing that we will have to do is contact the BBFC in order for our animation to be rated. We would have to submit our animation so it would be under the catefory U so it would be appropriate for children.

The British Board of Flim Classification (BBFC) is a non-governmental organisation, founded by the film industry in 1912, is responsible for the national classification and censorship of films. The BBFC is the United Kingdom’s regulator of film and video, providing age ratings such as U, PG and 12A. They are a designated body so have the legal power to rate films and sometimes even cut or reject works. All decisions are based on public consultation and guidelines, which form a contract between the public, the film industry and the BBFC. The BBFC’s aim is to ensure that children, and all film viewers are protected from harm and illegal material and that they can make informed decisions about their viewing choices. We will need to contact the BBFC in order to publish our animation to the public so it is made a U rating, suitable for all ages, especially children which is who our target is.

BECTU is a trade union in the United Kingdom, it has around 25,000 members who work in broadcasting, film, theatre, entertainment, leisure and interactive media. BECTU is financed entirely by individual subscriptions from members. Any individual working in the sectors covered by BECTU in the UK can apply for membership. This is something we could potentially apply for.