networking

1. Networking Experience
Sunderland University Media (TV and Radio) Workshops
David Puttnam Media Centre, Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peters
Sunderland University Media Department, with senior lecturers Richard Berry, Sue Perryman and
two student ambassadors.
Richard Berry is a senior lecturer that teaches radio production to his media students.
Sue Perryman is a senior lecturer that specialises in TV production.
The student ambassadors were named Chrissy and Chloe. Chrissy was a second-year media
production student at the university and Chloe was a third-year journalism student.
From this trip to Sunderland University, I learnt more about the media industry, specifically more
about TV and Radio production. For our radio work shop we had to work in teams, I was in a team
of four, Richard showed us all what to do and how to use the equipment to delete songs, add
songs, write a script and record commentaries for Spark FM. We all had to work together and help
each other however we were each assigned roles. The roles were producer, sound technician and
presenter, I was assigned presenter therefore I had a co-write a script with my producer, pick and
remove some songs and speak and record my commentary for the broadcast. Although it was pre-
recorded for me (as this was my first time recording for a radio) Spark is usually live. After we
were done recording, Richard showed us the main studio that they use for Spark which had
recently just been refurbished costing approx. £100,000 where he then showed us how the live
broadcasts work.

2. On the afternoon Sue showed us the TV studio and taught us certain terminology used in
recording live TV, all the different roles needed, hand signals that are usually used by the floor
manager and how to use the equipment. In one big group, Sue separated us into two smaller
groups so that one group remained in the recording studio and the other group weren’t so we
could switch later and make two separate recordings. At first I was in the recording studio where
we were recording our TV show, “The Sally Show” starring our lecturer Sally and her guest star
Hellen. For this there were four cameras and a floor manager, I was part of the camera crew. We
each had to wear a headset so that we could hear the director that was in the other room so that
they could instruct us of what shots we needed to prepare (e.g. two person mid shot or close-up
of Sally). I also learnt how to zoom in and out using these cameras as well as how to make them in
focus. The floor manager would help conduct the mic checks by instructing each presenter to
speak at a certain time and make sure that everyone else remained quiet while also telling us with
hand signals how much time we had left on air and when we were live.
After we finished our recording as camera crew we switched over with the other group, I chose to
be a sound technician for this side of the production where I had to help with the mic checks to
make sure that both our presenters could be heard clearly however weren’t too loud.