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Sunday, November 30, 2003

Got 'hoist by own petard' on Saturday- Good news was that I got a substantial cheque for my work on the WTC4? web-site- BAD news was that it was made out to 'Filcommedia' -Damm!

The teaching year is a strange thing - One minute you're just in the intro stage- next you're half way through. Sitting down preparing for the week ahead I realised that the phrase 'uphill til Xmas ' (or Don't smile til Xmas) was fairly accurate- I'm going to have to get people working for themselves- rather than prancing around in front of them making an impression. So- sorry guys- the hard work starts here- cos 'It's downhill (to exams) after Xmas.

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Bye -bye Concorde

Tomorrow (Wednesday) sees the return of the world's biggest paper airplane to its' place of manufacture- Filton. Filton College is directly opposite to the British Aerospace runway on which Concorde will land for the last time. From 11am till 2pm all roads will be closed as the crowds watch this bit of history (supposedly). The best view has been commandeered by Media Students- It's the top of a spiral fire exit and will be occupied by a couple of camera crews. Bids are invited!
Hello Roland (a letter to my Quality Manager)

Alan asked me to give you a few lines about my recent Media Industry experience.

Most Media Staff have a background of working in the Media- I don't.

I have kept in touch with the local Media Industry through forums such as The Royal Television Society and 'Bristol Channel'. These are organizations which allow media professionals to network and keep up to date with the latest trends.

I have also done periods of work experience with BBC Radio and HTV as well as working as a volunteer Radio Producer for RSL radio station 'Radio Cam'.

About three years ago I started to liaise with a local body called 'The Bristol Interactive Cluster' - this is a forum for local 'new-media' and TV companies who work to provide 'broad-band' content. BRIC is partially funded by the LSC.

BRIC meets each month and presents new media projects and information about changes/developments in the media industry.

Through BRIC I organized a couple of student work placements last year and a number of visits from Media professionals- who talked to groups of Art & Media students about the creative side of Media.

One of the companies involved with the BRIC/College link was 'Available Light'. This company needed a Media Studies teacher to help write content for a web-site they have developed for C4 called 'What's this Channel 4?". There is also a three part TV series of the same name.

I spent the summer working on the site(for a substantial consultancy fee!) , writing all the content and also devising interactive games and the site structure.

I also wrote the Teachers' Notes for the TV series directly for C4 '4Learning' department.

Last week I was part of the 'Available Light' team who presented the site and TV series to BRIC.

Another useful link has been forged with the BBC. The BBC are working with both Bristol Colleges to provide a monthly half day workshop for vocational Media students. The first one this year was in November and focused on originating programme ideas and 'pitching' these ideas to commissioning editors.

These monthly workshops are extremely valuable and have been planned by a consultation between Colleges and The BBC. My chief suggestion to date has been a yearly 'Film Festival' which ran for the first time last July. The Festival featured the best work of the year from both colleges and is judged by a panel of BBC executives. Last year a Filton Access Student won a months' work experience at the BBC, followed by paid work as a 'runner'.

The BBC were very impressed by the quality of work and the calibre of students. Even Greg Dykes was told about the success of the Festival!

The next workshop is in January.

see:

http://www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/bbcWorkshop.htm
http://www.available-light.co.uk/wtc4/flash/wtc4.html
http://www.cluster.org.uk/

Sunday, November 23, 2003

The OFSTED inspection dominated the week- I ended up only getting observed once, fortunately it was a wizzy web based session based on the WTC4? promotion game- and was mighty impressive- a grade 2 type lesson.
Tuesday saw the BRIC preview ot WTC4?- I arrivea at 6pm and was immediately put on the speakers platform! I made a useful contact with someone from BAFTA. It would be good if BAFTA gave awards to 16-19 year olds.

The Berlin Film Festival now beckons- deposits are coming in -so it's time to all the paper-work and arrange coaches etc.

The Media floor at Filton has benefited greatly from the OFSTED inspection. Plans we made to refurbish the floor in 1997/8/9 have finally been put into effect - including a NEON 'media' sign!

Saturday, November 15, 2003

Friday saw the first broadcast of WTC4? (10.35 am)- I managed to preview it on Thursday to make sure that the 'Teacher's notes' that I wrote for C4 were accurate. The notes were written from the scripts- and c4 had a change of commissioning editor at '4 Learning'- so it was a toss up whether the final edit would actually resemble the script- In the end it did.
Friday also saw the first workshop at the Beeb. The BBC pulled out all the stops and produced a brilliant introduction to the art of coming up with programme ideas and pitching them to the commissioners. Techniques of brainstorming were used and we all ended up working on ideas for new TV programmes. One technique used was to use a set of 'random' cards- which have been developed by Audience Research- the cards descriibe 'cultural trends' such as 'pampering' and 'insecurity'.
Another technique described was 'The Watering hole'- A prgramme 'pitch' gets the full attention of the 'brainstorming' group- with 'green hats' giving only positive suggestions and 'red hats' giving constructive criticism'.
Also of interest is that programme prposals are not only written- these days a pitch is usually accompanied by a two minute video which gives a flavour of the talent,content or atmosphere of the programme being put forward. As an example we saw a pitch for a 'mockumentary' about global warming.

After the workshop we practiced our networking skills over the BBC sandwiches.

Can't wait till next month!

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

It's Tuesday - Next week on Tuesday @ 4.30 in 'The Watershed' there's a chance to hear about new
developments at Channel 4 and the work of 'Available Light'. Speakerss- David Parker WTC4? series producer and Sam MacFadden- The web-site developer.

Sunday, November 09, 2003

Weekend over- back on your heads

Revised all the Schemes of work and posted them on the filcommedia site.

A2 Media now have a testing textual analysis (see SOWs) and a list of advanced critical terms (see'Files') on the site (useful for A2 Comms too).

AS Media have a file on 'Narrative Structure' (see 'Files')- we're going to analyse the structure of 'The Animatrix' shorts.

Some excellently awful FactEnt progs coming up this week on C4 (including 'celeb wife swap!). I also watched a very good example of 'Faux-doc' - The BBC walking with Dinosaurs special which is exquisitely contrived (actually it's great kid's TV).

It's great being a Media teacher- you can really get to enjoy trash TV!


Saturday, November 08, 2003

It's Saturday- and the day when most of the week's preparation gets done (or else it's Sunday evening- Oh yes - last minute home-work, things never change!)

The major task is writing lesson plans & revising scemes of work. We all wrote lesson plans for the OFSTED weeks a month ago- but they all need rewriting as we make course corrections all the time.

AS Media for instance are really getting into making a short film- It was going to be a quick 'taster'- but now it will be a major piece of course-work.

Never mind- it's good to be able to respond to enthusiasm.

A2 Media are also getting involved with some project work- This is the BBC Brief.

Schemes of work can all be found on www.filcommedia.org (click the Map icon)

Lastly- The Berlin trip needs all the paper work doing- and thats a 14 page document!

Never mind- there's time for a Bonfire party tonight.

Friday, November 07, 2003

Hello again- For some reason I can't see what I'm writing- so please forgive typos!- This Blog is going to be a place where the exiting world of Media & Comm Studies appears...

Coming up next week is the 'Brief Encounters' festival- (see www.watershed.co.uk) for details- part of this festival is an International festival for 'Micro-films' (see www.depict.org.uk) This year's best entries are on view-incliding on which star's Andy Bray as an Angel with 'wing envy'- Andy was a student here and memorably filmed himself getting very drunk in Thornbury as a piece of practical course work. It was a great piece of video- and i still feel guilty about not giving it an 'A' because of some misplaced puritan zeal. We've stilll got the video if anyone wants to see it!

Coming soon -also at the watershed is a chance to see a preview of the 'What's this Channel 4?' website which I've been working on all summer- it accompanies a 3 part TV series starting in November.

The event in in Studio 3 on Tuesday 18 November and starts at 5.30. Filton Students should be able to get in free-IF they tell me they're coming (£5.00 otherwise) See www.cluster.org.uk for detalils. The Bristol company that did all the work is called 'Available Light' (www.availablelight.tv.uk)

All these links are 'live on www.filcommedia.org.
The first post of the filcommedia blog.....

Hello

My name is Adam Ranson- I'm a Media Lecturer at Filton College in Bristol.

I've had a web page for a while (www.filcommedia.org) So I thought I'd start 'blogging' to.

I'm working at home today and have just been organising a trip to the BBC HQ in Bristol (England) for my students.

It's a 2 hour visit- looking at how to pitch programme ideas for a hypothetical BBC1 slot (7 p.m. Saturday)

The TV Genre is 'Factual Entertainment' - that weird offspring of documentary and entertainment.

Some of the student ideas so far are hilarious..... More details to follow

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