Ups and Downs in a Media Company
When I started thinking about placement options back in spring 2021, my initial thought was to do my placement in a theatre company. As a Film and Theatre Making student, I wanted to focus more on the drama side of my degree. It turned out to be harder than I thought. Summer was the time to secure the placement, but as an international student I had already made plans to spend the summer back home and work there. I was trying to look for placements online, but nothing was really working for me, and I was starting to get worried. Maybe I should just do another module and forget about the placement?
It wasn’t until the very end of August that my eyes caught an email providing everyone with details for a placement opportunity in a media company called ProfileTree. I was immediately interested in the position of video creator, as filming and editing are the parts I’m most interested in the film side of my degree. I emailed ProfileTree, and by the end of the day, I had secured a placement with them. I was excited to get started, but couple of things turned out to be a bit different than I originally thought.
I will use Borton’s Model of reflection to analyse my first few months in the placement to understand it a little better. Borton’s model “is based on the need of practitioners to operate in the real world of practice – the need to identify, make sense of and respond to real-life situations.”1 I chose it as my model of reflection, because it’ll help me get to the bottom of the obstacles preventing me from doing my best work and getting as much out of my placement as possible.
What?
I originally thought that I would be working as part of a bigger videography team, and I’d get to learn from people who do the job for their living. It turned out the whole placement would be completely remote and instead of working as a part of a team, I would be working on my own. I was surprised to say the least, because that meant that I wouldn’t have a specific set of hours or days a week I would be working on the placement, it was all entirely up to me. This caused me a lot of stress, because I was already trying to balance university work, a part-time job and working as a president of a student society. I found it really hard to put aside hours from my week to solely focus on the placement, instead I felt like there was constantly something else I needed to be working on.
Another aspect that took me by surprise was that I got completely free hands to do whatever I wanted. I wasn’t provided with scripts or specific places or ideas to work with. The only thing I was told was that the company wanted me to create tourism videos for their own travel website and YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/ConnollyCove). All of this left me very lost at the beginning of the placement. I had initial ideas for videos, but found myself struggling with how to get started with the production. I have my own camera equipment, but after I did couple of test shoots, I wasn’t sure I was happy with the quality of the material, or if my placement provider would be content with it.
So What?
All of these problems were causing me major stress, and worry that my placement providers weren’t happy with the work I was doing. So, what should have I done differently to avoid all the unnecessary stress the situation caused me? Two of the biggest aspects were definitely fear of failure and lack of communication. I was too afraid to ask questions about what kind of content they were looking for, and what would be beneficial for their company. I was also afraid to send first drafts of videos, because I thought they would shoot down my ideas and make me redo them. Now looking back, this fear was incredibly irrational, as the people I have been in contact with at ProfileTree, have been nothing but helpful and very supportive. I realize I was causing stress for myself by not asking questions I really needed to ask, and not asking for help when I needed it. In my head asking too many questions would look bad, and I thought that the perfect employee is someone who knows exactly what to do without asking, which just isn’t true. I was too focused on trying to make a good impression that I forgot to focus on what was important: learning. After all, “most work based learning is opportunistic and unplanned. People learn from things as they happen.”3 I believe placement is exactly the place to make these kind of mistakes. It’s the place to learn what is the best way of working for each individual and learn from your own mistakes, and “that the learning process needs to give the learner a chance to explore their own strengths and weaknesses”4. No one is perfect at what they do in their first try, and especially without any guidance, it was foolish of me to think otherwise and put so much pressure on myself.
“Essentially, reflective practice means taking our experiences as a starting point for learning. By thinking about them in a purposeful way, we come to understand our experiences differently and take action as a result”
Melanie Jasper, “Beginning Reflective Practice”5
Now What?
Now what do I need to do so this doesn’t happen again? Ask as many questions as I need, and send out as many drafts I can, to make sure my work is exactly what they are asking for and what will be beneficial for the company and their clients, but also to make sure I have all the information I require so I am happy with what I’m currently working with. I’ve also made a content plan for myself to stay on track of all the videos I’m planning to create as well as a weekly plan. This will help me to stay on top of my hours and make sure I know what I’m supposed to be working with and when. This placement has definitely taught me the importance of good time management skills. I kept putting my placement aside and focusing on other things I thought were more important only because it wasn’t urgent and I could do it whenever suited me the best. I’ve now set aside hours from my weeks specifically for working on filming and editing my content. I definitely have a lot to learn on time management side of things, but at least I’m taking steps to the right direction!
I was slightly concerned when starting the placement that it didn’t have many links to either of the fields I’m hoping to work in the future. However, I’ve come to realise that this placement is a perfect way to learn about working in either film or theatre industry, even though it isn’t directly in either of these fields. It will definitely prepare me to work as a freelancer and give me valuable skills to succeed in that. I need to be on top of my hours and know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing and when, as well as keep creating my own content and coming up with new, exciting ideas.
Right now, I am very happy with my placement. I have created content (both photos and videos shown on this post) for ProfileTree that I’m very proud of, and they have been genuinely happy with everything. I’ve also had a chance to see so many beautiful places in Northern Ireland, because of creating these videos, like the North Coast.
And now I am so excited to start working on my new planned projects and get to see even more!
References:
- Jasper, M. (2013) Beginning reflective practice . Melbourne & London: Cengage Learning. Pg. 99-100
2. The image of Borton’s Model :
3. Cunningham, I. Dawes, G. and Bennett, N. (2004) The handbook of work-based learning. Pg. 9
4. Cunningham, I. Dawes, G. and Bennett, N. (2004) The handbook of work-based learning. Pg. 11
5. Jasper, M. (2013) Beginning reflective practice. Melbourne & London: Cengage Learning. Pg. 1
