Hello, from the title you can tell, I’m just loving blogging. The fact is these blogs are going to come across a little bit ranty and frustrated. To my many readers, I do apologies for this. It’s not a fun time to be a media production student at the moment. This brings me to this week’s topic of being a Media Spy and building a double life. If you want this double life then it’s only a cheap £999.99! I know! Cheap as chips! A must buy, I might add.
I would sound less ranty however due to the current strike action at Bournemouth University. The work in media industries lecture has been cancelled as has my seminar so I have no serious segment this time round. I can hear the disappointment from the hundreds of readers, I apologise. The state of the year 2 experience has been extremely disappointing and I feel I’ve had more of a £20 education. I plan on watching a couple of shows to finish of the week its the best way to learn media by watching how the industry standard does it!
I’m George Wilshaw, a media production student at Bournemouth University. This is the first of my short series of 4 blog posts for the Work in Media Industries Unit. Each blog will feature a short serious segment, to display my understanding of the Work in Media Industries Unit.
In this first blog post I will be discussing the importance of creating your media brand. As any media creator will know, it is important to leave a digital presence and a brand trail for the media to find you. Making yourself shine professionally in the limelight is key when looking for an ideal career path. It’s the opening perspective of any media employer and the best way they can see if you are a good fit for them, so it needs to be good. That concludes this week’s serious segment!
Being an avid media consumer and creator it is strange for me to write a blog because personally I think that it is a dying medium and it’s ironic that our seminar leader gave up on writing their own blog, yet they still implore that we should write one! The most popular form of consuming media is visual. However, as a Media Production Student I do understand that it is useful to have a range of media tools in your arsenal to reach all audiences because perhaps they’re people who enjoy the intimacy of a blog but personally I find reading to be a bit more invasive than watching. Creators when vlogging will play a character that is a representation of who they actually are for entertainment purposes. I think that once I have made more of a digital imprint then a blog will be more appealing to me due to its personal nature.
Well that concludes the first blog, I think I’m off to a strong start. Now go back to watching your web series. Cheers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The American Summer camp experience. Where chaos reigns.
George, Mykalya, Laurie, Jack and the Cypress Boys
Before returning to the American Summer Camp life I was anxious to do so because I want to commence a career within the media industry. However being a media production student through covid took a toll upon my creative media brain. I needed to refresh and get back my motivating perspective on the process of making the entertaining content that I love.
Slacking at Schodack?
Then make a Brocelet with the boys!
Camp Schodack, in Nassau New York, has been open since 1957 and will probably run for 100 more years. I am incredibly grateful to have been apart of the 66th year of Camp where as a Group Leader I got to meet an immense amount of people who came to work at Camp from all over the states. This is perfect for trying to build back up my networking skills for when it comes to collaborations in the future.
“i love Schodack” – Dusty Dance
Camp really brought out the best in me and put me in my element. It put my head space in my best possible way of thinking. Constantly I am able to put forward my best thoughts when it came to creativity.
Whether it being solving problems between campers, working around the videographers to maintain some level of media or performing in multiple shows for campers and guests to enjoy. I have been made to feel myself to the point where I wanted to improve my comedy.
Comedy shows are important in order to better my writing for my future films. The level of confidence I was able to gain is somewhere I don’t think I can get elsewhere.
Now as the sun sets on my adventure with Camp Schodack I have some important take ways being that I feel fully refreshed and ready to hunt down my media opportunities as well as finish of my already commenced projects.
Sun setting on Schodack
Schodack provided the opportunity for myself to release the inner child that can recover from what was the hardest years of studying media production. The burnout is over and a new mindset has been achieved. I’m grateful for what has been given to me and I believe I used every second of the experience to the fullest. I would 100% recommend working in American Summer camps and I might even make a return potentially as the Video Activity Instructor.
As a part of finding my route into the media industry I reached out to Camera Operator Giuseppe Ingrao who has been working as a freelance Television Camera Operator for over two decades. One of the main reasons for me to come to university and study media production was because I want to make entertaining forms of content. I felt that I could only best achieve this through learning Camera. I therefore thought it would be best if I contacted a Camera Operator to gather a small glimpse of how they progressed into the media industry.
I asked Giuseppe a couple questions regarding how he found his place in Industry.
George: Could you introduce your role in the industry?
Giuseppe: I am a freelance Television Camera Operator and have worked in the industry for over two decades.
Giuseppe at the beginning of his career
George: What were your first steps into the industry?
Giuseppe: I started my journey into the television industry during my first year of A-Levels where I had a weeks work experience at the now demolished Teddington Studios, formally known as Thames TV. During my week there I met a freelance Camera Operator who took me on as a Camera Assistant and helped me learn the tricks of the trade. I passed my A-Levels in Media Studies, English Language and Theatre Studies and was accepted into Derby University where I was to study Media and Video production. Seeing as I already had a foot in the door to the profession that I wanted to do I opted to defer for a year and see how the world of television suited me. A year passed and I knew that I was lucky and fortunate to be in the position that I was in so decided not to accept my position at university and continue learning from some of the best camera operators in the country.
Giuseppe during a shoot in the middle of his career
George: What are some key skills that you would recommend to have on a Media Graduate’s CV?
Giuseppe: There are many skills that factor in my profession such as frame composition, using the depth of field to an advantage and forward thinking but the ability and flexibility to communicate and work as a team are extremely important in achieving the end goal.
George: What advice would you give to your younger self?
Giuseppe: If I was to give my younger self any advice it would be to ask questions. There are plenty of people on the studio floor, production office or on location that will be more than willing to help on giving advice. There is no such thing as a ’silly’ question, especially if it was important to the production. Always be flexible and never say no. For example, if there is a clash on availability always contact the supervisor or someone in production and discuss what can be done. Everyone has been in your position and especially if they are freelance/self employed. Another would be to keep trying to get that job or role. I received many knock backs in finding work but I persevered, kept my head down and achieved what I had planned out in my head.
Giuseppe in his present position
Freelancing is the next stage after my graduation so it was important for me to find out and understand how it works from the perspective of an industry professional. Getting an overview of his story is helpful enough as it provides hope and inspiration because I can see the passion that has gone into finding his place within the industry. His motivation and drive allows me to gain key insight into how I should approach my next step.
Short Sounds Film Festival & the art of Networking
Vlog 4. The fourth and final installment. I’m over the moon. Blogging for me doesn’t allow me to express myself in the creative way in which I decided to pay for higher education in the first place. I believe that blogging is more a tool to use upon gaining a bigger media footprint. If I want to acknowledge skills I have learned in the two lectures I’ve had over the past month and a half then I handwrite my personal account because university was a very difficult choice on whether I should actually do it with regards to a media career. I’m getting this personal because I was told that I should adapt my journal’s style to the making of the blog.
To end the series I would like to talk about the Short Sounds Film Festival I recently attended. Ironically I made a vlog regarding my day at the event, however when attending the festival it just featured talks from other creators and so wasn’t really filmable content. Which was still awesome as I learned more than any of the recent seminars and lectures…(being that there haven’t been any). This particular festival, if you couldn’t tell, had the main theme of audio in Film. This caught my attention immediately because of a lecturer on the course being extremely biased towards audio and so this was the first time to have a balanced perspective of audio due to the documentary that was screened during a talk called “Making Waves”. This documentary had all of the household films from Star Wars to Jurassic World and it was an epic and insightful piece. It started off a bit slow however I’m sure the biased Lecturer would have loved all of it. Overall “Making Waves” opened my eyes more than the course ever would have but being on the course landed me this opportunity so I am very grateful.
Well that sums up the most impactful part of this festival to my learning. However it did not end there when I decided I wanted to feature my programme leader on my vlog and due to my vlog being my very first proper attempt at one, it was very improvised. The interview went horribly! My programme leader was very disappointed and found it awkward to be with his students afterwards. I found this to be very strange especially when he emphasises students first.
Overall this series of blogs was going to be about the Work in Media Industries however strikes and the lack of support for the blogs has reflected on my work, hence I have been airing out my thoughts about my current experience of being a Media Production student. Thanks for reading! Now I’m off to play some COD…
The Media Kingdom: Talking to the dead with the medium! #brb
Welcome back to blog 3 and a more happy me! The Work in Media Industries lecture wasn’t interrupted by any strikes however it may as well have been back bowling if you know what I mean. So I’m going to talk about the media course as a whole from my perspective.
Old media vs New Media
It’s the main event time – Old media vs New media! The fight of the decade. It features lecturers who don’t know how to operate PowerPoint and talk to us about Twitter as if it was invented yesterday. I surround myself with the most popular forms of media consumption. These being Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and tik tok. I have been in this scene watching and consuming content for years, gaining a significant knowledge of how YouTube and its user generated content is becoming the ‘norm’ and is slowly making the merge to the mainstream scene. I don’t watch television anymore. It’s either YouTube, Netflix or I spend some quality time on Amazon Prime!
My point being that I don’t believe that lecturers know and understand this even though it is their job to tell us the rules of the industry that we then can creatively break and bend to our will. This industry is ever changing and I think that lecturers need to catch up to our understanding of this New Media.
George's How to Blog 