commissioning brief gcse history (ccea)...

BBC Bitesize Commissioning Brief – GCSE History Northern Ireland

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Commissioning Brief

GCSE History (CCEA)

Overview

Students in Northern Ireland taking a GCSE in History must take a unit focusing on local history – this

will either be Northern Ireland and its neighbours (1920-1949) or Northern Ireland (1965-1998). BBC

Bitesize already hosts two topics of study covering these areas and this content is currently being

updated to reflect changes to the curriculum ahead of first teaching in September 2017. As part of

this ongoing work, we require animations to explain curriculum relevant historical events, processes

and political agreements in a way which is accessible, engaging, and accurate.


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Summary of deliverables We require ten short form animations (10 x 3 minutes) to explain key historical events and themes

to Northern Ireland history students.

(Budget: £50,000)

Bitesize Brand Values and Tone

BBC Bitesize is a trusted brand that students know they can turn to for reliable information produced

in a high quality and entertaining way.

Quality learning resources with high production values, tailored to the needs of the audience

Clear, concise delivery of the key educational points in bite-sized chunks Accessible to every level of academic ability and learning style Factually correct and curriculum-relevant Simple, straightforward language Funny, quirky or irreverent tone where appropriate Innovative educational media format

Audience

The target audience for this commission is 14-16 year old students studying CCEA GCSE History.

The Subject

This content will be produced for two distinct periods of Irish history: Northern Ireland and its neighbours (1920-49) and Northern Ireland (1965-1998); we envisage five videos for each period.


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Content for Delivery Ten animations covering various subject areas within GCSE History. The animations should be no

longer than three minutes long.

Animations should appeal to GCSE History students in the 14-16 age range. Animations need to

convey sometimes complex or challenging historical processes, events and agreements in a clear,

accessible and engaging way.

Animations should be concise, imaginative, informal and accessible. Delivery should be pacey and

natural – but not so quick that it loses learners. Clarity is very important. Content should reflect the

diversity of the Bitesize audience. It is vital that content feels part of the students’ world.

There are two topic areas. Each commissioned animation will cover a single subject, as listed below:

Topic: Northern Ireland its neighbours, 1920-1949

1. The partitioning of Ireland; Why was Ireland partitioned? How did this come about ? What

was the reaction to it? How did Southern Ireland become known as the Irish Free State?

2. Dismantling the Anglo Irish Treaty; How and why did Éamon de Valera dismantle this treaty

and what was the effect of this? What were the reactions to this? How did the Irish Free

State become known as Éire? And what was the impact on relations with Northern Ireland

and Britain?

3. The Economic War between Éire and Britain (1932-1938); how it came about, what

happened during it, how did it end, and how did it impact on relations with Northern

Ireland?

4. German attacks and their impact on people in NI and ROI; the blitz in NI and state of

emergency in Éire and effects on people in both jurisdictions.

5. How did Éire become the Republic of Ireland and why – and what was the impact on its

relations with Northern Ireland?

Topic: Northern Ireland and its neighbours, 1965-1998

1. The O’Neill Years: who was Terence O’Neill? Why did he want to modernise NI? What were

his policies? What was the reaction to them?

2. The campaign for civil rights; Why did this campaign begin? What were its aims? What were

its methods? What was O’Neill’s response to it? How did it lead to O’Neill’s fall?

3. The re-emergence of paramilitary organisations; Why did the IRA and UVF re-emerge? Why

did the IRA split? What were the objectives of the PIRA? What were the objective of the

UVF? How did the Ulster Defence Association come in to being?

4. Power-sharing 1973-74; How did this come about? What did it entail? What was the

reaction to it? Why did it fail? What came after?

5. The Anglo Irish Agreement to the Good Friday Agreement: the story of the path from the AIA

to the GFA – what did each agreement mean, what did it do and what was the reaction to it?

The BBC will provide:-


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- Learning objectives

- Learning outcomes – what the students should know after they’ve watched the videos,

taken from CCEA specifications

- Suggestions for scenarios

BBC Digital and Learning will be responsible for clearing and paying for music sourced for production

by the contracted company. Please note: any copyrighted material must be signposted to the BBC

production team at the earliest stage to ensure rights clearance. It is at the BBC’s discretion to agree

the use of any copyrighted material.


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What we’re looking for

Creative Proposal Companies are invited to submit a creative proposal. Your proposal should include:

Storyboards/creative approach

For this proposal we expect storyboards for one sample animation – Power-sharing 1973-74

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zxg9kqt/revision ). Tell us what your overall creative

approach will be to this content and you must include reference to any expert consultants you’ll use

to ensure this content is editorially robust and in line with BBC guidelines and values. If you are using

a voiceover artist - then indicate what style of VO you’re planning to use.

Production schedule Please provide a top-level schedule of major milestones.

A project management system will be required (i.e. Trello, Slack, Google Drive or other tool) to

manage the production of the content and to allow the BBC to track the project’s progress and

record feedback.

Indicative budget Within your indicative budget, you will need to make allowance for the following:

Writer

One writer is needed. Their initial script drafts will be sent to the adviser (please see below). The

adviser will review and feedback where necessary. Your writer will need to be approved by the BBC

production team before production starts.

Adviser

An educational consultant is essential to advise and offer guidance on the content during each stage

of the production. Your adviser will need to be approved by the BBC production team before

production starts.

User Testing

As part of pre-production, there should be user-testing sessions at two different schools. These

sessions will test initial concepts (characters and scenarios) for the animations.

Working with the BBC

There will be a minimum of three face-to-face meetings during production. In addition, we require a

fortnightly content report/update (via phone or teleconference).

The three face-to-face meetings will be with the production team in Belfast – so your travel

expenses should be considered within your budgeting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zxg9kqt/revision


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Project Initiation Meeting – This first meeting will be a chance to meet the production team in

Belfast. We will discuss the editorial scope of the project, confirm the timeline for delivery and hear

some early ideas for content.

Meeting #2 – This meeting will take place at the mid-point of the pre-production process and will focus on proposed video content (scripts, storyboards, talent, style and tone). Learning outcomes will be discussed.

o Checks on text style and tone

o Production schedule/milestones

o Formal input from the education consultant and user testing

Meeting #3 – This final meeting will be scheduled around the end of the production process and will

assess content produced to date and next steps including:

o Production schedule/milestones

o Formal feedback from the education consultant

Company and project team profile

We want to hear from companies who are passionate about learning and enthusiastic about creating

content for one of the BBC’s premier online brands.

Audience awareness will also be key. Do you know this audience and their needs? Have you

produced content for them before? Can you produce content that will resonate with them?

Please include details on the skills and experience of the key members of your project team.

We would like to see evidence of your capacity to deliver this content.

Links to relevant portfolio examples Please send links to content you have produced which you think are relevant to this commission.


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Indicative Budget

£50,000

Please provide a budget breakdown to show how you intend to cost the project. Payment schedule

to be agreed upon award of contract. Typical payment might be:

50% on signature of contract

50% upon final delivery

Working together

Who is responsible for what? You will be responsible for:

Project management and production of deliverables to agreed deadline and budget

Chairing regular production meetings and communicating project plans and status

We will be responsible for:

Sharing project documentation

Collaboration throughout the production and delivery

Sign-off at milestones on all content, and on final delivery – within an agreed timeframe

Post-production paperwork (on WebasC)

We will be jointly responsible for:

Ensuring learning outcomes are met

Ensuring that content is the best-fit for the Bitesize audience

Quality assurance of content

The BBC Learning team Emma Dunseith - Executive Producer

Peter Matassa - Producer


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Schedule/project management

All Bitesize productions follow an iterative development process and we will feed back over

the course of the project

Final delivery and sign off for the project is 31st May 2017

This project is highly dependent on specific delivery dates that will be defined in the contract. As

such we would like you to give particular attention to clause 9 in our standard terms which states

the following:

If you fail or are due to fail to deliver a Deliverable (or any part thereof) due at any stage specified in

Schedule 2 for any reason not directly and solely attributable to the BBC, the BBC shall (without

prejudice to any other rights or remedies available to the BBC under this Agreement or at law) be

entitled to terminate this Agreement

Should this situation arise and the BBC is forced to terminate, the BBC would only be liable to you for

anything delivered prior to termination. For this reason we would ask that you give timeframes and

delivery the highest priority.


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Commissioning Schedule

Brief available 16th January 2017

Deadline for creative proposal submission 27th January 2017 (midday)

Deadline for notification of shortlisted proposals 30th January 2017

Pitch meetings (Belfast) 6th February 2017

Commission decision deadline 7th February 2017

Contract signed 10th February 2017

Project initiation meeting 10th February 2017

Full delivery of commission 31st May 2017

Proposal Deliverable List Company Overview, Portfolio and Project Team

Project Overview

Content/editorial plan for a sample animation. To give us an idea of look and feel, please

include a mood board / links to similar styles as well as a storyboard for a sample section of

this animation.

Production Schedule and Project Management approach

Budget Breakdown

The pitching process Shortlisted companies will be invited to Belfast to pitch their proposals.

(An allowance of £250 toward travel costs to Belfast is available if based outside Northern Ireland)

Learning experience is not a prerequisite, but a thorough understanding of the needs of the Bitesize

audience and a clear approach to addressing those needs is expected.

Selection The BBC will use the following standard criteria to evaluate the pitches submitted:

Quality of the idea proposed – suitability for Bitesize audience

Prior experience of company

Ability to meet editorial requirements

Core staff experience

Project management / production plan

Pricing / value for money

Presentation of response


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Next Steps

All proposals should be submitted via email to [email protected] by Friday the 27th January

2017 by midday. Please use Submitted Proposal: GCSE HISTORY as the subject line.

This is an open brief published on the BBC Learning Commissioning website. Please note that this document is for information purposes only and does not form part of a contractual agreement with the BBC. This is a stand-alone new media commission and the BBC will require all rights in the content, worldwide and on all platforms. The commission will be contracted using the BBC’s New Media Rights Framework 2 agreement. Further information on the BBC New Media Frameworks can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/technology-online/how-we-work/new-mediarights-framework.shtml

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/technology-online/how-we-work/new-mediarights-framework.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/technology-online/how-we-work/new-mediarights-framework.shtml


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Item A: Video Spec for Delivery

VIDEO

Deliver on a hard drive (exFAT) two formats of each video (one compressed and one uncompressed).

Compressed:

Container format: .mp4 or .mov

Maximum file size, 50GB

Video Codec: H.264 / QuickTime

If your system gives you the option to choose between baseline, main and high profile for H264

export, high is preferred.

Frame size: 1920 x 1080

Frames per second: 25 (progressive scan)

Bit rate/ Quality: Constant/100%

Audio

Codec: AAC

Channels: Stereo

Bit rate: 320 kbps

Sample rate: 48 KHz

Sample depth: 16 bit

For online there is no set level – if it is consistent and you can hear the voice over the music mix and

it is not too low or distorted, it is fine.

Uncompressed:

Deliver an uncompressed version on separate channels.

This can be the source files used within the editing system, with Video, Voice, Music, SFX and

Graphics on separate channels.

Graphics must be rendered on separate channel for translation.

Video Codec is AVC Intra Class 100. Premiere and FCP you can use the DPP AS-11 HD export

setting.

If delivering animation, use the uncompressed Animation Codec.

H264 source footage from DSLRs is acceptable.

Please refer to this link for output https://www.digitalproductionpartnership.co.uk/what-we-

do/technical-standards/programme-delivery-standards/

MUSIC

https://www.digitalproductionpartnership.co.uk/what-we-do/technical-standards/programme-delivery-standards/

https://www.digitalproductionpartnership.co.uk/what-we-do/technical-standards/programme-delivery-standards/


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Commercial music should only be used in the videos if there is an editorial reason to do so and this

needs to be agreed with the BBC prior to inclusion.


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SUBTITLES

To deliver an XML for subtitles for each video (English SDH)

Using a form of XML called TTML EBU-TT-D (Time Text Markup Languages)

Section 26 - http://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines/

For file format please refer to this link http://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines/ from section 23.

There are other useful guides in this file but a basic style guide and example will be supplied later.

DOCUMENTATION

The following Post Production Documentation must be completed on the following templates and

returned as complete within seven days of the delivery date:

Metadata for each video written by a teacher/educational consultant

2 x post production transcript for each piece of video – one timecoded and one without

timecode

http://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines/

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