First they came for ....

So BBC 3 is going (subject to BBC Trust approval)
I won't go into detail about my thoughts about it. Many of them are summed up quite well in this Radio Times Article...

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-03-15/never-mind-saving-bbc3-the-bbc-itself-is-in-danger#.Uyrdxj6Zav8.twitter

Reading the article it struck me that a famous quote works quite well adapted for this....

"First they came for the Asian Network, and I did not speak out--
Because I do not listen to the Asian Network.

Then they came for the BBC 6music, and I did not speak out--
Because I was do not listen to BBC 6Music.

Then they came for the BBC three, and I did not speak out--
Because I do not watch BBC 3.

Then they came for the BBC service I use, and no one was left to speak out for that."

Something Evil has arisen this Christmas

Something horrible seems to have crept up on us this holiday season. It’s clearly been lurking, biding its time since the 80/early 90s and has decided that now is the time they will strike.

I talk of course of the Christmas Jumper!

No Colin..... just no. 

It has to be mind control. Surly no other rational explanation makes sense as to why suddenly, out of no-where, this year these hideous abominations of knit-wear are appearing in every shop window on our high streets. In usually quite stylish chains, on attractive models who look like they would normally be seen in slinky dresses or sharp suits. They model their large reindeer heads or repeated snowflake patterns as if they were the height of style. Its all part of their mind control agenda. 

Don't be fooled ... she would look hotter in something else. Anything else

 

This is how the invasions start in sci-fi you know. First they take over the high street shops, then they come at you through the windows. I mean, Just look at the Autons!

The mind control has clearly already spread beyond the people running the shops. In recent weeks not only have I seen actual people on my commute wearing them but have also heard of charity wear-a-Christmas-jumper days and Christmas Jumper Parties!

Worse still I've been invited to one. Even worse still I think my wife has fallen under their control. She keeps mentioning them. I fear I will wake up one morning and she would have put one on me in my sleep and then it will be too late. 

It won’t be long before they’ll be made compulsory school and work uniforms and a slave force of workers is forced to churn them out 24 hours a day (actually that one is probably already happening).

And then my friends the evil wool aliens will have won.

Unless we fight back now.  The resistance starts today. Fight back against the oppressors and mind controllers and shout from the roof tops “Down with the novelty Christmas Jumpers!”

"Bonkgate" - Twitter, The innocent photo and the tabloid scandal

“Be careful what you post on twitter” is a warning often given to those that work for high profile places such as The BBC, you never know when your tweet written in anger will come back to bite you on the bum. There have been a few high profile cases where something someone has said has embarrassed them later (The recent motorist and their seemingly boasting of knocking a cyclist) , gotten them fired or forced resignations(The “youth Police Commissioner”) lead to Civil legal cases (even not explicitly accusing someone but just putting  *innocent face* after an otherwise harmless question can get you done for libel apparently) and even land you in prison (The frustrated traveller who joked they would blow up the airport if their plane didn’t board soon).

It’s a bit of a mind field to say the least.

And that’s just when you tweet something you shouldn’t. You see Twitter is a public platform. Tweets are there for everyone to see, take and use out of context. Completely innocent tweets can be hijacked and used against you. Even worse, tweets by someone else can. Something you have absolutely no control over.

And sometimes, every so often, it might embroil you in a tabloid scandal.

A few months back I attended the BBC Television centre staff closing party. It was a fun evening (despite the fact that I had a stonking cold, was on water the whole night and left early). We enjoyed the nibbles, chatted, had a bit of a dance and even got our photo taken with Scott Mills who was there to DJ. Genuinely a fun but uneventful evening, I wouldn’t say anything out of the ordinary happened.

I went home. Enjoyed my weekend. Started to get over my cold. Woke up on Monday morning and, as I often do, reached for my phone to have a quick look at twitter before getting out of bed.

While scrolling down twitter I see a headline “British Bonking Corporation” with a link to an article in the Daily Mirror. “ooo wonder what’s been going on” I thought., clicking on the link.

Reading the article I discovered that at that party I had been at there had, allegedly, been various frisky attendees who had snuck off to the abandoned offices for a quick bit of fun. Chuckling to myself I was thinking “Wow, I didn’t notice any of this going on” while continuing to scroll down. It was all very amusing.

Then I reached a photo.

The photo of me, my friends and Scott Mills posing for the camera. The photo that another friend had taken on their phone, presumably posted to twitter and now was included in an article about BBC staff sneaking off for some Bonking fun.

It’s not often that my mouth is literally hung open in shock but this was one of them times.

There were a couple of other pictures in the article but just crowd shots of the dance floor. Ours was the only photo of people looking to the camera. If you were just glancing at the article you might be forgiven for assuming that we were the “Bonkers” from the headline.  (which we weren’t…. just in case that still needed clarifying)

 I wasn’t exactly sure what to do next. My feelings were a mix between being quite chuffed that my photo was on a national newspaper's website, to worrying about any potential damage to my reputation that might affect work prospects, to being amused that the caption to the photo referred to us as Scott Mills' “Pals”.

What I did do first was text my wife. She doesn’t read the Mirror as far as I know, but just in case I wanted to guard agasint castration and assure her the Headline was nothing to do with me. Next I sent tweets to everyone else in the photo, all who were equally shocked and amused.

At this point I only knew that it was online, so on the way to work I bought a copy of the paper…..

 

Only a whole page spread on page 9!!!!

I then, am not ashamed to say, bought three more copies. (Well, It IS probably the only Time I’ll get in a national newspaper)

Finally I tentatively started showing people in my office to gauge reaction. To my relief everyone found it funny and reassured me I shouldn’t worry.

It was at this point I felt a bit more free to share the hilarity with friends on Facebook and fully embrace the amusement of it all.  We even started refering to it as "Bonkgate"

But it is a great example of how twitter posts can be used in ways you wouldn’t have intended. There was nothing we could really do about it. It was an innocent picture posted to twitter by someone else and just taken by a tabloid to put with a headline we had nothing to do with.

Does that mean we should all abandon twitter and forbid our friends of posting photos of us? I don’t think so. I love twitter and have found it very useful, paticually in the media industry for networking, finding jobs and getting advice.  

Just be wary, when your friends are taking pictures, not do anything that might embarrass you later and if you do end up, innocently,  in an amusing tabloid scandal try and embrace the funny side of it. It makes a great anecdote for parties.

365 days later.....

On February 18th 2012, long before I was on the production talent pool and back when I worked for a gold buying company in shopping malls, I was in London for the day. While there I took a photo of Broadcasting House, the BBCs home of national radio. I posted that photo on Facebook with the caption "I want to work here".

Well, exactly a year later, to the day, I started working there. How's that for prophetic timing?

The last year has been epic for me. It's amazing to think this time last year, when I took that photo, I had spent four years working in jobs that had nothing to do with the industry I wanted to work in. The prospect of ever getting that elusive career had never seemed further away.

But I decided I needed to take a serious shot at it one more time and 2012 would be the year I dedicated to it.

Getting onto the PTP was that shot. If it wasn't for the PTP I would never be working today at that building I took a photo of a year ago.

Applications opened today for the next crop of PTP applicants. If you're sitting there in a dead end job wishing you had fulfilled your TV or radio dreams this is your chance. Apply today.

I have no doubt I will look back at the last year as one of the best in my life, for both career and personal reasons. As well as now working in radio drama department of the BBC I also married the woman I love and went on an amazing once in a lifetime honeymoon cruise down the west coast of south America.

It's amazing how things can change in a year if you put your mind to it. 

9 months in the PTP an' counting

It's February. Already. Time is flying by.

I've now been on the BBC production Talent Pool for 9 months and nothing is bringing home the fact that I technically only have a few months left more than all the twitter posts I see calling for people to apply for PTP2013.

Applications open on the 18th Feb. so it seems a good time to review what I have gotten out of the scheme myself in the last 9 months. Perhaps if you are thinking of applying my musings will help you decided.

In fact I'll make it simple for you in case you don't want to read further....

If you want to work in TV and radio. APPLY.

Seriously you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Saying that don't expect to be constantly employed by the BBC during your year on the scheme should you be lucky enough to get on.

I was, with no exaggeration, ecstatic when I found out I had got a place. I literally jumped about my living room for a good five minuets. I couldn't wait to get started and getting started first meant 3 days of initial training. Some of this is long and tedious (a five hour health and safety on-line module or example) but I wouldn't have given up those 3 days for anything. It was a chance to meet my fellow PTPeeps (what we ended up refer to ourselves as on twitter) and as I soon learned networking is everything in media. It really is who you know and you'll make some good friends at the training.

At the training we were told they had a whole host of BBC programme makers  clambering at the doors to hire us and waiting for us to be trained and that while they couldn't guarantee it they expected most of us to be in some kind of placement with the first couple of weeks.

So it was a bit hard to deal with the silence of my phone for the weeks afterwards. Even harder when the weeks turned to months and no call came.

And it wasn't just me. No one from the Bristol group of PTPeeps had had anything and only a handful of others had.

I don't for one second blame the fabulous people running the scene for this. I think they may have got carried away in their enthusiasm for the scheme and their enthusiasm for us in predicting demand and I also suspect that demand told to them was over exaggerated but when they said it i do think they believed it.

The two people running the scheme: Don Kong (yes that is really his name, isn't it great!) and Simon Wright are your closest allies and best friends in starting out in your media careers  They are always there when you need it at the end of a phone line (or more often at the end of a tweet) With advice and friendly words and they will do everything in their power to get you that first job.

You have to do some work yourself as well of course and a lot of those first two months I spent e-mailing people within the BBC, telling them we were here and asking to meet for a coffee. Also attending Networking events, some organised specially for us, some external.

Finally I did get an interview; For a five week placement as an IT co-ordinator in drama. It wasn't the production or editorial role I had been hoping for. But after two months of waiting for an opportunity I wasn't going to scoff at it and during that month I learnt a lot about BBC systems that I may not have learned in another placement.

The moral there is don't refuse the roles in areas away from where you are aiming. You never know what you might learn.

It was five months till I was offered my next BBC placement. A 10 week contract as production management assistant in Radio Drama. It's my ideal role and I very much look forward to starting it next week.

But it is worth remembering that there may be long periods where you get no work form the BBC.

And now I'll tell you why none of that matters. Why if you REALLY do want to work in tv and radio why all the positive of this scheme outweigh the one negative of not knowing when you'll get your next pay (and really that's a good thing to get used to anyway, the whole media industry runs on short term contracts)

For starters you’re not restricted to just working for the BBC. If you get a full time job elsewhere that you love that's fine.  You might also get other short term work. During the 5 months between BBC contracts I filled my time working as a day-runner for various independent production companies. which ties in quite well to my next point....

Contacts! The PTP is amazing for making contacts in the industry. People within the BBC will (mostly) be more willing to meet with you for a coffee and a chat, which may not lead straight to a job but in a months time when they need someone they may just remember your enthusiasm.

Then there is your fellow PTPeeps. I've made some great friends through the PTP and some of those friends have gotten me jobs on other productions outside the BBC. The first runner role i had was because someone from the PTP who was already working on it recommended me. From that I got more work with that production company and my CV started to look appealing to apply for day-runner jobs off my own back.

And perhaps the best reason to apply for PTP is the opportunity to then apply to the PTS, the Production Trainee Scheme, the prestigious 18 month fast track that only those on the PTP can apply for.

I didn't quite make it onto the scheme  I did however get to the interview stage, not getting on to it may be my biggest disappointment to date in my life but I feel honoured that I got that far. To the last 33 from which the 11 trainees were chosen. That opportunity alone is worthy of applying for the PTP.

My 9 months on the scheme has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. And the only decision I've made that I might be tempted to change if I had a time machine might be to apply to London instead of Bristol. There were many more placements coming out of London (and also Manchester) than the others locations However there was probably also more competition in applying to London. Maybe I wouldn't have made it onto the scheme at all.

It would be a tough call to make. What isn't a tough call is to apply at all. If you have any desire to work in this industry do it. You won't regret it. 

This isn’t training..... This is Fast Train training (said in obligatory sexy M&S advert voice)

TV and radio training, it’s so expensive, isn’t it?  Just glancing at some of the courses I’d love to do on the BBC Academy website reveals prices of about £750 for a Radio features course.  On the Creative  Skillset website there is a Cannon XF305 camera course for just under £500. All a bit expensive for a freelancer just starting out with no money to his name.

Guess I’ll have continue without any extra training and just hope I get employed, at some point, by someone who is willing to foot the cost......right?

Well, no. You see there are these wonderful events, a few each year, called Fast Train. The BBC, Creative Skillset (the main industry body for training and funding), ITV and others work together to deliver a day of workshops and lectures for freelancers and it’s all free. Yep, completely and utterly free.    

How could I resist such an opportunity?

I eagerly selected the workshops I wanted. Not an easy task, I have the same problem in restaurants when trying to pick between three delicious sounding options on the menu, I just want them all. My choice was helped by the fact that some workshops had already sold out (note to self, book earlier next time) and I made my selection. I worked out I could fit in four workshops and the networking drinks at the end (very important that.... I’d barely left a gap in my schedule for lunch, and the food  and drink would be much needed by that point, and of course the chance to mingle with others in my industry is always worthwhile).

So on Tuesday morning I set off to Salford’s MediaCity. After last week’s Greater Manchester Road debacle (see “Foot in the door” blog from earlier this week) I was leaving no chances and left my house insanely early, arriving at my destination a good two and a half hours before my first  workshop.

But this at least gave me time to grab a coffee, say hello to Simon Wright (one of the people who run the BBC Production Talent Pool I am on), and take a quick jaunt in time and space.

Not only did I get to meet the TARDIS (yes ”meet”, it’s sentient you know) but before my first workshop I even won a raffle. My Prize? A Golden Ticket awarding me a £1500 training bursary through Creative Skillset. My day was off to an amazing start.

I went to my first workshop with a smile on my face and a coffee in my hand.

Now, obviously, you’re never going to learn as much on a 2 hour workshop as you would do on a full two day course, but you can get enough that you come away feeling you have learnt stuff you hadn’t known before.

My first workshop was an introduction to Pro-Tools, the industry standard audio editing package. For audio editing, I have always used Adobe Audition in the past but knowing that so much of the industry used Pro-Tools I have wanted to learn how to use it for a long time. unfortunately it tends to be another of those expensive courses.  So this was a workshop I jumped at the second I saw it. It was a chance to learn the basic tools in the programme so that if I was plonked at a desk in a job and told to edit something with it, I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself. 

Next, onto “Social Media and Second Screens”.  As well as professional interest here, I also had a hobbyist interest as I run the Twitter account of a local amateur theatre society and help with the Twitter account of my town’s volunteer-run theatre. Some good advice was imparted on finding your audience where they already are not trying to get them to come to your preferred platform.

Leaving me even less time to eat in my short lunch, I squeezed in doing a presenting screen test for the BBC academy. Who knows, one day it may be me introducing that clip of Anthea Turner getting her hair cooked extra crispy on the BBC health and safety training videos. 

In a Pitching workshop, one task we had to do was each read out a section of JFK’s presidential inaugural address. Being the eager amateur actor that I am, I did it in full American accent. No one else did.

Finally, I attended “Working with Radio Indies” which confirmed much of the advice I had gotten from indie people at last week’s Foot In The Door event, mainly that they want ideas and the best thing to do is just pitch them some. So I’ll be working on some ideas later today to send along to the helpful and friendly guys I met running this workshop.

.. I’m really pleased I went along to this event and I’m certainly eagerly awaiting the next one. In the meantime, I’m going to get shopping for a course on the Creative Skillsset website to spend my Golden ticket on. 

Foot in the door

“Getting your foot in the door” is a bit of a funny phrase if you think about it. It’s generally considered the goal when starting out in media. But the origins of the phrase relate to door stop sellers blocking the closing of a potential customer’s door with their foot. It’s quite aggressive really and I’m sure the people who couldn’t close their door were often quite annoyed.

Luckily the phrase has evolved somewhat since its inception. Most people in the media don’t want to close the door on people if they can help it, many try to actively help with advice, and most people trying to start out, if they want to get anywhere, don’t take the aggressive approach.

Last week I attended the Radio Academy’s “Foot in the door” event at the Radio festival in Salford, Just across from Media City UK. It was well worth the stress of getting there (a bit of road in Greater Manchester that should have taken 10 minuets to drive took an hour and a half. Crazy)

For those that haven’t heard of the event, the format is that those just starting out in the industry get a chance to move from table of guest speakers to table of guest speakers to ply them for advice. It’s basically speed dating but instead of a date you get advice.

The tables are themed on topics to kick off the conversation; “How do I get on air”, “Freelancing in Radio”, “What is station branding?”, with two to four relevant speakers on each. You don’t have their undivided attention of course; There are 5 other delegates to a table. Not every table may be relevant to your career ambitions. I personally don’t have much interest in working on the news teams at a radio station but I still found my time on the table about journalism interesting, if only to learn more about the other areas of the industry I hope to forge my career in.

Networking is one of the key necessities of getting into the media industry. I’ve been to a few networking events this year, some organised by the BBC for those on the Talent Pool scheme, others structured like a show where speakers are interviewed on stage. The format of “Foot in the door” has been particularly useful for getting the directed advice individuals are seeking. I picked up lots of useful tips that will hopefully  help me along my path, met some really interesting people who, one day, I may get the chance to work with and I even ran into a few of my old university tutors so got the nostalgic factor in there as well.

If you’re looking to get into radio I’d seriously recommend going to this event next year. It’s one of the more affordable elements of the Radio Festival (only £24 for Radio Academy members, some of the other events at the festival can be eye-watering at hundreds of pounds a ticket)

If you didn't make it this year but wish you had perhaps I can help by paraphrasing the advice I personally found most useful from it.

• Don’t stop making content – Always have something you’ve just done and something you’re working on so you have stuff you can talk about with potential employers.
• Best way to approach independent companies is with ideas. Pitch them something, if they like it you may just find you’ve got yourself a job.
• Don’t be pushy, don’t make the first thing you e-mail a company a plee for a job. Ask if you can meet for coffee because you would appreciate their advice. Coffee is king in media land.