Next Generation

Last week I spent a couple of days in Salford for the Next Generation event which was the student part of the Salford Media Festival. Over the 2 days I went to 6 sessions that we each aimed at giving students an insight into the media industry and giving us a helping hand into it.

How to break into TV...and stay there with Scott Martin (CBBC)
This session was led by Scott Martin, a producer for CBBC, and gave us loads of tips for breaking into the industry, from the usual careers advice to other places we can look to for getting the jobs we want and how to go about getting them.

Managing Productions in TV with Natalie Bolton and Judith Coker
Natalie and Judith are both Production Managers for the BBC and spoke to us about their role, what it entails and what route they took to get there as well as talking about what it's like to work in the industry in general.

How to write a winning CV for the Creative Industries
CV writing workshops are nothing to us as students but often they can be quite generic. This workshop was aimed at what employers in the creative industries are looking for when they see a CV so it was really helpful to us as it was designed to give us tips that would be relevant to the sector many of us are looking to go into.

Let Me Entertain You
Entertainment is a core genre for many channels, we all want to be entertained by TV, no matter how much we moan about - talent shows are getting samey, it's the same thing all the time, we want something new. Well, what is next? This session looked at what makes a good entertainment show and what sort of a future they have. Who knows, maybe the next big thing for entertainment shows will come from a student who attended that session.

Ben Fox - Showrunner
Showrunner is a relatively new term to the UK media industry and one that's come over from America - basically, you're the one in charge. Ben Fox is one of those Showrunners and shared with us what he does in his job as well as telling us some of the stories from what he's done, including showing us some clips from Emmy award winning Gettysburg.

Creating a World in a TV Studio
A lot of what you see on TV isn't really real, from the sets and the props used in them to the stunts. Duncan Howell is a Production Designer and has worked on programmes such as Shameless, In the Night Garden and The Royal. He talked about how he went about creating the sets for programmes - borrowing people's homes and redecorating them, building sets inside a studio of part of a room or even building a whole set outside of a terrace of houses like those used in Shameless or Coronation Street.

As well as attending the event, my time in Salford also included me introducing a friend to Wagamama for the first time, having the chance to catch-up with a couple of friends in Manchester that I haven't seen for a while and going exploring properly for the first time to finish my Christmas shopping before going to an art exhibition that a friend was exhibiting at - lager and potatoes, that was an experience in itself (you had to have been there).

Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops?

Is it possible to miss something you never really had? Yes, I think maybe it is. It's more a sense of feeling as though you missed out on something. For me that 'something' is independent record shops and vinyl. With the record shops it's a lack of appreciation for them as I wasn't old enough to when we still had ours in town, I still remember them though. I've seen things come and go, and changes happen, but didn't really understand back then. But with vinyl, I'm just not old enough to remember it. That's something I think is quite sad really. I'm 21 and I don't think I've ever held a vinyl record, let alone heard one playing. (That's probably shocked some people into thinking they're old now, sorry.)

Anyway, the point of this post is about this book - 'Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops?'

I started reading this book for my dissertation as I'm primarily looking into how the Internet has changed the sales of CDs with things like downloads (with a bit of vinyl thrown in). This was a book that I wanted to read anyway as music's always been something that I've been interested in and had a love of since I was little, and so my dissertation has got off to an enjoyable start.

'Last Shop Standing' tells of Graham's personal career in music - in particular, the record sales business - and charts the changes that he's seen take place in the industry throughout his career. It's such a good book but when you really think about it, it does make for quite a sad read. The book focuses on how the changes have affected the independent record shops (like the title suggests) but shows that the music industry that once was, isn't the music industry that we have today - it's a whole different ball game. The contributors in the book are all owners of independents (and survivors of the changing industry) and their anecdotes, memories and views really make you think at times. The music industry that I'm used to, having only been born in the early 90s, is not necessarily the one I would like. There was one quote that really stood out to me: "I asked Piers if he thought that the Bridport Record Centre would be one of the 'Last Shops Standing'. "Of course", was his reply, "I will just purchase more musical instruments and fewer CDs"." The independents are having to kill off their own business (and in may cases, their passion) in order to be able to stay in business.

It's a real insight into an industry that a lot of us only see the face of and one that we take for granted. In today's world we want something for nothing and will take what we can get but in doing so we are killing off an industry that we can't get enough of - we're all guilty of it.

If you've got fond memories of your local record shop, a place that's likely to no longer be there, dig out your vinyl (I know I would if I could) and get reading this book! It's a big book but one that's definitely worth reading. No doubt it'll bring back memories for you - you're lucky - because that's something I don't really have.

Demonstrating 'Demonstration'

He's only gone and done it again! As far as album previews go, Tinie Tempah's preview for 'Demonstation' is visually amazing. And yes, it rather does follow on from his lyric videos for the album. Don't just listen to the new album, you really need to watch this one.

'Demonstration' is pretty different to 'Disc-overy' but both Labrinth and Emeli Sande feature on the album again, along with Paloma Faith this time - a rather interesting choice I thought.

Digital Polish

Over the summer I have been working with Digital Polish as a Digital Marketing Intern. I have been creating blog posts to be published on their website and have also been maintaining the social network sites by posting links interesting and relevant articles from sites like The Drum and The Next Web.

These are the blog posts that I've had published on the Digital Polish blog:

Content Matters! Top 5 apps for content creation
5 Reasons You Should Be on Google Plus
Top 10 Best Vines of the August Bank Holiday
How On-Demand Streaming services are changing the way we watch TV
An Intern’s Insight into the World of Content Creation

I have also been updating the social media platforms for Digital Polish - Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Lyric Videos

Tinie Tempah's got a new album coming out on the 4th November and I can't wait! He's already dropped 2 singles from the album and I wanted to post the lyric videos for each on here. I was really impressed with both of them and event thought that the one for 'Trampoline' was better than the official music video itself. From what I've heard already - 'Trampoline' featuring 2 Chainz and 'Children of the Sun' featuring John Martin - 'Demonstration' is going to be a cracking album and if the standard of these videos stays the same, the Tinie Tempah is going to have an album full of amazing lyric videos as well.

This is it!

So this is it. I'm now in my 3rd and final year of my degree. It's scary to think just how fast these past 2 years have gone and even scarier when you think about how fast this year is going to go. Before I know it the end of my time at university will be up - my course will be over and I'll be graduating! This year I want to do as much as I can - getting involved and gaining experience - and really make the most of my final year of being able to call myself a 'student'.

[Keep reading my blog and you'll find out just how it goes!]

Don't try to make money out of me ITV!

ITV have a new money making scheme and I'm not too impressed with it.

Part of the fun of watching a series where episodes are split into more than one part is the wait for the next episode. Well now you don't have to wait a week any more. I was watching the first episode of the new series of Whitechapel when I got to the end of it and ITV informed me that I could now pay to watch the next episode online! Safe to say I wasn't too happy about that.

ITV are making money out of people who are just too impatient to wait for the next episode to be aired on TV. How long is it before other channels start to follow suit?

Blakeway North

During August, I spent 3 weeks on work experience as a Research Assistant at a TV production company called Blakeway North, based in Manchester.

As a Research Assistant my main job was to look into different programme ideas. As the company worked with factuals, this was the genre that I was working towards. I had to research possible contributors and locations for filming at (along with useful contact details) for ideas that they were already working on ready to pitch to commissioners as well as trying to find interesting stories that could potentially be made into factual programmes.

In order to carry out this research I spent a lot of time on Google but also got to use a site called Lexis Nexis which is an archive of newspaper reports from all over the world. I also spent a day going through the national newspapers to try and find new stories.

Another site I got to use was Broadcast Greenlight. This is a database that lists all of the programmes on UK TV channels that have been approved by commissioners, therefore, given the green light. The basis of many programmes are re-used years later and repackaged into something new, maybe for a different channel. I was using Broadcast to go through all of the programmes that have been shown over the past few years to see if there was anything that I thought Blakeway North could repackage or take ideas from. This site is updated daily so you can see what has just been commissioned long before it goes out on TV.

One of Blakeway North's biggest programmes is Benidorm ER (Channel 5) and they were just coming back from filming and getting ready to go back out for another series when I was there. All of the interviews that they filmed had to be transcribed so that it was easier to work with the clips in the edit. I spent a few days transcribing some of these interviews - 2 with Spanish doctors and one with a German doctor. It was quite a painstaking task and it did take a while but it gave me a chance to see what goes on with the raw footage before it gets into the edit and it made me more aware of just how essential the task was.

When pitching to commissioners you have to create a document that explains exactly how your programme is going to play out. Blakeway North make programmes for the Perspectives strand on ITV1 so I was able to read through a pitch for one of these as I was asked to proof read it. I also helped to put one of these documents together as I had to write a short synopsis about each of the contributors.

This was the first time that I had really spent any time in Manchester and in my last week I was brave enough to venture into the city in my lunch breaks. I've decided that Manchester isn't so bad after all and I kind of like it now.

There was also a cupcake shop just round the corner from the office (which is dangerous for me) and I'd managed to be really good and avoid going in there over my 3 weeks. But on my last day, the girls in the office bought me a cupcake to say 'thank you'. Lucky me!

Blogging for Digital Polish

At the moment I am on an internship with Liverpool based company Digital Polish as a Digital Marketing Intern. Over the duration of the internship, part of my job is to write posts for the blog. This week I wrote my first blog post and now it's been published to their website!

Content Matter! Top 5 apps for content creation

Impressed!

It's been a while since I did a general blog post about something that interested me that didn't involve an event or uni, so here's a little one.

Tonight I saw the new advert for The X Factor on ITV for the first time and I can safely say that I was pretty impressed with it. So to whoever created the mash-up - well done! Whether you like The X Factor or not, the full video is definitely worth checking out!