My work placement so far

My work experience journey has been a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions so far, it has given me a lot of different experiences and has already taught me so much. Hence it is important for me to reflect on these experiences and evaluate what they have taught me. Reflective practice is a very important method for learning, as is stated by Melanie Jasper (2013. 1):

Reflective practice is one of the most important ways we learn from our experiences in a professional context… It enables you to develop your knowledge and skills towards becoming a professional practitioner and to continue to learn and develop throughout your career. Essentially, reflective practice means taking our experiences as a starting point for learning. By thinking about them in a purposeful way- using the reflective processes- we come to understand our experiences differently and take action as a result.

In this blog I intend to utilise Terry Borton’s model of reflection, which can be summarised as: What?>So what?> Now what? I would like to start off then by talking about my journey in finding a place to take me on for work experience. I spent the entire summer looking for a work placement, I applied to dozens of companies and left no stone unturned. Sending emails and calling places directly when they would not reply to me, I explored every avenue I had available to me. I faced opposition at every turn, very few people wanted to talk to me and the ones that did, rejected me promptly and concerningly when I told them over the phone (I found this was the best method of communication) what I was looking for. I thought I had prevailed at one point when I was invited for an interview at a company. The interview went alright but I felt the person interviewing me was never satisfied with my answers and kept trying to verbally back me into a corner. They said they would call me a few days later with a decision and I never heard back from them despite trying to get in contact to at least get a response.

                So, this left me with little-to-no options, it was not until the day before the deadline of finding a placement that I got light at the end of the tunnel. During the introductory lecture for the Work Based Learning module a lecturer called Frank Denaly mentioned that the video team at SARC (QUB) would still take anyone who had not found a placement. I emailed John D’Arcy at SARC and went to an induction that day and became part of the team at SARC. Now I work on the video team at SARC and we record musical performances every week that go out as a live stream. I work primarily as a camera operator recording the performers, taking instructions from the person doing vision mixing who tells me how to frame the shot and what to record at what moment. But I have also worked as a vision mixer which meant I decided what was shown on the live stream at what moment and was in charge of what the camera operators were focusing on. In addition to these two roles, I also have to partake in general tasks such as setting up the equipment and organising cables and other general organisational tasks. We record a variety of musical performances and there is always something new every week. I have recorded spoken word poetry mixed with various musical elements. A solo Celloist who played some classical music accompanied by a clarinet player. A blind keyboard player who created his own software to record music that was activated with the sound of his voice. As well as an experimental performance piece were the performer manipulated their voice to mimic various animal noises while a psychedelic projection was being played behind them.

                In conclusion I feel the rejections I faced in my initial attempts to find a work placement were worth it since they gave me valuable experience in the area of searching for a job and trying to obtain an interview. They helped me work on facing rejection and made me more resilient and inspired me to try harder. While it might have been down to a bit of luck in the end, I am happy with the work placement I am on now and feel it is providing me with valuable experience, and while it is not one hundred percent film related it has helped me realise that this kind of work might be something I actually want to pursue and has a lot of transferrable skills that I could take with me further on in life. I look forward to my continued work in this area and the learning curve and experience it provides and I am content that things turned out this way in the end.

Bibliography

Jasper, Melanie (2013) Beginning reflective practice. Second edition. Cengage Learning EMEA (Nursing and health care practice series). Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.queens.ezp1.qub.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat02616a&AN=qub.b22073711&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 21 November 2022).