Level 4 Creative Enterprise Evaluation
The Level 4 Creative Enterprise course is made up of a
variety of elements. The course has both a practical and theoretical side. The
practical side of the course involves working as a team with the group, but
also developing your own skills while creating a short film in quite a short
timeframe. We also had to do skills development as part of the theoretical and
practical part of the course, in order to further develop skills that can be
used for each of our individual creative careers. The practical side of the
course also helps to develop communication skills and enables students to take
part in different work experience or volunteering with businesses that link to
their own. On the other hand, the theory side of the course was a lot more
independent. It mainly focused on how each student can develop their own
creative enterprise. As part of the theory side of the course, we had to
research different creative businesses and laws, etc, that would relate to the
business we were trying to make. Throughout the course each student would show
some degree of professionalism when creating their own business and developing
business-like qualities. As well as work
experience and voluntary opportunities, there were a numerous amount of
interesting talks held by guest speakers who each had their own, or played an
important role, within a creative business. Many of the talk also included a
workshop which allows students to experiment and develop key skills which would
later be used for their business or the practical side of the course.
When starting the course I began planning the starting point
and end point of my creative business, as well as beginning to research the
copious amounts of laws and regulations that come with running your own
business. My chosen creative business was to be a freelance musician/concert
violinist. As my business revolved around music, I helped develop the scores
for the short film as part of the practical side of the course, which also
helped me develop composition skills which would be needed for my career. When
starting the course, I set out to develop my musicality, as well as learn about
how to create and manage a business. To do this I further researched the music
business and what jobs were involved in being a freelance musician. However, I
also used websites such as gov.uk to acquire knowledge of Regulations and
legislation that would need to be thought about and incorporated into the
making of my business. I believe that this was achieved as I now know a lot
more about how businesses are created, developed and prolonged. In order to
keep track of what work and research had been completed, I would regularly
update my “creative enterprise blog” and keep documents of all work.
For my creative venture, I researched a variety of legal and
regulatory guidance that would need to be followed, in order for my business to
be successful. For instance, I researched; Copyright, The Data Protection Act
2018, Licenses (Public Performance) and Location Releases. I believe that
Copyright is needed for my business as this would be used to keep ownership of
my music and make sure that people would need to ask for permission to use it,
instead of stealing it and claiming it as their own. The Data Protection Act of
2018 would be used to manage both my own data and the data of my audience
carefully. A license may be needed to perform publicly and permission would be
need from anyone who could be caught on camera when filming.
As part of the course as a whole we had to follow a lot of
legal and regulatory guidance. For example, filming both inside and outside of
the college meant that we had to follow Health & Safety regulations. Health
& Safety is something that would need to be observed with any business and
most definitely observed by all students and staff at the college. We also learned about SWOT and PESTEL which
is used when managing a business and how we can add it to our own business
plans. As a class, we also researched; Cultural Policy, Location Releases, Trademarks,
Filming in Public, GDPR, Intellectual Property, Child Labour Laws, Public liability Insurance, The Competition
Act 1998 and The Enterprise Act 2002. Learning each of these laws and
regulations gave me a much better understanding of what it is like to own a
business and helped me to come up with my own business plan.
In conclusion, by studying the Level 4 Creative Enterprise
course, I believe I have learned and developed a large variety of skills that
can be used in the future. My next steps will be going to University to study
Music Performance and Teaching. Once this is finished I would like to look into
playing professionally within an orchestra or teaching music. I am also looking
at working on my days off from University to teach young children the violin. I
believe that all skills learned on this course will help me with working as a
musician in the future and would also help me when teaching as it has given me
a much better understanding of how to run a stable and successful business. At
the beginning of the course, I knew very little about how to run a business and
only really had skills to use in music. However, as the course is coming to an
end, I believe I have a much broader understanding of running a business and my
skills in music have also improved. As part of the course, I also followed
feedback from creative professionals, as well as feedback given from tutors
(who are technically, also creative professionals), as well as self-assessing
my own work. This allowed me to spot the flaws in my business plan and improve
them, which is a skill that I believe will be needed in the future as it allows
me to reflect and evaluate parts of my business and helps to give a much better
understanding of how to improve on business flaws.
