Media Conference in London

On Nov the 4th, my A level media class, a one person from the As class, went up to London to Pete Fraser's, Media Conference. It was an excellent day and I learnt a lot, which I know will help me with the coursework I have to do this year, the exam which I have coming up at the end of the year and also it was amazing for just general knowledge and the riots which were going on.  These were a big topic for the day - of how young people were represented in the media, by different media texts. We can also apply these facts to our exam in the summer.

It was a good day where you could have your say, on what you feel about the media. We had really inspiring people giving the lectures. They made it fun so it didn't just seem like you were sat in a lecture theatre getting bored. They involved the audience and made it fun. Just being around people of my own age and who are also interested in the media, and to hear there views, gave me a boost and made me more enthusiastic to make my coursework. It really inspired me and gave me brand new ideas of what Shannon and I could do for our coursework.

In the morning were had presentations from, Christine Bell, Steph Hendry and Julian McDougall from the three exam boards. This is the presentation that Julian McDougall talked about. We also had keynote on Media Studies and the riots from David Buckingham.

During lunch we stayed to listen to some students who are currently studying media at different universities. It was good to hear the positives and negatives about studying media at universitites and how they are feeling about leaving (how they plan to get into a job in the media, as that will be the hardest part). All 3 of them did different courses, and they all had different things to say. It opened my eyes to studying media at uni because they all had such great opportunities with it and are confident about getting a job after. They all had a great time and the projects they described sounded something which would interest me. Hearing about university life really gave me a boost to achieve my grades and make such I get into uni (which is what I needed!)

At the beginning of the afternoon we had a presentation from Pete Fraser. This was all about coursework. It gave me new ideas of what I could produce and how to produce. The part about improvisation really helped and made me think for when I go out filming.

In the afternoon, we had Garth Jennings who gave us an entertaining and inspiring presentation all about his work, how he comes up with the ideas, when he started, how much fun he had in his job, but also the tough times which he goes through. This included some footage he shot when he was11. He was a good laugh and it was good to see some behind the scenes action.


 The final session was with Paul Lewis and Babita Sharma, who spoke to us about their jobs, what they do, how everything is run and how they got into the media. They gave us a question and answer time where, we could talk to them and ask them questions.