Students at the BBC

MEDIA STUDENTS AT THE BBC
Wednesday 14th November 2012

On 14th November the BBC celebrated 90 years since the first radio broadcast and a group of Year 12 & 13 media production students from Prince Henry’s visited the BBC in Bristol. Following an introductory talk, we discovered fascinating information about BBC Bristol and it’s role in natural history programming … Did you know … programmes like Frozen Planet can take up to 7 years to produce from concept to final product and can cost £10 million! The programme is then sold all around the world.

Entering the hub of the news room, we met Jemma Cooper, Points West’s weather presenter and the extremely exuberant team from DIY SOS (in comparison to the Frozen Planet, DIY SOS only takes about a month from concept to programme, including 10 days filming).

Moving into the radio station, we were able to view live radio in action and were able to ‘play’ in a booth ourselves. Entering the TV studio, ‘wow’ was the word of the day. Set up for the local news broadcasts, we learnt the tricks of the trade including how the auto cue works.

In the interactive studio, the students recorded a radio broadcast, ‘The Haunted House’, including live sound effects produced by Laura Brotherton and Abi Edrop, using a bicycle pump to create a champagne bottle effect and rubber gloves for flapping wings, and pre-recorded effects by Lucy Webb.

Finally a local TV news broadcast was produced. Roland Hall Roberts read the news, Jessica Webb read the sports news (all coordinated by Lucy on the auto cue and Hanna Kilby managing the order of play) and Alice Usher gave a tremendous performance doing the weather in front of the green screen.

A tremendous experience for our students, some of whom are currently applying to university to study media production. We all came away with a real respect for the staff who work in the media and an enthusiasm for one of the biggest industries in the country.