Documentary Production for TV & Home Video

Skype conference with Anthony Masi, hosted by David Robinson.

This is another of my favourite talks. It took a little bit of time to get set up correctly, due to the conference being on Skype. It was very nice of Anthony to take time out of his schedule to speak with us.

I learnt a lot about Masi Media and what they do. I also got a chance to express my interest in helping out with their latest project.

Make your own Damn Movie!

Jason Devitt - Witchward Productions

I was really looking forward to this talk, as I had briefly met Jason at Ffresh festival a few weeks previous. This turned out to be my most favourite talk of the whole Creative Futures Week. I learnt some valuable lessons and left feeling very positive about my career in film making. I also made an incredibly useful contact in Jason to boost my career prospects. An opportunity of work experience on his next film may be available to me. I look forward to hearing more about this!

Jason used his own experience to tell us how it really is when you decide to make your own film. He cut out all of the crap and got straight to it: you can make a movie but you need to get up off your backside and do something about it! He showed us the stages of making a movie along with the cost.

Election Campaign Work

After making the Harlem shake video, Sue and I were asked to do a few more videos for the 'BLT' campaign.

Teaching as an Option for Students in the Creative Field

Ursula Byrneis the ITET Manager at Aberystwyth University, which is the Mid-Wales Centre for Teaching. She is part of the education and training forum. She started the session very positively. She said that teachers have a lot of influence and a lot more enjoyment in their jobs. On average, a teacher laughs 3 times and smiles 10 times in each half an hour.  This is a great thing to have in a job. I believe this would make teaching rewarding and it certainly appeals to my personality. However, I feel like the rest of the talk was irrelevant. She focused on Welsh people studying within Wales and was not helpful at all when it came to English people studying in Wales. This made me a little bit annoyed and exasperated as the lecture had started so well.

Getting a Job in the Media

Phil Hurst presented this talk. He has been working in the industry for 25 years. His experience has been as a journalist for BBC Merseyside, working with an independent production company and working freelance. This talk started great and made me feel ambitious. The thought of putting my burning ambition into a job of the media made me excited, even when told it would be tough and challenging. I believe that the rewards outweigh the challenges. This proves how determined I am to succeed in my chosen industry. Phil highlighted that I would need to be multiskilled in order to really stand out. I know that i need to keep on learning and not get complacent with my skills. This talk also made me think that I should start looking at making my professional CV. In doing this it will help me to promote and market myself.

Again, it was drummed into us that work experience is vital in helping us to get a job. With the collective, I am getting a lot of hands on experience. However, I am going to try to get a placement with an established media company. This will all help me to get my name known and network. A degree in media is not necessary but certainly helps. In the current climate, I would need to show how skilled I am, so no room for modesty. I am glad that I am a confident woman and believe in myself as I think this could give me a competitive edge. This will help me strive and push through until I land the job I want.


www.bbc.co.uk/workexperience

http://resources.leavingcare.org/uploads/02bf4fd5d8befaa2db22723fb08ea4c2.pdf
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Graduate_Employers_Guides
https://careers.bbc.co.uk/fe/tpl_bbc03.asp?KEY=41103114&C=253356622523&PAGESTAMP=sebbrfxvxuoxyvxqyy&nexts=INIT_JOBLISTSTART&mode=1&newQuery=yes&searchregion=1411&searchdivision=0&searchpositiontype=0&searchgrade=0&formsubmit4.x=20&formsubmit4.y=12

Election Harlem Shake

The student elections at Glyndwr University were bigger than ever this year, with all of the candidates doing as much as they could to make themselves noticed. I was approached by the current Vice-President, Laura Lawson, to help her with her re-election campaign. She also had Tobias Perks and Rachel Bloomer as part of her campaign team. The first thing they wanted was a 'Harlem Shake' style video. Harlem Shake is a song by Bauer that became a YouTube sensation, with many parodies being made of the iconic video. The original plan was to have all of the candidates present. However, it was only Rachel, Tobias and Laura that turned up, alongside some of their supporters.

 This was one of the most enjoyable filming experiences I have ever had. It was fun and laid back. We decided to do the Harlem Shake dance in a variety of places. It took around an hour to finish the filming. I then had the job of editing and uploading to our YouTube channel on the same night. It was easy enough to edit due to how straightforward the filming was. I managed to get the whole thing turned around and distributed within 4 hours. I am very proud of this achievement. However, when uploading to YouTube, the quality of the HD footage was compromised.

Collective Stall

During the Tuesday of Creative Futures Week, we held another stall in the foyer of our Catrin Finch Centre. We each took a session on the stall, so that others could go to lectures that they wanted to. This stall turned out to be as beneficial as the stall at Ffresh. Firstly, we recruited some new people for the collective. This is great as we have so much coming up soon. We also met with some people from careers and businessline. We need to set up meetings with these people soon to get us off the ground running.

Neil Dunsire was giving a talk about his business, TAPE. After the talk, he came directly to our stall to speak to us. We arranged a meeting with him to discuss how he got started in business and maybe some collaboration work. I am very excited to see what comes of this!

We also got our first paid job offer from this stall. Shrewsberry Council got in touch with Holly to ask for our help in filming a Mental Illness Awareness day. We accepted it and a small crew will tale on this job.