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!