A Morning on the Tiles with Anna Valley

Third year Media Technology students were joined today by Ben from Anna Valley to play with some of their equipment and discuss opportunities within the industry.

Project Manager, Ben, started off by giving the students a thorough overview of the technologies and events that the company is typically involved with. They’re well known for large format displays and projection but cover a wide gamut of entertainment technology including video displays, cameras, sound and IT infrastructure for TV, events touring, corporate engagements and systems integration projects. They have a huge catalogue of cutting edge equipment and Ben was able to relate some impressive stories from the events they’ve been involved with from big-brand television such as the X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent to global stars such as Phil Collins’ Still Not Dead Yet, Live tour. The students were interested to hear about the technical challenges behind the scenes as well as the solutions developed, often under tough constraints.

Ben also introduced the students to a number of opportunities such as their two-year graduate training programme where employees get to move around the core departments and receive training on the company’s range of equipment and working practices. Anna Valley are also looking for current Media Technology students to be technical assistants at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, an arrangements that has been working well for well over a decade.

Afterwards Ben brought out some of their video wall tiles and media servers, and tasked the students with building a functioning system. It was great for the students to be able to experience building and configuring a system with contemporary equipment from such a rapidly changing industry. Many thanks to Ben and his colleagues for taking the time out of their schedules to share their experiences.