Media Studies Conference 2015

The media conference took place at the Institute of Education where we heard talks from successful people in the media industry. I listened to five speakers who each talked about different media career paths:

• Owen Jones (journalist and political activist)
• Professor Natalie Fenton (profession of Media at Goldsmiths and directior of 'Hacked Off')
• Rob Watson (BBC journalist)
• Regina Moriarty (Screen- writer: writer of 'Murdered by my Boyfriend')
• Bill Thompsom (English technology writer, BBC)

All their talks truly inspired me to pursue the media career path, as they explained media plays a significant role in the way we shape society. However, my absolute favourite speech came from Owen Jones, who left me questioning the government's power and how young people should take advantage of social media to form a protest against governments actions that will disadvantage us in the future.
Rob Watson, a BBC journalist was the most relevant speaker in contribution to our group's current project. He gave me some handy tips on how to produce our group's short film. For example, he advised us to keep the film short and simple to engage and send a clear message to the audience. He also informed us where most story plots come from, e.g: musicals, books, personal life experiences. Lastly, Watson gave 10 top tips he would've wanted to know when he was a student - so we wouldn't make the same mistakes as he did, here they are:

be humble, you're not as smart as you may think

you're more important that you think

you need to take care of yourself

don't be afraid to ask people; they're normally very approachable, and kind

do your research - tell the company why you're passionate and think you should work with them

don't be afraid to leave to make yourself happy

it is a SMALL industry

competition is fierce, stand out, and take opportunities 

Congratulate others, it will make you a better person

well told, heartfelt stories are usually the good ones

This is one of the first title sequence clips he produced named 'Strays' before rising into the industry:
https://youtu.be/GVeDFrL-pdU

Another speaker, Regina Moriarty, presented her recent film - 'Murdered by my Boyfriend' and explained to us that this was based on a real life incident. She tried recreating it as realistically as possible, using characters that were similar to the people involved. Her intentions by doing so, were to inform the audience how the situation could be possible in real life and to show the brutality of it.