Amy Connell spent the first week of her school holidays at ht HQ, we asked her to write about her experience with us.

My week at the HT Media Production office has been very productive and interesting. I chose to do work experience here because I enjoy photography and making short videos of my own, as well as having an insight into the type of job I want to do in the future.

Media production is a way of communicating messages effectively, economically and creatively using a wide variety of ways such as storyboarding, scripting, stills photography, video and film, shooting, editing, graphics and effects, encoding/transcoding, animating, authoring and music.

On the first day I was given the task of ‘cropping out’ sections of wanted shots from a video previously filmed which needed editing (subclipping). Doing practical work on the technical side of creating media work was difficult but an important necessity to learn all the same.  I needed to watch through the filmed clips and separate wanted shots from un-wanted shots, (such as focus or zoom changes). I did this by pressing the ‘in’ icon on the keyboard at the start of a wanted shot and at the end of the wanted shot, pressing the ‘out’ icon and dragging the selected clip into what’s called a ‘bin’ to be used in editing.

I’ve enjoyed learning new skills from filming to editing media with the help of the team. I particularly enjoyed filming, using the HDV camera. First of all I was taught about its functions and features and then dove into practical work shooting a short interview for a client. An example of what I have learned would be the composition and positioning when filming, essential to achieving professional results. I split the screen into thirds (this method is called the rule of thirds) and levelled the eyes in the first third while leaving little space as possible between the top of the head and the border of the screen. This allows the viewer a comfortable experience when watching the video because the interviewee or actors face is positioned where the viewer’s eyes are naturally drawn to.

Working at HT Media Production has taught me a valuable characteristic and quality needed when working which is organization. No work force could run successfully without keeping orderliness and tidiness. At HT, all previously made videos are stored in separate boxes and labelled clearly, kept to one side. The same when clips are stored on a desktop while being edited. One of the useful methods I learned was using timecode for shots to make the editing process a lot faster and easier. Timecode allows videos to be referred to easily because it simply involves numerically referencing parts of the footage rather than searching for shots again visually. Being organised means being more successful, more productive at work, more efficient and allows work to be done easily, fast and well!

Doing work experience has also given me confidence when working independently. Being the holidays, I still remained punctual and dedicated to arriving at work, working hard, meeting new people and learning new skills. Working at HT Media Production was fun and I felt comfortable and relaxed around the workforce.

While working at HT I understood the company’s main goals which are also important in many other jobs:

• keeping to deadlines and budgets
• producing work that satisfies the client
• to work as a team with the client

The importance of taking part in work experience is that I can develop what I have practically learned in a work space environment and use it if I were to begin a job, (such as photography or in the creative media industry) in the future. Also current employers’ are looking for people with experience and knowledge of a working life, which I can now say I have successfully achieved. Overall my week at HT Media has involved working within a team-based culture. This involved planning, organisation, co-operation and commitment. I have learned new skills about the media industry and most importantly enjoyed it. With thanks to everyone at HT Media Productions who helped me.

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