Creative Futures 2012 ARD 504

Creative Futures 2012

ARD504

I was looking forward to this years week of creative future talks that we have in Glyndwr University. Now being in my second year I feel more of an urgency towards gaining an understanding of my future employers and what my new job role could entail. I was also looking forward to the talks from the people who have started their own businesses, as this is something that would definitely be of interest to me when I graduate.

Wendy Rees - BBC Wales

Getting a Job

The first talk that I attended was by a lady called Wendy Rees, the head of the BBC across the North West for human resources and training. Wendy Rees studied law at university with a view to becoming a solicitor but later gained a role in administration at the BBC and worked her way up the ladder over the term of her employment.

The BBC is one of the largest content providers and broadcasts to a global market, employing over twenty thousand people who are mainly based in the United Kingdom.

One of the comments from Wendy Rees was 'flexibility goes a long way', I found this to be very helpful as I enjoy both the still and moving image but also have a vast knowledge and passion for music including writing, performing, composition and production. It was of great relief to hear that my hobby would go a long way in helping me find employment in other areas. If I was an employer looking for someone with a wide range of talents and interests I would select the person who could bring more input to the company over someone else that could not. This goes to show that in this market flexibility goes a long way and is of great benefit.


The next part of the talk was with reference to the vast opportunities that the BBC offer in the form of training and employment, one of them being the talent pool. This was of great interest to me because it was only an hour before that I was on the BBC  website looking at all the information that she was now portraying to us in the talk.


The additional information that she gave us was that the BBC employ passionate people and that they prefer a good portfolio more than formal qualifications. This gave me hope of a possible job in the future, but then Wendy Rees told us that they only take twelve people a year onto the course, this deadened my spirits a little. The up side is that the BBC accepts work experience and this is a good way into the company because it creates openings, and if you perform well on work experience you are always kept in mind for for future jobs.


I enjoyed Wendy Rees from the BBC giving her talk. It has showed me that the opportunities are out there in the industry that I wish to find employment in when I leave University. I now know that I need to be passionate about my work and career, I need to be different so I stand out and that I need to be interested in the BBC. I found the talk very useful and felt very appreciative that Wendy Rees took the time to come and talk to us.

Matthew Richards - BBC

Piece to Camera

The next talk I attended was by a man called Matthew Richards who was an interviewer from the BBC. This talk was in the television studio in the new creative industries building that is a new edition to Glyndwr University recently. It was nice to be in the studio because, even though we are in creative industries, we are not allowed to use that particular studio. It makes no sense to me to have such a high tech and well maintained place, that would improve my work endlessly in the areas of lighting and green screen, that we can not use it due to health and safety training. I know a lot of students that would benefit from the new studio, so please arrange the ten minute health and safety training brief for us. We have only been waiting for a year.
Rant over.


Matthew Richards is a reporter and interviewer for Wales Today and has been involved in six to ten thousand interviews over his career, covering a range of subjects from political figures to music festivals. His talk was to be based on good and bad interview techniques that he has encountered over the years.
After watching some footage of various interviews we could see that the bad interview had a number common points, mostly being things that you should not do on camera, these being

• do not fidget
• try and stay still
• no jargon
• do not use one word answers
• do not cover mouth  

There were a lot of points that I would never of picked up on without being guided through it, and it goes to show that everything is important down to the slightest detail. Matthew then showed us a spoof interview with Ali G to show us the extreme side of the interview technique which everyone loved.

I thought the talk was fun and informative and I enjoyed my time there. What I learned was to be in control of the interview and at edit to just use the best bits.

Although being a reporter or interviewer in the future is not of real interest to me, I feel I still gained a new understanding of a different industry and that the new knowledge I obtained would benefit me in the future.

Berwyn Rolands

Ffresh

The talk the next day was definitely of interest to me. It was held in the Nick Whitehead theatre and was hosted by a man called Berwyn Rolands from Ffresh. I know that students from Glyndwr University have had some success at the Ffresh film festival over the years so I was eager to learn more about it.

Ffresh stands for 'Student moving image festival in Wales' and was established in 2002. The festival has strong links between the industry and the students and Ffresh is a platform to help the students realise their potential.

The main point for myself attending this talk was to find out how to submit work for the festival and to gain knowledge of the criteria that they look for. I was pleased to hear that the Ffresh film festival is being held at Glyndwr University on the 13th to the 15th of February 2013 and that anyone can submit work for selection. We then watched films from some previous winners and was impressed at what I saw and felt positive about submitting my work in the forthcoming year. I was also pleased to hear that Ffresh have work experience places available every year, unfortunately only 3 places, but at least they see the importance of giving students opportunities. 

Dan Fox

Digital - Fluid film

The talk by Dan Fox on the Wednesday was the one I was most excited about from all the talks that were scheduled for the creative futures week. Dan fox was a former student of Glyndwr University who studied film and photography there between 1999 and 2003. I have been shown show-reels and other films from Dan Fox within my first two years at Glyndwr and feel he is highly regarded by the faculty and other staff there. He studied the equivalent subject that I am studying and he now runs his own company called Chat Noir Productions, which made what he was going to say, be of great interest to me and my future career.


Dan Fox started with a video showing us the comparison between standard and high definition, and discussed how when he was studying everything was done on film, not digital, and how editing was very different and more time consuming back then. I got the feeling that Dan Fox preferred the more traditional form of film production including the use of 35mm film and felt strongly about visual integrity. We then started to discuss what people thought of the James Cameron film Avatar, a film known to be heavy in the special effects department. I feel that Dan Fox did not like the over use of special effects in the film and he thinks that technology is leading the way films are being made and that it ruined the overall appearance of the film. 
I have to disagree with this because in my opinion it is the special effects that make the film what it is. Without the new technology and techniques that are used in the making of the film it would of been impossible to make the film in the first place. I feel that digital effects do have a place in film and the only reason that they were not used in the past is because they did not exist. All industries have to progress or risk turning stale.

After the discussions about the over use of special effects and visual integrity I was excited to see a short film by Dan Fox. The film was an advert to promote a local council and was about one minute in length. I was surprised to see a lot of special effects being used in the short film. These included, motion tracking, the use of green screen, 3d models designed in Maya and camera tracked into the final piece with after effects software. 
At this point in the talk I started to feel slightly confused about the message that Dan Fox was trying to portray to his audience. He seemed to dislike the use of effects in film but the piece that I was currently watching, which was designed and produced by Dan Fox himself, used them in almost every shot that was shown.
I enjoyed the talk by Dan fox, it was a good insight into the industry and I feel that I gained some valuable information from it. The only criticism is that I left feeling a bit confused. It was almost like two different talks combined into one, the first half being against the use of digital effects and the second half being in favour if them.

Alison McLean

Life in the Afterworld as a freelance artist

Alison McLean is another ex student of Glyndwr University, who studied photography in her degree course. I was excited about the talk as she has set up her own photography company called The Photo Foundry and I have visited her web site on a number of occasions previous to her talk. I found her web site to be very professional looking and easy to use with a number of great images to view.
The main content of Alison's talk was to give the students a better understanding of how to gain business in the future after setting up on your own. These included getting a website, picking a name and promoting yourself.
Alison started off by talking about how to pick a good website name for your company. She raised many points which had never really occurred to me before, one being if someone has trouble spelling your name then they will not find your website. This has made me think about my own name, Paul Lowndes, which can be spelt in many different ways, so using my own name may result in less traffic and less business. Another interesting point was you can also increase traffic to your website by posting videos on them, which is good news as I am studying photography and film and intend to promote both on my future website.
Alison gave us many useful web addresses for finding a good website and name.

• Names.co.uk and 123-reg.co.uk. These are good for domain names.

• Thephotofoundry.co.uk. Alison's website.

• ghotit.com. A website for internet search keywords.

• carbonmade.com. An online portfolio.

• fotoblur.com. Online portfolio and competitions.

 

The next interesting subject to be discussed was the use of the classic business card. They now come in many designs and shapes and are far more interesting than they ever used to be. Alison showed to us something she uses called Moo cards, which are tiny booklets made up of your own work used to promote yourself in a slightly different way. The point of these is to stand out from the crowd and be noticed. One of the failures of some companies is that they blend into the background in an already over crowded marketplace. This goes to show that a bit of individuality goes a long way in the current climate and it is something I will definitely investigate in the future.

The main source of business though seems to be in the ever increasing market of social networking. Websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Flikr have seen an explosion of users over the last few years and contribute greatly to gained business for companies and can only increase.

Another good way to gain business is by word of mouth, if you have completed good work for a client then they may pass on your name and refer you to other companies. There seems to have been a running theme through this years Creative Futures week and that is good referrals and word of mouth are of very great importance in finding more work. 

The quotes from Alison that stuck with me the most are 'tell people you can do it' and 'under promise and over deliver'. I especially like the second quote because that is how I would like to be treated if I was a client.

 

Alison finished by giving us a list of companies she has worked with, these being

 

• redeye.org

• welshotimaging.co.uk

• Photonative

• Inside out art group

• Open eye gallery

• Blank media collective

• Ffresh

 

I enjoyed the talk by Alison and I picked up lots of important information regarding the pros and cons of starting your own business. I feel that this talk was the most beneficial to me of the entire week so far and has made me feel enthusiastic about the future.
 

 

 

 

Minimal Media

Show passion in your next step

The final talk I attended for the creative futures week was by a company called Minimal Media on the thursday afternoon. The company was made up of three graduate students from Glyndwr University that formed the company together after graduating. It was nice to see a group of people that are very passionate and excited about the work that they are now producing together.

The speakers discussed the benefits of a good show reel and a good portfolio, including lots of information about gaining work in the industry. One of the points that I found interesting is when they were talking about gaining work off the back of other work. They discussed how an unpaid job for the hospital industry led to a number of other paid jobs. This shows to me that you should take every opportunity that comes your way and not to be too picky about what you do. If they had turned the first job down on the basis of pay, then the later jobs would maybe not of materialised. One of the quotes from the older man was 'never say no', which is a quote that I will try to adopt. 

The speakers also discussed the benefits of the Glyndwr Job Shop and how voluntary work again led to paid work. I noted down a number of names from the job shop and intend to contact them in the future.

Later in the talk the speakers showed us one of their films that they have been working on, the first being called Resonance, a film they started on whilst in Glyndwr University. The film seemed very good and shot well. The speakers are apparently in talks with an American film company who wish to get involved in the film, and help with financing. A different film showed was an advert for another American company that was only finished the night before the talk. The advert was punchy, load and to the point, exactly what was asked for by the company. I enjoyed both films equally even though they were very different and am glad to see that some ex students from Glyndwr are having some success in the field that I am interested in.

The talk from Minimal Media on the thursday afternoon, in my opinion, was one of the best talks from the entire week. It showed me that if you keep at it, and are passionate about your work and company, then many things are possible. With interest in their projects from companies in America and elsewhere I'm sure they have a bright future together and I wish them all the best.

Conclusion to Creative Futures week

This being the second time I have attended Creative Futures week at Glyndwr University I feel they seem more important and beneficial to me every year. The talks by the experienced professionals gave me an insight into the industry I wish to gain access to and gave me hope of an interesting career. The benefits I feel I gained from the week were learning the best way to promote yourself and your work through the medium of social networking and referral work. I found the links and websites given to us by the talkers of great benefit and they show me that with the right help, guidance and self determination anything is possible.

I have taken on board all the information I gained from the week and look forward to applying that in the final year of my degree course. 

I look forward to next years instalment of Creative Futures week as I find them a source of valuable industry information that I would struggle to find if it was not for Glyndwr University.