Importance of Commission for Media Practitioners

Commissioned work is important for any media practitioners in terms of portfolio and skills. Being able to create your own work and formulate ideas into products is good, but being able to be given someone else’s idea and create something for them is arguably as useful. if you can show that you have worked on a commission, it shows you have been able to work closely with a client for a given target, and have created something of a standard that they are happy with.

Having a portfolio of work with commissioned pieces can also be helpful in getting you further work. If, for example, you were commissioned to make an advert for a product, and you made a successful advert that the client was happy with, you could show that advert to another potential client as an example of what you can do. If they think the advert is good, they might ask you to create one for them. Alternatively, if you make a product that the client is happy with, they might ask you to create something else for them later on as you did good work.

However, if you create something that is delivered late or unfinished, the response could turn against you. If you seem like you have only done half a job, then the client may fire you, and recommend that other industry professionals don’t work with you in future. If your name gets recognized as somebody that can’t do work to a brief or deadline, you may find it very hard to find work in the industry.

Some people can also choose to specialize in certain areas, so they choose to find commissions in music videos or adverts, so they can ensure they do very good products for each commission instead of trying to do lots of different things and doing them all averagely. This could be good, as you could earn a reputation as being good at that certain area of the industry, however it could also mean people see you as a music video person, so wouldn’t consider you to create something else for them. This can significantly reduce the amount of paid work you can get and therefore you have to try and work harder to get out of a cycle of just making the same things over and over again.