Year
2016
Institution
University of Gloucestershire
The UoG Media Festival week is a major cultural and educational event which hosts internationally-renowned industry practitioners at our media centre in Cheltenham. Guests come from all sectors of UK/international media, from companies such as BBC, Aardman, Sky, Universal, Dreamworks and Spotify.
Sessions range from practical demonstrations to keynotes and panels to networking and alumni events, many of which may be viewed at uogmediafest.com, as all sessions are recorded and live-streamed by our media students. After each appearance guests are interviewed by our journalism students.
The Festival management and operations team consists of three teaching staff, five technicians and 53 students. We collaborate in planning, pre-production, production, post-production and marketing whilst students are involved in filming and live streaming content, ' red carpet' interviewing, guest liaison, social media management, reporting, photography, being members of panels, contributing to practical sessions, and organising and co-hosting the alumni day.
Impact of work
This creates the conditions for a very valuable experience for our students. Firstly, it contextualises for them skills learnt on their courses; they need to apply them under industry conditions, and live on air. Secondly, working alongside ' star' guests becomes normalised: our students recognise that they are working in a more pressured and exciting environment, but find that the techniques and skills they have learnt serve them well (which greatly enhances performance confidence). Lastly, because of the collaborative working context “ with other students, with our staff and technicians, and with all the guests there is a great, collective experience of working together. We are shown to depend on each other, which encourages the taking of greater personal responsibility for the quality of one's own contribution.
Plans for the future
Our future plan is simple: to share our methods and approaches with partner HEIs and by doing so learn from our partners' approaches and to create a national ' Hub' for the live-streaming and recording of festivals and conferences across the UK.
UK students may then benefit from experiencing each other's festivals, and student workers at each partner HEI's event may graduate to working for a media organisation with a national scope, in management roles.
Sessions range from practical demonstrations to keynotes and panels to networking and alumni events, many of which may be viewed at uogmediafest.com, as all sessions are recorded and live-streamed by our media students. After each appearance guests are interviewed by our journalism students.
The Festival management and operations team consists of three teaching staff, five technicians and 53 students. We collaborate in planning, pre-production, production, post-production and marketing whilst students are involved in filming and live streaming content, ' red carpet' interviewing, guest liaison, social media management, reporting, photography, being members of panels, contributing to practical sessions, and organising and co-hosting the alumni day.
Impact of work
This creates the conditions for a very valuable experience for our students. Firstly, it contextualises for them skills learnt on their courses; they need to apply them under industry conditions, and live on air. Secondly, working alongside ' star' guests becomes normalised: our students recognise that they are working in a more pressured and exciting environment, but find that the techniques and skills they have learnt serve them well (which greatly enhances performance confidence). Lastly, because of the collaborative working context “ with other students, with our staff and technicians, and with all the guests there is a great, collective experience of working together. We are shown to depend on each other, which encourages the taking of greater personal responsibility for the quality of one's own contribution.
Plans for the future
Our future plan is simple: to share our methods and approaches with partner HEIs and by doing so learn from our partners' approaches and to create a national ' Hub' for the live-streaming and recording of festivals and conferences across the UK.
UK students may then benefit from experiencing each other's festivals, and student workers at each partner HEI's event may graduate to working for a media organisation with a national scope, in management roles.