Notes from a trip to meet lecturers at the University of Gloucester and Stratford-upon-Avon College
Both lecturers are ex-BBC technical people – Jeremy Powers at Gloucester an ex-VT editor, and Phil Middleham at Stratford ex-sound supervisor on. Both expressed frustration at the requirements of the educational establishment, who don’t seem to cater for real life in the media. For instance – at Stratford a BTEC syllabus module (UoG don’t do these) included a “creative media investigation”. Reading the brief to lecturers, I must admit that I didn’t understand what most of it meant, but what looked very likely to me was that it was a boiler plate exercise – the words “creative media investigation” appeared to be just a find and replace. Any words could have been substituted – “cow milking” , “Rembrandt studies” – and probably have been.
Both lecturers expressed very strong support for the ITTP Approved Skills Scheme and offered sensible comments and adjustments to the current v0.4 list. They feel that an industry supplied list is just what they need to teach the correct skills, rather than ideas supplied by exam boards and the like.
Both organisations use the same cameras – JVC with racks. Both use basic sound mixers. easily operated by students. Gloucester has 3 Autocue heads, Stratford has 1. Neither has particularly good lighting. Gloucester has 16 edit suites – rooms with Avid, and many more PPro iMacs – Stratford has 40 cubicles with FCPX.
The actual studio facilities are visible in the pictures I took at the two locations. The ones before the red bar are University of Gloucester and the ones after are Stratford-upon-Avon College
Click for large.
