Creating media for education

We love keeping in touch with former students and in this guest blog, 2018 alumna Frida Johansson reflects on her career since finishing the MA, how the skills she learned at UoB are now used to create media for educational purposes, and the importance of always developing your capabilities (and supplying baked goods!).

I started applying for jobs in the last few months of the MA (it made for a nice break from the dissertation editing!), and finished the MA in August 2018. In October 2018, I was extremely excited to get a job offer from Coventry University Online! They were growing their media team, and I was hired as an Assistant Digital Media Producer.

I’ve been at CUOnline since then, creating media for the university’s online degrees. It’s an incredibly exciting and varied job! Coventry University Online is quite a new subsidiary company to the university – the company had existed for just over a year when I joined, so in addition to the media, I’ve also gotten to be involved with developing our operating procedures and ways of working. Day to day, I work in a team with the Lead Producers on two degrees simultaneously, and we do everything – from the initial media mapping and pitching our ideas to the academics, through to the filming or animation, and finally postproduction.

Diary of an FTV Student: Zoom Edition

Welcome to the first blog of the 2020-21 academic year, from new FTV student Emily Andreasson, who shares her reflections on a Zoom-filled Week One (and the perils of Dolly Parton!).

During the summer of 2020, with most of us at home doing copious amounts of family quizzes over Zoom and dreaming of the days we could hug our friends once more, films became a solace where we could both escape and make sense of our own realities. Flash forward a few months and I’ve completed the first week of learning about just that on the MA in FTV! From composition and cameras to research and resumes, we have covered significant ground all from the touch of a button and click of a mouse.

Before Monday madness had a chance to arrive, we were sent an email from the School saying classes this week had to suddenly change to 100% online due to some final health and safety checks. CANVAS was flooded with students as we all tried to scramble together to get to the right places, or meetings, at the right time. Luckily, we all managed to come together for our first class with Richard on Documentary Filmmaking. Before beginning the course, I was a bit nervous about everything given these circumstances we’re in. Was I good enough to be on the course? Was I ready to dive headfirst into creating films rather than just watching them? Would my broadband width be able to cope with online learning? Thankfully, Richard put all these thoughts at ease immediately. Not only did I feel I had made the right decision, but I was excited to see how many new faces were on my screen and it was comforting to think some of them must have been feeling those first-day jitters too.

Next, Jemma gave us a talk about Placements and CVs, so it was time to blow the dust off of mine and give it a cold, stern look head on. With the possibility of placements being so up in the air, it was great to have some practical advice that would be useful for both now and the future. Having looked at my CV, I delved into what Jemma coined ‘format vomit’ and so immediately knew that it needed a slight facelift – no total overhauls, Jemma assured, but some tweaks that would set me on the right path. Despite our current situation we all remain optimistic that regardless of where we are in 6 months, we have done all the work now to set ourselves up for the best possible outcome. Fingers crossed for the future.

Learning from home under lockdown

When the University moved to restricted campus operations ahead of lockdown in March, like everyone else the Department of Film and Creative Writing had to adapt quickly, moving all our teaching and learning online. 

While some things have undoubtedly been a challenge, we are nothing if not creative! Dr Alaina Schempp created a virtual community for the department, complete with offices and discussion threads; Dr Richard Langley has been sharing ’30 seconds of zen’ clips on Twitter; and our fantastic students have still been producing films, albeit with changes from their original plans, with outstanding resilience and good humour.

Here’s a short film made by our technician, Nina Jones, and other members of the MA Film and Television team, showing how we’re continuing to learn from home, while maintaining the sense of community we believe is so crucial among our colleagues and students.

Jemma Penny, Placement Coordinator

Term One: A Story by Nina Jones

As we re-open the edit suite doors for 2018, our technician Nina tells us the story of her first Autumn term at the University, and how it was working with the new cohort of FTV students… 

It started like any other day.  I tackled the morning rush hour and secured my parking spot.  As I sprinted up the four flights of stairs (this is a lie, I took the lift) to the edit suite I contemplated what this term would bring.  The next Spielberg?  Fincher? Hitchcock? Would I be spoiled with technical wizards? As I flung the double doors open and keyed in the code I felt hopeful this term would be filled with excitement, merriment, creative genius and movie magic!

I have not been disappointed (well not too disappointed).  Aside from the litter, tardiness, noise and missing batteries everything has run pretty smoothly…

Lou managed to cover the whole of the fourth floor with glitter, Christos had butter fingers,  Frida gave us all diabetes, Zoe made an unplugged hard drive seem like the end of the world, Cheryl was ‘stupid’ (or maybe she’s just kidding us to hide her editing prowess), Claire managed to exist about 20 minutes behind the rest of the universe, Sofia enchanted us with her colourful language, Jenny made putting up a tripod in record time look like a matter of life or death, Jack was LOUD, Sam lost all his hair, Hermione got beautifully lit selfies, Black Market Beth managed to run her own DVD business on the side, our wonderful international students joined in with our terrible British banter and discovered the joy of Christmas crackers, Rayna gave birth to a whole other human and still made classes, Techy Tash impressed with her audio skills, Lorhren started off looking terrified but showed us her creativity producing an amazing visualisation film with Hatty (starring Christos as Salvador Dali – nice wink), I finally worked out who was Heather and who was Helena after 11 weeks, Shereen’s fashion sense put us all to shame (seriously though, how did you get so cool?) and we all survived the terrible Scandinavian sweet challenge.

(Note from Jemma: barely survived – everyone is getting Marmite in the spring term)

To the others I haven’t mentioned, thank you for being so wonderful! It really was an amazing first 11 weeks teaching you the ins and outs of filmmaking.  You have all blossomed into confident and capable filmmakers.  I am so proud of you all and can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store.

Nina Jones, Film Technician

Staff and Students celebrating the festive season with our annual Christmas Jumper Competition

 

Using social media to promote your work

Fred Ikezue-Clifford completed the MA in September 2017. While finishing his dissertation, he was also working as a freelance filmmaker in London, focusing on music videos and using Instagram to grow his client base.

Instagram is a social media platform that filmmakers and photographers can use to promote their work and get it seen by people from all over the world. As an aspiring filmmaker I began watching various YouTube videos on how to effectively promote your work and gain followers and discovered that Instagram was one way forward. I’ve always had a love for music so decided to learn how to create music videos in the most cinematic way possible and then promote them on social media.

I strongly believe that music video production is one way filmmakers can effectively make money because of the amount of artists who want videos. It may seem daunting at first but there are people who will need your services and creative eye! However, there is a lot of competition out there from other directors who may be more experienced then you or have better equipment but its all about perseverance! I was able to get my first client via Twitter. An artist who studied in Birmingham was looking for a local videographer and I happened to see him tweet this at the right time. So I contacted him and sent through my work, which convinced him to work with me. Once I finished his video and promoted it on social media, more work started coming my way and this cycle continued to repeat itself.

On my own Instagram profile, I make sure I upload the best quality pictures possible and try to be as creative as I can with how I upload my videos. For example, as well as uploading videos I also upload still frames from my projects as way of showing off my editing and colour grading skills.

Furthermore, I use hashtags such as #musicvideo, #cinematography and #directorslife when I post my work and make sure I’m consistent with the content I upload on a weekly basis. After doing some research I discovered that the best times to upload content on Instagram is between 8pm and 9:30pm on Wednesday/Thursday and virtually anytime in the afternoon on Sunday. These are the days and times you can drive the most traffic to your page. Usually once a potential client sees my post they message me directly and discuss their needs for a potential video. Back in June I had about 120 followers on Instagram and now in October I’m almost at 500 followers and that’s purely because I’ve been consistent with the work I post. It may not be a massive amount, but slow progress is better than no progress.

I’m still learning how to grow my following and improve my content on a daily basis but I hope these tips will be beneficial and make you consider trying out music video directing, and promoting your work on social media platforms.

 

Fred Ikezue – Clifford

 

Don’t take a job, make a job

On Friday 9^th June, we welcomed James Cronin and Joe Partridge from Project Birmingham to campus to talk to our MA students about freelancing in the creative industries.  The interactive workshop covered James and Joe’s own career journeys to date and was designed to help students identify their objectives and aspirations in relation to personal skillsets, with a key focus on film, media and creating opportunities in the city of Birmingham.

Project Birmingham was founded by James in 2015. It aims to bring together the creative community in Birmingham and generate a buzz around the city’s culture and talented individuals. In addition to Project Birmingham, both he and Joe have ‘day jobs’ and additional interests they pursue outside of their careers. As they noted at the start of the workshop ‘it’s not about what you do, but why you do it’, which is an important question for anyone to consider as they prepare to leave university and commence working life.

Key themes of the session were the importance of having passion and pride in your work and recognising personal strengths and weaknesses – after all, if you’re an aspiring freelancer then the drive to succeed should ideally be rooted in a genuine love for what you want to do. Students were encouraged to think about the skills they might need to put a plan for their future goals into action: while some of us have no qualms about picking up a camera and setting up shoots, for example, others are far more comfortable dealing with business admin and social media. Going solo is a great aspiration, but having an awareness of where our individual limitations lie is just as important as exercising our strengths effectively. As James advised, ‘think about what you can do better than anyone else in the world’ and then research where (or for whom) you can add that value.

‘Focussing on strengths and weaknesses and setting a goal was a really useful exercise’ (James Cresswell)

Many people assume that pursuing a career in film and TV necessitates moving to London, but James and Joe reinforced the fact that Birmingham is also an excellent city in which to forge a creative career. As the broad film and media sectors continue to collide, being in a smaller pool where the pace is a touch slower can be beneficial to recent graduates. Nobody is pretending that it’s not still a competitive industry, but there are strong networks to tap into in Birmingham and dozens of stories waiting to be told through various art forms. Hopefully this session motivated our FTV students to go out and tell them!

‘I really enjoyed the interactive elements of the session, which made it stand out from other talks’ (Malcolm Remedios)

With myth busting and practical advice about tax and self-employment also being covered, the workshop was a fantastic opportunity for our MA cohort to think about what their next steps might be after September. As part-time student Jessica Brown commented, ‘It was cool to hear their stories and to be presented with the option of moving between different roles as we start our careers. ’ Both Joe and James demonstrated that a career doesn’t need be limited to one area or indeed one role as this chapter of education ends. As they rightly said, advice is useful, but ultimately it’s up to us to make jobs, and not just take jobs.

Jemma Saunders, Placement Coordinator

This workshop was kindly supported by the Curriculum Enhancement Fund.

Tour of Birmingham’s Media and Arts Centres

In welcoming the new cohort of FTV postgraduate students to the University of Birmingham, the course leaders and Professor Roger Shannon scheduled an afternoon tour across the ‘second city’ for a glimpse at its various media and art centres. Samuel James shares his experience of the day.

Taking place in Week 1, on Friday 30th September 2016, Professor Shannon met with all the students inside Birmingham New Street train station at 1pm. He provided us with introductory leaflets about the city’s media and arts before explaining where we’d be visiting on the scheduled tour: the famous Electric Cinema, BBC Birmingham, Everyman Cinema, the Ikon Gallery and local chains at Cineworld and Odeon.

The first stop was the Electric Cinema, the nearest to New Street station and the oldest running cinema in the United Kingdom. Upon our arrival at the Electric, Roger took a number of group photos outside before going inside and introducing us to Sam Bishop, the cinema’s duty manager.

Sam presented us with an insight into the history of the Electric Cinema, provided resourceful advice on working in the film and TV industry and discussed what the Electric offers customers. He even mentioned private screenings and suggested that FTV students organise one after completing audio-visual dissertations. For more information on the Electric Cinema, be sure to watch the documentary about it called The Last Projectionist.

We then began our stroll through the city centre before eventually passing through the Mailbox and finding the current offices at BBC Birmingham. After another group photo, Roger guided us inside and we lovingly observed BBC sets and props of its famous TV shows, including costumes from Peaky Blinders. We also had some fun with the BBC Weather equipment.

Upon leaving, we arrived at the Everyman Cinema just round the corner. Similar to the Electric Cinema, their duty manager showed us around and presented some factual information about the company. He also briefly guided us into an auditorium and allowed us to sit on their newly allocated sofa seats.

Taking a few steps outside of the city centre, we passed by the Ikon Gallery. There was no official tour as we passed through like customers, but it gave us a further insight into the city’s art outside of cinema and media.

At roughly 3pm, we moved onto mainstream cinema in the industry by visiting the Cineworld chain at Broad Street and Odeon at New Street. Supervisors from both industries gave us a thorough tour around the building, discussed the growing changes of cinema and, at Cineworld, showed us the projectors.

We finished the tour at approximately 4pm. Although some students went home afterwards, others stayed in Birmingham for some drinks at a nearby pub which Professor Shannon previously recommended. Therefore, the FTV students of 2016-2017 considered this as not only an insight to Birmingham’s media and arts centres, but an icebreaking afternoon to build friendships and potential film and TV partnerships.

Thank you to Roger for showing us the city!

Samuel James

BBC Digital Cities Workshops: Survive the Future

On Thursday 17th March, four FTV students attended workshops at BBC Birmingham as part of Digital Cities Week to pick the brains of broadcast industry insiders and participate in practical training with digital tools. In this post, Elena Tang and Yang Zhang reflect on digital storytelling, using new technologies to produce innovative content, and trying their hands at being weather presenters.

We were welcomed to the Mailbox with a 3D goggles show-zone and offered a chance to get immersed in this new interactive way to engage in previously 2D television programmes. After registering, we were led upstairs and through labyrinth-like alleys and finally arrived at the BBC Academy space where the workshops were mainly held.

Digital Storytelling

The first session was hosted by writer Elaine Wilson. She explained how digital storytelling is different and what types of stories you can tell online. With the development of technology, the way to tell a story has changed dramatically and it is obvious that many people prefer accessing content through mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices rather than books and newspapers. Thus, digital platforms play a significant role in filmmaking and television production. After a brief introduction to the core points for a good story, Elaine suggested ways to take full advantage of social media in storytelling. Examples of short form vloggers like ‘MinutePhysics’ were also shown to demonstrate how effectively this type of content works.

We learned that a good character in a story should have a clear goal and motivation, being recognizable while having their own flaws and strengths. Critical elements of a story include consistency and consequence: what happens if the characters succeed or fail. During an activity we were divided into groups of four and given a nursery rhyme to adapt into stories to be told in digital forms. Everyone’s ideas seemed so unique and innovative, and it was great to see that people’s creativity could be ignited through simple inspirations like the owl and the pussy-cat falling in love with each other.

Next, in order to put the idea into practice, we were tasked with making a 10-second short film using Vine in a limited time. We grabbed the chance to make creative videos in small groups, and all videos produced were posted onto the big screen so everyone gets to see what the other groups had made: some hilarious, some very artistic, and many with innovative twists. The fun and relaxed activity helped us learn the art of digital platforms and see how swiftly a piece can be produced.

Hands-on Technology

During the lunch break we explored the BBC Public Space where we were able to try working as an anchor on either a weather forecast, the news or a natural history program. Reading the autocue was quite a challenge, but it was fun to see ourselves on screen on the hunt for polar bears or predicting rain, and we got a better understanding of how a
presenter works.

In the afternoon session, we attended different workshops in smaller groups and tried making short form content with infographics, photos and audio using iPad and mobile apps like Splice and Pictophile Pro. We got to experience digital content including Pint-sized Ashes for BBC Radio 5 Live, facilities including green screen, 360º video and VR headset, all within 10 minute workshops.

The intense but fun workshops showed us how interesting and seemingly complex digital content can be produced in a short period of time with limited resources and on a small budget, especially using simple mobile apps. The future of creative media is indeed in the hands of everyone.

Elena Tang and Yang Zhang

If you’d like to learn more about Digital Storytelling, sign up by 30 May for a free course with the University of Birmingham, BBC Academy and Creative Skillset to access a wealth of tips and resources: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/digital-storytelling