I used to think TV was real. Oh, how ignorant I was. Soon enough watching all those backbiting boardroom arguments in The Apprentice, to the misery of Luton Town losing out to Liverpool in the FA cup did start to bug me about the reality of TV. You could say I finally saw the light.
My fellow Journalism students and I at the University of Bedfordshire, had a one days work experience, shadowing the film crew in BBC's morning programme, Celebrity Cash in the Attic – a typical reality TV show. It was one of our Journalism lecturers, Kate Ironside, who gave us the opportunity of going behind the scenes and seeing how everything works in the ‘lovely’ world of television. It was Kates half-sister, Virginia Ironside who was both an author, agony aunt, and the 'celebrity' in the programme. Kate was the 'helpful friend', assisting to raid her sister’s attic for anything worth a bit of dosh.
The day we were to film, was when the bidding of the items would take place. We arrived at Chiswick Auctions in London and found ourselves hanging about for the first half hour until the film crew slowly started to warm things up. Whilst we were hanging about though we saw some famous faces there, such as Angela Rippon, the first ever woman newsreader in Britain and the presenter of the show, along with David Emanuel, the designer who created Princess Diana's wedding dress, and Maggie Philbin, a TV presenter who might you have seen in the programme, Tomorrows World. All of them were chatty and friendly, especially Maggie Philbin, who gave us some tips to get going in the media industry. She was telling us how to always take whatever chance you get and never miss an opportunity. I guess that’s how all the big players get their jobs eh?
Surprisingly, Leopard Productions, the production team behind Cash in the Attic were actually shooting four programmes on the same day, so you can imagine how hectic it was. Apart from all the urgency, Kate believes the experience was well worth while and said: "There’s an awful lot of waiting around then sudden bursts of frantic activity. It was great for the students to see the crew in action and the amount of time it takes to film a short sequence, not to mention the importance of the presenters appearing fresh and spontaneous, even if its the third or fourth take." When it was time for Kate and Virginia to speak to the presenter Angela Rippon, me and the other students just couldn’t help laughing our socks off with the amount of dramatisation and bogus reactions we were hearing. Everything was rigged! From the reactions of the presenters to their laughter!This was the real world of television. Every opportunity needs to be made to make the final edit up to scratch.
This experience showed me that this 'lovely world' of television isn't so glamorous as one would think. It’s actually a lot bloody hard work! One shot is redone about 5-6 times, so I didn't really envy my lecturer for being on TV, I was actually put off.
But at the end of the day, anyone whose face hasn’t yet been on TV, have this urge right at the back of their minds of being in front of the camera. And unfortunately that’s what happened with us. Whenever the film crew would start shooting we’d wish the camera would point at us ( I know, it’s sad) and some of us even thought about making bogus bid’s for any of the items on sale, just so the camera might point at us.
The whole experience was an eye opener and quite frankly something which needs to be done more often in universities. Kate stresses that there is no substitute for seeing the industry in action: “The aim is to get students jobs and it’s vital that they see it as it is."
I've recently joined this voluntary group known as 'One Nation'. It aims to help the community by getting youths off the streets via the use of sports and leisure activities.
