University of Birmingham MA History, Film and Television

November update

hftv2010 — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:55:05 +0000

The start of the new year is already well underway here at HFTV. We have a small but perfectly formed group of students keen to expand on their film knowledge and get their foot in the door of the TV industry (obviously we’ll be providing fantastic placement opportunities for them!).

As well as degrees in Film, TV and Media, some of our post grads also have spent time studying history and politics so we really do encourage students from a wide range of disciplines.

During the first term here we have already welcomed several guest lecturers to deliver seminars on their industry specialism. These include Lucy Vernall from Ideas Lab with her talk on ‘Developing Factual Television’, independent film maker Nerina Villa speaking about her experiences in the industry, Executive producer Roger Shannon from Swish (who has recently been involved with RTS nominated Made in Birmingham – Reggae Punk Bhangra) and Claire Ingham from Red Room Films presenting ‘Developing Drama Ideas’.

Before Christmas we are also happy to announce that Dan Lawson from Screen West Midlands (and also alumni of the course) will be popping in with his talk on ’Exploring Screen Opportunities in the West Midlands’, Nick Lockey from Maverick Television will be covering ‘An Introduction to Multi Platform’ and finally Bob Foster from 1st Option Health and Safety will be covering those all too important areas of ‘Managing Risks for Productions’.

Goodness me, we’ll definitely need a long break over the holiday to digest all of that!

HFTV 2009/ 2010 update

hftv2010 — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:36:19 +0000

As we are nearing then end of 2009/2010, here’s a summary on what we’re been up to over the past 12 months:

Semester one saw our new intake of HFTVers, keen to get stuck into their studies.

Semester two is where the real hard work starts with industry placements:

David Sandford spent some time at Monkey Kingdom before moving on to complete his placement at Wall to Wall. Here he was involved with the research of ‘Who do You Think You Are?’ and ‘Find my Family’.

Edward Szekely worked on the Politics Show at Blakeway North as a researcher. He also worked as sound operator on one of the shows (see ‘Listen Carefully…’ for more details). You can also see the video he shot for the National Youth Theatre’s viral marketing campaign for their production of ‘Techno Stories South London-S’Warm’. This Digis’warm project starts on the 18^th August and lasts for 5 days around London’s major landmarks. Edward is now part of the editing team for this piece. As well as this he has also spent some time in development at Wall to Wall working on Battle for Marjah (a co production with HBO) and The House (a co production with MSNBC).

Jessica Waugh spent her placement at Maverick Television, predominantly researching Embarrassing Bodies for the team. In April Maverick won a BAFTA for ‘Interactive Creation Contribution’ which we’re pretty sure means that Jess (and the other three HFTVers that were placed there) can claim a bit of the award as their own. She also worked on Embarrassing Bodies Live as a moderator and wrote content for Embarrassing Bodies Kids and 4Beauty.

Miriam Marti was able to experience a wide range of skills at Endboard Productions. These included extensive research, developing ideas for proposals and how to pitch ideas to commissioners.

Peter Twibill’s 12 week placement at North One Television enabled him to spend his time researching and developing ideas for the Gadget Show.

Tiansi Zhan is the first to spend some time with one of our new placement partners, Media Art Ltd. As well as honing her research skills here, she was also involved with developing online marketing strategies for their latest project.

Aaron Wright was also at Maverick Television for 3 months. Here he worked as a researcher for Embarrassing Bodies and moderator on Embarrassing Bodies Live. He was also a runner on several pilots and shoots for Maverick.

Faye Cunliffe spent her placement at Endboard and worked alongside Miriam, developing her research skills and learning how to pitch ideas.

Holly Brain’s placement at Maverick Television with Jess allowed her to get involved with Embarrassing Bodies as a researcher and work on other shoots as a runner. She also acted as moderator on Embarrassing Bodies Live, wrote content for 4Beauty and Embarrassing Bodies Kids.

Kieran Smith spent his 12 week placement at Kindle Entertainment working on a wide variety of projects. One of these included assisting with the organisation of the live promotional event of Big and Small at Longleat Safari Park.

Paige Kimble also worked as a junior researcher for Maverick Television on Embarrassing Bodies and as a moderator on Embarrassing Bodies Live.

Ben Shave was involved with Digging for Britain as a junior researcher for 360 Production.

Olivia Gavin is currently working part time for Film Birmingham and will be starting her placement early in the new year.

Mandy Argus has spent her 3 month placement with Blue Hippo Media.

Eleni Panou’s placement saw her working at Coventry based Central Vision.

Shan Shan has been working alongside one of our esteemed colleagues here at the University, Professor Scott Lucas.

Navid Khayati-Daryan is currently working at the Media Centre and will be finishing his placement soon.

Amy Bennett-Newens also spent her 12 week placement at 360 Production where she acted as researcher and runner on Digging for Britain.

BAFTA win!

hftv2010 — Mon, 24 May 2010 09:19:48 +0000

We are delighted to announce that Maverick Television won the BAFTA for Interactive Creative Contribution last night for Embarrassing Bodies/Embarrassing Bodies Live. As you may already be aware this is a show that our placement students Aaron Wright, Paige Kimble, Jessica Waugh and Holly Brain have been involved in, quite an exciting addition to their CV’s!

Listen carefully…

hftv2010 — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:54:42 +0000

Once again Edward Szekely has supplied us with some of his fantastic work experience progress with this clip from The Politics Show. Here we see an interview with retiring Sherwood MP Paddy Tipping that Ed was sound operator on. Shhhhhhhh…

BAFTA nominations

hftv2010 — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:20:32 +0000

Very exciting news! Maverick Television, top Birmingham based TV and media company has been nominated for a BAFTA Television Craft Award. As one of our placement companies we are thrilled to hear that ‘Embarrassing Bodies Live’ is up for the ’Interactive creation contribution’ category. Brilliant news for Maverick yes but EVEN MORE EXCITING when you consider that Paige Kimble, Aaron Wright, Holly Brain and Jessica Waugh (current HFTVers) have all been on placement there and have worked on that show. I’m pretty sure that if they win they get a bit of a BAFTA before the end of the course! Well done guys, we’re really thrilled for you!

Click here to follow the link to press release and full nominations.

Full nominees for this category are:

INTERACTIVE CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION

The Apprentice: Predictor (talkbackTHAMES digital/Monterosa/BBC)

Embarrassing Bodies/Embarrassing Bodies Live (Maverick TV/ Channel 4)

Science Of Scams (Channel 4/Objective Productions/Illumina Digital)

Who Killed Summer? (Bigballs Films/MWorks/Hideous Productions)

Election time

hftv2010 — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:00:39 +0000

Here’s the link to Edward Szekely’s current placement at Blakeway North where he is working on The Politics Show. You may have to watch it on BBC iplayer if it’s no longer available on the web. Skip to 37.06 to see a report on Loughborough that he was involved with, and a fleeting appearance at 39.45-6 of Edward himself:

Professional development

hftv2010 — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:02:30 +0000

Here is our very first video to HFTV, may it be the first of many!

Post grad Edward Szekely who is currently earning his stripes at Blakeway North shot this video for the National Youth Theatre.

‘Techno Stories South London- S’Warm’ is a showcase for viral marketing ideas promoting this forthcoming NYT production about the link between climate change and bee populations.

Calling all HFTVers!

hftv2010 — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:50:29 +0000

Hello all, as you may already know we’re desperately trying to catch up with the 21st century here at HFTV and we reckon the only way to start doing that properly is with a blog.

You may have already been inundated with Facebook requests to join us but as we all know, it’s all to easy to get distracted poking people and uploading drunken photos of what you got up to last weekend.

We want to use this blog as a means to keep you updated with events and networking opportunities that could really benefit your career as well as putting you in touch with some interesting people. We also want you to show off the stuff you have learned and things you have produced while here on the course. This could be through podcasts, interviews, photographs from placements or anything that’s relative to HFTV.

It also gives undergraduates a chance to see what the course is really like from a student’s perspective (so keep it clean!)

As you can see the site is pretty boring at the moment so if you have any visuals or comments please get in touch, otherwise I’ll have to make things up.

Cheers!