Our Executive Director, Claire Fennelow, talks about her visit to Bournemouth University where she addressed students on the media production course alongside EVCOM members working in the corporate film and events industries.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending EVCOM member, Bournemouth University’s ‘Festival of Media Production’. With me in support were other EVCOM members Studio Giggle (Jonathan Brigden), Hound Dog Films (Tim Juby) and Goose Live Events (Michelle Sweetman). We were invited to be part of the audience through the day when 2nd year students of the Media Production course delivered their presentations as the final stage of their Client and Audience module.
This module is an essential part of their three-year degree where they work on a project in teams replicating an agency, to a live brief supplied by a client. They then present the strategy, marketing plan, film and/or print and outcomes to the client in front of an audience of their peers, assessors, clients and industry professionals (us!).
After 14 presentations throughout the day, we were feeling a little punch drunk by the end but in our feedback to the students we expressed our admiration for their effort, the standard of work and the bravery required to present to a large audience in a lecture theatre. We stressed how important it is to have experiences like this when working in teams can often be fraught with tensions.
There followed a drinks reception for the official opening (much delayed by Covid) of the Poole Gateway Building (housing the sound stage, TV studio, kit room, post-production facilities, screening room etc) which is an absolutely amazing facility – and elicited much ooh-ing and ah-ing from Jonathan and Tim.
We then took part in a panel session ‘Media for Business and Beyond’ led by Matt Desmier, Founder of Silicon Beach and Co-Founder of Open Sauce, alongside two Bournemouth students Rae Langdown-Peace and Iyiade Adetoba. We spent an hour discussing the current and future expectations of the industry from both the agency and student perspective, skills required to succeed, how social media has impacted on the communications function and finally the big one – AI.
It was a hugely stimulating (if exhausting) day and an absolute pleasure to meet and chat with students. They were a thoroughly engaging lot and will be launching themselves into the industry in the next few years. I hope you’re ready…
by Claire Fennelow