Factory films case study

 Executive summary 

Factory Films is a production company based in Brighton; they mainly produce factual programs for many different demographics (some being made for CBBC). They were founded in 2012, they’ve produced number of programs filmed all around the world for very big companies such a sky the BBC and ITV. Having this impressive portfolio would be excellent for getting more work in the future, they’ve probably made some good contacts at these companies, also if someone wanted to work with them they’d able to able to see that they’re very trust worthy. 

A quote from their “how we work page”: 

“Finding out about how the world works, learning what motivates and inspires people, exploring our past and investigating what our future might hold is at the heart of what we do” 

Business overview 

Their values and aims are to build trusting and respectful relationships with all their clients and contributors, because they believe that’s the only way to make truly great content. This is a good value because I think one of the most important things in the media industry is good relationships with clients because it's more likely to lead to more work in the future. They also say that they are very curious to find out more about how the world works, this is very important for a production company that mainly focuses on factual programming. They also say their mission is to create the most innovative and exciting content for TV mobile and online. Which is a very bold thing to say, but I think it makes them more intriguing.  

Sales and marketing 

Although most businesses that create programs for third parties don’t have to worry about marketing too much because their client would be the one broadcasting. Despite not directly having to market their products it is important that they market themselves on social media, they are quite active on all the main platforms, one thing that I think they could better is the fact that they only talk about their own projects on twitter, this is good for promotion, but it can look very robotic and not very genuine to the public, and the publics opinion is very important. It’s good to post about upcoming projects to let people know what you’re doing but it’s also very good to talk about other things as well to try and connect with people. 

Operations and resources 

Like most of these kind of businesses they don’t say much about their operations, although they have a few things on their website, which gives an insight on how they make their programs for example as quote from their “how we work” page: 

“We make films with people, not about people. We know that a respectful and trusting relationship with our contributors and clients is the only way to make truly great TV and content” 

They will also need to make sure they don’t break any laws with legislation or trespassing, make sure all the talent and location releases are properly filled out. They will also have to be quite aware of the Ofcom rules so they can make sure they don’t break any of them. 

Staff and management

 

They have a roaster of 6 staff members, they don’t have any in-house camera operators so they will have to be hired on a job-by-job basis, other roles will also be filled on a job-by-job basis like lighting people audio engineers etc. Also,; they do have their own in-house editor so this could potentially save them some money. The same as most creative companies the bigger the crew the larger commission. It may also be beneficial to occasionally take on someone for work experience to give someone experience. And so that the staff don’t have to stop more important jobs that the work experience people can do.

 

Planning 

Creative businesses don’t usually give out much information about the planning process, but Factory films post a few things on their social medias but not much at all. A lot of Planning is required for most video shoots though, for example, they will need to make sure locations are available, if all the staff and talent are available etc. 

Finance 

There isn’t much information about Factory films on companies' house so it’s quite hard to find out much about their finances. There really isn’t much about their `finances at all on the internet. If they 

ere an independently started company they would have had to funded it themselves, but they many have had investors or something to get them started.