Thursday 13 February 2014

Evolution | Opposing the 'Nine-to-Five'

A casual last day 'selfie' - I'm obsessed with my camo jeans!


 That would be Bianca, photo-bombing the beautiful MediaCityUK!

Apologies for going AWOL for a moment there. I finished the first placement of my apprenticeship last Friday, had a day at home in Leeds on Saturday and then came straight to London on Sunday evening, which ended up becoming an awfully long journey. But I'm here now and training is well underway and slowly taking over my life. I've missed blogging so much, and despite not have a ridiculous amount of time, I really really wanted to fill you in on recent happenings.

I'll start from the beginning. For those of you who don't know, up until September 2013, I had worked in mundane, nine-to-five office jobs in solicitors and for the children's services department in my local authority. I hated it. All of it. But after a lot of hard work and determination, I finally managed to move in to what I loved; television production!

My apprenticeship is with the BBC and is made up of four individual placements. My first placement was based in the Religion and Ethics, Television documentaries team in MediaCityUK, Salford. Now I know what you're thinking - "Religion and Ethics? How boring!" - but I'm afraid to inform you that you'd be wrong in thinking so. The work is incredibly intelligent and extremely varied! I spent my placement completing tasks at the opposite end of the scale; from researching crocodile experts and hostile countries, to sourcing students for a BBC Learning film, to filming a Christmas parade in Canterbury with the volunteer sewing ladies at the Cathedral who were the cutest people I've ever met - and all whilst consuming a ridiculous amount of cake!

My last week at Religion and Ethics also meant finding out where I would be heading after training in Elstree. My second placement will be outside of the BBC as we are encouraged to gain experience with an independent organisation within the industry. I’ve been lucky enough to gain a placement with ITV Leeds and their in-house production company, Shiver. Having now met my new manager, I am officially excited about what the next three months have to hold!

I’m not really sure how to sum up the experience so far. It’s been pretty amazing that’s for sure and I’ve worked with some incredibly inspiring people. They gave Bianca and myself a lovely send off over the course of our last week and I’m looking forward to hopefully working with them in the future. I am really going to miss Manchester, particularly my lovely walk to and from work dodging the ever fearless geese!

Returning to training has included being reunited with my fellow apprentices who are either completing the same scheme as me, or are part of the Creative Digital Media cohort. The people I share my place on the scheme with are some of the most creative, intelligent and excruciatingly talented people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting; I am incredibly proud to be sharing this experience with every single one of them. Wow. That was a little soppy for me – I hope you all appreciated that!

We’re in the middle of creating a taster trailer for a programme pitch we created at the moment, but I’m afraid the details are top secret (ok, maybe not top secret but there’s still a chance we could get it commissioned so I’m keeping quiet). I’m conscious that I could keep talking about this forever so I’m going to pause for now. I’ll keep you updated but in the meantime if you’re interested in working in television production then take a look at the BBC apprenticeships here. Applications for 2014 open on 3rd March and also make sure you follow @BBCTrainees for the most up to date information– it truly is a one of a kind opportunity.


L x

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