Evaluation

When coming up with the premise for my creative business at the start of the academic year, I chose to create it in a market that I am interested in. Initially I chose the idea of making an independent animation studio but quickly realised that the work I would produce would mainly be based off of other already established animations studios, such as Pixar who I take inspiration from. After this realisation, I then deliberated on my business idea as I still wanted to be in the film industry and have a business that would allow me to be creative and both practical.

As a fan of the horror genre, I have an appreciation for the work that the special effects and make-up artists do on their respective films, and so I then chose instead to base my business in the special effects region of film – I would create customised special effects prosthetics for film studios or other individuals with a not-so flexible budget. By choosing a market that I have a genuine interest in, the forthcoming work would become much easier for me to complete rather than if I created a business in a market that I was impartial to.

I am also appreciative of artists and the like who can simply work with what they have and make it work miraculously with a low budget – it shows that they are truly passionate about what they are doing regardless of the funding that is available to them. I want my business to be something that is useful for those who are in those situations but aren’t able to fulfil their expectations for their work, where I will then provide them with what they want at an affordable price.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of businesses have been forced into either closing their doors or restricting access and making their workers complete their jobs while at home. This has been incredibly detrimental to many businesses that run on groups of people working together in person to complete something, regardless of the size of the group. I decided early on that I would be the sole person involved in my business as well as the fact that I would already be working from home to reduce the costs of my business – there would be no need for renting out a studio space for one employee as there is a suitable room in my own home that I would be able to fashion into a studio. Choosing to have a home studio will also allow my work hours to be whenever I want them to be as there won’t be any travel for me to do, again reducing costs overall.

At this point, the largest bill that I would be paying for my business would be postage and packaging. Due to Brexit and the deals that are being made between the many countries involved, import and export prices have changed and are continuing to change. For me, as a citizen of the United Kingdom, purchasing products from other countries will become more expensive. The cost of sending goods across borders has also increased as well as the paperwork requirements for getting your products across the borders of countries within the EU. There are also changes to the Intellectual Property laws upon the leave of the UK from the EU which will affect my business as I plan to have copyright placed on my prosthetic designs and trademarks placed on my business name and logos.

When working on the financial portion of my business model, I struggled slightly to comprehend all the minute costs that the business would bring me. For example, originally, I planned my business to provide prosthetics and SFX make-up for those who resided in the UK but then I pondered expanding to the surrounding countries such as France, Spain, and Germany – possibly even the USA due to its thriving film business, including work by both independent studios and large corporations. The USA could possibly, if I chose to extend my businesses reach to it, become the place that provides me with the most customers.

I would also need to be much more thorough in my research when looking for resources that I would use to create my prosthetics as I am a person who stands by my morals and don’t want to give my money to a company who tests their products on animals or uses immoral products in their own, such as palm oil. The research that I did on the products that I would use to create my products was brief and I didn’t investigate each company to the standard that I would have liked.

When researching different resources, I found that a lot of online businesses sell things such as latex in either small sizes such as 100ml or 250ml, or much larger like 1 litre bottles of liquid latex. I would need to create a mock customer situation with a request for a commissioned product so that I could determine how much product I would then use to make it. Doing this will allow me to figure out what sizes of specific products I would be better off buying. If I were to buy the smaller sizes and then found that there wasn’t enough product on hand, I would then have to order more of the product that I didn’t have enough of and it could put tension on the relationship between myself and my customer as their order is taking a long time to be made. However, on the other hand, if I were to buy masses of product there would no doubt be waste as I wouldn’t use any product past it’s expiration date and I don’t expect my business to be getting many customers in its first few months.

Comparing the strained customer-business owner relationship to purchasing too many resources, I would much rather prefer having a waste of resources at the end of the month. Gradually as my business would grow and I would gain more experience in both my craft and business-dealings, I would be able to figure out generally how many resources a commission would require, reducing waste overtime.

When determining my hourly rate, my method was particularly immature and infantile. The profit that I would be getting at the end of the every commission would be constantly fluctuating as I am not an experienced individual when it concerns determining the price of time. The amount of resources that would be used for the product would also need to be a key in the price of the product as for example, I could use up some expensive paints on two commissioned pieces – I would then need to have that price covered within the cost of the product while also having my hourly rate be paid. I would try to get in contact with professionals within the industry to get financial advice on how they are pricing their products, but then also take into consideration that I am choosing to make my products more affordable for those with lower budgets. Overall, I would need to do much more research into how I would price my products.

When first establishing my business, I decided that I wouldn’t be making generic prosthetics that anyone could buy from a website. Instead, I would be in contact with the customer and they would give thorough descriptions of what they wanted me to make for them be it a prosthetic or a prop. I would then not allow any other customer purchase that product. After much deliberation, I think it would benefit my company and the customer if I were to allow people who the customer has given explicit permission for to purchase copies of the prosthetic for the same price that the original customer had. I would only do this if the customer wanted to let others be able to purchase the product that they had commissioned, and so I would ask them at the start of the creation process if there were any chances if their peers would want to purchase a copy. If they responded yes, then I would keep the fact that I would possibly have to create another of this particular product in the future. If they responded no, then I would carry on my work as normal. This first answer wouldn’t always be definite as I would accept any further orders if they contacted me in the future with the request that they are allowing someone to purchase a copy of the product.