BBC Work - Flog It!

Today was quite an experience. I done a days work as a steward for the daytime BBC programme Flog it! And yes i got paid for it which is quite nice. Normally these kind of things don't happen. I got the chance to help the production team which broaden my experience in TV production, as well as doings lots of Steward jobs, such as being all nice and smiley, greeting people, ushering people to the right places etc.etc.

The shooting was to take place in Whipsnade Zoo near Dunstable, not far from where i live so it was ok. The day was quite sunny and warm - a perfect day to go the zoo, so i was expecting many people to come and get their antiques shown and evaluated. I arrived there early in the morning by taxi (since i don't have a car yet...) and was anxiously looking for the place to meet up with the film crew. My contact was Hannah Ford, who was a runner for the program. She was the person responsible for taking care of the stewards. Surprisingly most of the students who applied for this steward placement were from the University of Bedfordshire, which was quite surprising. I would have thought every media student's eye would have lit up when seeing something like this, or was it just our University of Bedfordshire students that knew about it? Well what ever it was, it was good for me!

Hannah gathered all the students around as the film crew were setting up their their equipment and gave us a briefing. We had to were the Flog it! t-shirts to let people recognise us as 'part of the team' as well advertising for the programme. We were told if we appeared in front of the camera, it wouldn't matter since we have the Flog-it! t-shirts on. Either way, I didn't mind, since my Celebrity Cash in the Attic Experience only had me in view from a mirrors refection! so being in front of the camera this time would be nice!

But who am i kidding, i never came here to be in front of the camera, i came here for experience! Afterwards we were all assignmed different task to do, some were to greet people outside and give them directions for the valuation place( where the antiques get an estimated price), and others had to usher people to their seats, take surveys from people, make tea and coffee for the film crew and presenters as well as help lift items to the main building.

The roles were always rotated after an hour or so by Hannah, who seemed alittle under pressure as the day went by. I guess this is wht the pressure of TV production can, since one small mistake can ruin everything, so as the runner (as the name suggest) she had to make sure we (the stewards) are all ok as well as make sure everything is running smoothly.

Some famous faces we met were Paul Martin, who wa sthe main presenter of the show. Evryone of his scenes were rehearsed and constructed, which wasnt no suprise to me since i had seen this before in my experience in Celebrity Cash in the Attic. He seemed like a cheerful guy, but also seemed nakered, mabe becasue it was a very hot and sunny day. At on point i thought i was going to get sun burn since i was positioned at one spot just outside the entrance ushering people to the building and just being smiley. The sun rays were like laser beams hitting by body making my sweat come down like rain. Maybe thats a bit too detailed but thats how hot it was.

When it was my turn making the tea for the film crew, i spoke to some of them and nearly all of them said they were freelancers, just working on contracts. So nothing seemed like it was permemant and they just got by when wrok was available. This made me abit worried. How will i fare out if theses guys are just about making there money here there thorugh contracts.

Hopefully though i will build my portfolio and skills to the highest possible leel i can take it, during my stay in University and then going for job interview shouldnt be that hard...should it?
All in all this experience did show me the tough side of working in TV. But hey, atleast i can say i've worked for the BBC and got payed for it!

The dust settles...assignments are OVER!

Thank the lord, I'm finally free...free from the burden of assignments deadlines. Well i actually i was free about a week ago but today was my last exam . It was a multiple choice based exam so it wasn't that bad - about media law and politics. Quite a combination eh? Well as a journalist I'm supposed to know my boundaries, as in what i can and cannot report. So it this whole media law module was very insightful.

As for my other assignments, well lets have the grades do the talking shall we? The magazine assignment and the documentary assignment were both group work and i think we managed to pull it off quite well, with MY persistence of course. I don't want to blabber on to much about this though just in case i jinx myself and my grades end up worse. I don't really believe in the jinx stuff of course but just in case...

Last week, the University of Bedfordshire had its student union media awards. And guess what? yup you've guessed it, i won an award! YAAAAAAY! I know you may be thinking: "What a...weirdo", but this actually meant quite a bit to me. It was held in the student union bar, so at first i was a bit reluctant to go but i knew i may have been up for an award so i went anyway. Obviously for me it was weird since, i've never really been in a 'bar', especially where people are gulping down alcohol. Luckily my journalism lecturer was there and she kept me company for most of the part. While i drank my J20 orange drink, (which i was cautious of for any spiking) and my lecturer was drinking a glass of champagne, we talked about my future and what i could do as a special project for my third year.

And then came the awards part. I was quite anxious at first since so many people were getting awards yet i wasn't getting anything. Then right near the end i heard my name: "2009 News Writer of the Year...Imran Choudhury!" My patience had paid off. I went onto the podium, hoping i wouldn't do a disastrous trip up the steps and grabbed my award. Fantastic. My grin was bigger than any clown I've seen.

Sunshine and Assignment deadlines...

The sun rays warm my skin at 20 degrees. Why is it all of a sudden sunny and bright now? I'm just so tempted now to go out and play footy with my mates. But this month of May is the busiest month for every University student in the UK. Its like i'm free for 2-3 months then suddenly KAPOW!! Assignments galore!

I've got a 10 minute documentary to shoot edit and write about, a 2000 word feature article and a 20 page magazine to produce which includes an extensive plan. OK its just three assignment but 2 of these are BIG. Also when your working in groups its just hard to rely on other people. I HATE relying on other people. There you go i said it. If there's one thing I've learnt in my university experience so far, its that you should never rely on someone to get something done. You have to go out and do it yourself!

But i guess working with people who you don't really like working with (not that i don't like working with my group :D ) does bring out the best in you. I've noticed this myself. I'm a lot more patient and persevering than i was last year, where i would try an get everything done myself. Trust is a key thing in teamwork and if that's not there the whole team will break apart, so i'm beginning to trust people more now.

One Nation

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.

My dads friend, Swab Ali, is the chair of the organization and asked me to be apart of One Nation, as its General Secretary/Press Officer. He saw my links with the local paper and probably thought: "i could use this guy". Anyway who am i kidding? The only reason i joined was just so i can get some experience in the voluntary sector. Apparently employers like this sort of thing.

The One Nation football team won the Barry Boltons Sunday league and so the chair thought this would be a good way of promoting One Nation as a football team aswell as One Nation, the Youth and Community organization. So they asked me to write a story for the local paper. Its also on the papers website which can be seen following this link: http://www.lutontoday.co.uk/lut/Nation-on-the-rise.5170942.jp

As the general secretary i was also assigned to create posters for One Nations and also modify its logo (at the top of this post) to make it look abit more modern. I used photoshop - obviously.

The Reality of TV

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."

Trip to Westminster

Today i went with some other journalism students on a trip to Westminster parliament. The buildings there are some of the most best looking buildings in London. What i liked about it was the history that took place here and how its all still vividly intimidating via the use of paintings, statues and architecture.

We also met an Mp called Nadine Dorris, who we all had a chat with. She's a conservative Mp for mid Beds and was very friendly and welcoming. She had a lot to say regarding the anti-war protests, so thats what i focused on when i asked her my questions. She seems to blame the police in the way they handled the situation saying they should have acted on a public order act because of the 'offensive' words they had on their placards. But she then also goes onto say they have a right to protect the human rights act of freedom of speech. Isn't she just contradicting herself?

Anyway after the interview the chair of the universities, skills and innovation select committee, Phil Willis, popped up into the room without saying hello or anything. We were also meant to interview him after Nadine but it seemed he came a little early. So Nadine thought she should head off, until our lecturer Kate decided we should take a photo alongside Nadine just so one of the journalism students could do a press release for the local press alongside the photo.

Most of my journalism class is here with Nadine in the middle wearing the red dress.

As we finished taking the pictures, Willis decided to walk out the room saying: "I've got better things to do than hanging around here". Everyone in the room was gobsmacked he actually done that with our lecturer Kate just being lost for words. After he walked out Nadine was telling us about how he is one of the rudest men in parliament who "hates" students. Willis being a Lib Dem member gave Nadine the perfect opportunity to barrage the Lib Dems of how they are the: "nastiest political party in parliament."

And he looks like such a nice guy in this photo. Well they do say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

I'm not really sure if the guy is really that bad but still, that was not a great first impression. i mean he walked out on students, the students who he needs to talk to in order to make decision in his bloody select committee. I'm just now wondering why he is the chair of such a committee, especially the one that deals with universities and tuition fees, as he had the audacity and nerve to walk out on students like that. Doesn't he think actual student views and opinions are important?

Luton anti-war protest

The media recently has been flooding in with news about the anti-war protest which was demonstrated by a group of Muslims in Luton last Tuesday. I'm actually really appalled at the amount of news coverage this incident has received.

This so called 'Muslim' group are also known as the infamous Al-Muhajiroun, who are actually banned from the UK. Before the day of the protest you could see Muslims brothers who are part of this group giving out leaflets outside mosque, encouraging them to take part in the march.

They used a certain hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad) to justify their actions:

"He among you who sees a "munkar" ( something not good ) should change it with his hand ( activism, organization, movement ). If he can not do that, then with his tongue ( by speaking out against it ). If he can not do that, then within his heart ( by always disliking what is evil or harmful ) and that ( the last option ) is the weakest ( or lowest ) of faith". - (Bukhari)

They apparently spoke out against the Royal Anglican Regiment who were marching down Luton town centre to be acknowledged for their achievements in the war. Most in Britain are damn right against the war, calling it 'illegal' so i can understand why these Muslims protested. Freedom of Speech is what protected these people from getting attacked and abused from onlookers as the police blocked any attacks coming through.


I think its fair that these people have the right to protest but the way they went about protesting was in my opinion quite bad. They just seemed very angry, making Islam seem very intimidating, provocative and hateful. This is not Islam at all. They take away all the love and mercy which the prophet Muhammad had always acted upon. During the lifetime of the prophet and his companions, people from different countries converted to Islam through character, mercy and love that they saw in the Muslims.

My question is, where is the prophetic character inside of these so called 'Muslims'. They don the Islamic dress and beard but inside they're very different. Not once do they think about how the prophet Muhammad would have reacted. He would have used his wisdom in a situation like this always looking for a way where no confrontation would ever happen. Hatred was never an option in the prophets life. In disputes he would always opt for a way where people can get along with each other. I'm also dead against this "war on Iraq" which resulted in nothing but more trouble and turmoil inside the country. The only thing i'm against here is the way these Muslims protested.
They quote the above hadith without even understanding the real meaning of the prophet's saying. Before stopping any evil, one must anaylse the situation using wisdom, and seeing if it is actually plausible to do without any detrimental consequences. These protesters just created more problems for the rest of the Muslim community in Luton to deal with.