Monday 6 March 2017

Week 18: Adulting at BBC Three!

If I were at uni this week, I would have had Enrichment Week, which is basically a bunch of workshops on lectures to help us with employment and other key skills and I'd have had to go to a meeting about my options for third year. Basically a week off.

But I wasn't there for Enrichment Week. This week was my first of two weeks at BBC Three for a work experience placement - I was commuting into London every day from Southampton (I now spend minimum four hours a day on trains and it hurts my heart, mind, body and soul).

Because I have to make a work experience log for university, I've been writing a summary of what I've been doing every day which makes this blog post really easy to write (even if it is a couple of days late, sorry about that - the weekend was spent doing a shift at work and trying to catch up on sleep!).

This post is probably going to be very long but it's really useful for my work experience log and if you're interested in what I've been doing at the BBC, you'll get a detailed description!

Monday was terrifying - I had to wake up at 7 to be ready to leave at 8 and get a train at 8.30 that was delayed, so everything was a bit daunting on day one. Of course I was scared - it's the BBC, they're one of the biggest broadcasting companies in the UK and I might get something wrong and rule myself out of the industry forever!

But I made it onto the train and after taking a very long winded way round, I found the building that's tucked away in a little corner. And as soon as I arrived I was thrown in headfirst - I was meeting people and being told names and departments within BBC Three and it was all very intimidating but only in concept, everyone was absolutely lovely and asked me what I did and what my favourite parts of my course were and took a genuine interest in making the most of my work experience.

What surprised me most was how much of what I do in the news room was relevant in this office too - they were talking about vox pops and editorial teams and SEOs and copy and everything else.

I was set up with a computer and emailed a bunch of information to read up on and that's what we did until lunch (if I start referring to 'we', it's because there's another girl doing Work Experience the same weeks as me so we've been doing most things together). After lunch, we went to an editorial meeting where they pitched a bunch of ideas and it was brilliant - I love meetings like that (don't know why, I just like discussing content ideas with a team) and I felt so involved even though I'd only been there for a few hours and had nothing to contribute.

Later that afternoon I made myself a list of three things I wanted to achieve by the end of my two week placement and then I worked on research for the BBC Three show Amazing Humans (it's amazing, genuinely - I thoroughly recommend it) within different themes so I spent a lot of the afternoon Googling.

Then it was time to get back on the underground and head home - on Day 1 I wasn't so familiar with my route so I missed the train that would have got me home about an hour earlier and didn't get home until 9pm. It was a long ass day.

Tuesday was my first proper day commuting - getting up at 6am to leave at 7am for the train station and a 7.30am train and the only thing I've got in my notes to reflect this are the words 'early mornings might break me' and that just made me giggle a little bit.

The earlier start meant I was there early enough to attend the 10am Daily Drop meetings which made me realise three things: 1) The news room on news days at uni are really reflective of the industry, 2) the stats of BBC Three are insane like oh my actual goodness wow and 3) I want to work in this industry somehow, taking part in and leading these meetings. Yes please.

I then went on to continue my Amazing Humans research from the day before, whilst also doing some research into festivals and conventions for one writer, Nick, and mapping out film, TV show and music release dates over the next six months for another writer, Cat.

The last thing I was told about on Tuesday was how to write up a Rights Report - I was sent the template and given an episode of something that hasn't aired yet (very exciting) and I decided I would leave this till Wednesday because I didn't want to have to start and leave it half-finished.

I sent off my research to all the relevant people and deliberately left a little bit earlier so I could make it to the train that got me home so much earlier, starting to learn the underground route off by heart.

Wednesday was a much more productive and driven day and I could focus really well (despite how tired I was). The day started with the Daily Drop meeting and my notes say 'again, so cool to be in the environment'. Yes I am a massive dork but it's also true.

I started the day with the Rights Report like I said I would, I had a chat to the assistant producer of Amazing Humans to do more research for them - the feedback I got back from my other ideas was really positive so I was glad to have more themes to be looking into.

After the first Rights Report, I was given two more episodes to write the Reports for and it was a chilled but productive afternoon watching two more episodes of the show I was writing the report for. At this point I made a list of other teams I want to work with in the next week and a half but I'm not sure how well this is going to go.

Thursday is the day I have the least notes for but probably the day I did the most - again, started with the Daily Drop meeting, but then went back to do Amazing Humans research before Cat asked me if I was busy. I said no. She asked me to transcribe an interview and I'm like yeah sure - their articles have as many quotes in as the stories we write as uni and we do five minutes interviews, it will be fine. It was not fine. The interview was 42 minutes long and about a topic that isn't exactly soft and fuzzy. So the day dragged but I finished it, six hours later, and the response I was greeted with was 'wow, that was fast' which I wasn't expecting at all.

And all of a sudden it was Friday and week 1 was coming to a close - I was really starting to feel the early mornings and not having a grip on what time I fall asleep at night but the Daily Drop meeting was a bit longer this morning so I had a little bit longer to wake up. It was interesting seeing them plan ahead for the weekend and decide what content was going up when no one would be there over the weekend. 

Then it was back to working - I checked over the transcript for Cat which sounds like a quick job until I remind you that it was a 42 minute interview about a heavy topic. I had to have some breaks in the middle so it was nearly lunch time by the time I'd send it all over.

That afternoon I went back to doing a variety of research for a variety of people with a little break to treat myself to lunch in the canteen but, I'll be honest, it was not worth £5.51. I've had much better fish and chips for less but it was hot food so I'm not going to complain too much.

The rest of the afternoon was a bit slower - I was really starting to flag after a week of commuting into London and it has been an emotionally taxing week too; work experience at BBC Three is a big deal!

But the one fun thing I did do on Friday afternoon was talk to some of the guys that actually go out filming stuff, and I learnt all about filming with a C300 which is a bit like some of the cameras we use at uni. I've used a C100 about ('used') but it was really fun, hopefully I'll be going on a shoot in my second week but I'm very, very excited to see more of the production side of things because it's not something I've ever really been involved with before.

And that was the week over! I got the train home and we made dinner and went to bed and I was absolutely exhausted.

Somehow I managed to wake up naturally at 9 the following day which made getting into work for 12.45 much, much easier! I then worked a five hour shift and had a nice easy night in and Sunday was a proper lazy day with a proper lie in.

Week 2 has got off to a pretty good start but I'll feedback on that hopefully at the weekend, but I'm trying not to bully myself about getting content up by a certain time on a certain day so sometime at the weekend or early next week.

Thank you for reading!




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