Media Production Trip to London

On Wednesday 17 November I took a small group of BA Media Production students to London to visit the Photographers Gallery and Evolutions Postproduction House. It was great to mix students from across the four-year groups and finally spend some time with the second-year students after a year of online delivery.

Being environmentally conscious and efficient with the time we took the train to Waterloo and walked to the Photographer's Gallery off Oxford Street in Soho in the glorious autumnal sunshine.

The students enjoyed the playfulness of Helen Levitt's street photography, remarking at her ability to stage a shot and her ingenious methods of taking a photo without the subject knowing. We debated the ethics of this and marvelled at the performance of some characters who had clearly become aware of the camera's presence.

From the gallery, we walked around the corner to Evolutions post-production house where Chris and Stuart, operations managers, talked to students about the structure and workflow at the company.

As we walked the corridors of edit rooms we watch online and offline editors, senior and training operators work on popular TV shows such as Channel 4’s Taskmaster. We sat in colour grading rooms and witnessed dubbing edits through soundproof glass. The student left impressed at the scale of the operation but also confident that they could enter that kind of workplace.

Chris, who helps hire graduates talked about the importance of being open to opportunities that may not link to direct ambitions. He explained how understanding the structure of a company and the impact you have as a member of a team on others will lead to better outcomes. He pressed the importance of maintaining a strong reputation for professional development and progression through the company. He explained how he filters CV using work experience as a measure and looked for the confidence of knowledge in graduate's job interviews. He explained that most graduates, like himself, will start as runners but it is possible to get to a job as an entry-level edit and media operator if you have plenty of professional sounding work experience.

We left energised and headed back to Waterloo for our train home, stopping for refreshments in China Town.

Evolutions have asked us back and so I've no doubt this trip will become an annual event.

I hope you can join us next time.

Photographs were taken by Hritabrata Mondal @hrickmondal (Foundation in Media) and Frankie Murdoch.

Written by Frankie Murdoch (Lecturer in Media Production)

Edited and Published by Krisana Polyotha

BA(Hons) Media Production

Solent Media