http://issuu.com/salford123/docs/issue122010/1
And i also did a film review for Unitown.co.uk of the latest Harry Potter so enjoy :)
Over and out.
Gemma
Thursday 9 December 2010
My latest pieces of work
Well i got to do another contribution to one of my features in the student newspaper. Look for Top Ten things to do before the snow goes:
Wednesday 8 December 2010
What is all the hype about?
I have learnt a few valuable lessons in the past few weeks:
1) You cannot rely on a woman whose just come off maternity leave, even if she does sound lovely on the phone.
2) Twitter is NOT private and is therefore very dangerous!
3) Watching TV is not necessarily just pleasurable- it can also be a foot in the door for a job.
4) Time does not fly when you are having fun- it flies when graduation is at the end of third year! AND
5) Twitter is actually very enjoyable and informative!
So. For my music feature assignment i finally settled on an idea that i was happy with but having left it to until the last minute (a week before deadline) i didn't have much time to get the interviews i wanted. So when a friend suggested trying to get an interview with Sir Jimmy Savile and gave me a phone number to call at the Yorkshire Evening Post for a contact i panicked! After ten minutes of freaking out that i might have to interview a national treasure in the next week i rang the number (a big step for me, i used to be so scared of phones and strangers!!) and instantly hit a wall.
Bit i drove round the wall and tried a different tact, got the office number of a woman who had interviewed him several times. Sounds great right? The problem was she was on part-time because she was just coming off maternity leave. I managed to talk to her a few days later, she promised to ring him then and get back to me. Sadly never did, despite countless calls and emails, and suddenly the Jimmy Savile dream was over. Luckily my back-up choices were more available and i gave the piece in on time and on the most part happy with it.
What is the worst way to find out that Twitter is not private? Abuse your teacher to a friend then have him email you to inform you that you are in fact wrong later in the day? Correct! My God i was mortified! Thankfully he's a DJ with a very thick skin (apparently) and didn't take it to heart. Or so he says... we'll find out when i get my final mark back i guess!!
So it turns out that TV is a huge talking point for Twitter and therefore a great way to voice an opinion to a celebrity or journalist. This week everyone is talking about Coronation Street. I admit i used to watch it with my family and it got very hard to quit when i came to university so now i get back into it every holiday. So i know the characters and a few storylines well enough to watch the 50 year anniversary episode without being totally lost.
It was quite a spectacle wasn't it?! Living in Manchester i was naturally curious about how much i could see if i went down to the Street's set. They had big screens up blocking the view of most of the big incident but you could see the Metro train hanging off the bridge and that was enough to entice me into watching it when the day came to see four deaths on the Street.
So Monday comes and i switch on TV along with millions of others across the country. The actual explosion was done well, but we know that soaps are great at big explosions. What was new for Soapland was another disaster moments later and this came with the very stricken-looking Metro driver. He was extremely frightened wasn't he?? The head of the tram coming off the broken tracks and into Dev's i can understand and it looked spectacular.
Sadly i think that Corrie bosses pushed it ever so slightly too far when the back end of the tram then decided to lift itself off the tracks and land on top of The Kabin. It looked like a child's train set had been picked up by the five year old and plonked on top of the Street. But for a soap on a soap budget, as oppose to a Hollywood budget it wasn't terrible!
I am so happy to discover that watching a soap i have loved since i was 8 years old could get me noticed on Twitter and maybe one day even hired! From now on i watch anything that is getting a lot of attention... So come on Britain give TV a lot of attention this Christmas because then i have an excuse- sorry, reason- for slobbing out day and night!!
Graduation is looming and it is all i can think about! I keep thinking about what i will wear under the gown, will i have my hair up or will that ruin the position of the hat? And what if i only get a 2:2? Worst thing in the world? And what if don't graduate with my friends? What if i don't graduate at all? Most of me desperately pushes that thought to the back of my brain because it is terrifying but a little tiny part of me secretly hopes i fail just so i can put off the real world for another year!
I am new to Twitter so am yet to understand all the networking capabilities, the trends and the hash tags but i am trying. I had always sworn i would not sign up because it is legalised stalking but it is not JUST legalised stalking. It is also a huge network of potential contacts, a web of flies for me to feed on!
One day i will look back at the day i signed up to Twitter and thank God i did because i am certain it is more likely to get me a job than if i hadn't joined. I cannot emphasise enough how great it is. I almost prefer it to Facebook... give me a few months though!
Over and out!
Gemma
Monday 22 November 2010
Archived Features from Salford Student Direct
I have been Features Editor for the Salford Student Direct for 15 months now and have enjoyed every minute of it.
I first got into it when i got the generic email from last year's editor asking if i wanted to be involved in the paper during my second year. I had only written one article in my first year but had wanted to be more involved.
I made friends with many people in the theatre company at university in my first year and wanted to write the reviews of their shows in my second year. I told this to the new editor and she loved the idea.
A few days later i was offered the position of Features Editor and had to come up with three original ideas for continuing features each week. Somehow i managed it and i haven't looked back since then really!
I've been blessed to have made friends with the two editors i have worked with and they have given me wonderful opportunities to see my own writing printed. This year i have even branched into news writing and got my very first front page just last week!
Below you can see the issues of the papers, and look out for continuing features "Top Ten" and "Rule The World", they are my babies!
Week one of third year, page four:
Week two, page ten:
Week three, page five and ten:
Week four, page ten:
Some weeks we have enough input from other writers to not need my input so in weeks five and six i took on a sub-editing role, rather than doing the writing myself.
Week seven, front page side column, pages two and three:
Week eight, front page:
Week nine, page six:
Thank you for reading again.
From now on i promise to only include links to one or two stories at a time, wouldn't want to overload my readers after all!
Over and out!
Archived film reviews
Over the summer i found a website for students that was just starting up. I got involved, writing film reviews and building up my portfolio. This was my first foray into online work but i had completed a reviewing module in my second year at university so wanted to progress my skills.
This was also my first paid work so i was very proud. Not long after starting i was asked to be Lead Writer of Reviews and Student News. I'm pretty certain it's just a fancy phrase but it does make me feel important!!
Feel free to browse and hope you enjoy!
The Other Guys:
Salt:
Knight and Day:
The A-Team:
Shrek Forever After:
Unfortunately this one went online without my name on it but it was written by me i swear!
Wild Target:
Again, this was early after the launch and the site had teething problems so no name.
I hope you have as much fun reading my work as i did writing it.
Over and out!
Tuesday 9 November 2010
National Demo 10.11.10
Hello,
It's been a week despite me having promised to write daily. In all honesty i haven't done a lot this past week. I'd given myself a few days off after working so hard towards two assignments. Then the weekend arrived in yet another blur of talent TV and sport.
The best thing that happened to me in the week was my first ever visit to the Theatre of Dreams! Old Trafford, home of Manchester United FC is my local football ground but i am an arsenal fan. I had literally ten minutes to decide if i wanted to go and despite fearing that the avid fans would instantly know i was "Arsenal scum" as one not-so-friendly 'friend' put it, i decided to go for it. You cannot pass up an opportunity to go to one of the best football stadiums in the country just because of prejudice!!
The experience was fantastic, even on the walk from the car to the stadium i could feel the atmosphere and it just got better once we were inside. They were playing Wolverhampton Wanderers and had a good team out. I got to see Paul Scholes play, although only as a sub, and even saw the tiniest glimpse of Owen Hargreaves before he went off with an injury after four minutes. I might even get to say that i was at his last ever game, which seems likely when you consider how much he has played in the last few years.
As for the rest of the weekend, i was as scandalised as the next person about the 'losers' of the reality TV this week. Treyc Cohen (admittedly her name made me sceptical about her intelligence) was cast out of the X Factor over whiney drama-queen Katie Waissel. Cheryl Cole refused to vote because they were both her acts and now there is talk that it was a vote fixing scam but i honestly think that cannot be because anyone with two ears and two eyes and see and hear that Treyc was the better singer and all-round popstar.
In Strictly one of the best dancers in the competition, Jimi Mistry, was sent home by the naive viewers. How Ann Widdecombe is still in that competition is beyond me, i sense a John Sergeant debacle all over again!!
And then it was back to the grindstone. I got my mark back for the beauty pageant feature, a very promising 64 with comments that my teacher likes my style and the choice of words i use which is great because i barely thought about the words i was writing so it feels very natural.
Tuesday is never much fun, Music Journalism is becoming somewhat of a chore but i am struggling on through. Tonight i am planning on going to bed very early, hopefully before midnight! And this is because i am waking up at 4.45am tomorrow. I know!
And this is because tomorrow is the National Demo against tuition fee rises. Thousands of students are converging on London to march on the Houses of Parliament and generally make some noise. I am really looking forward to being a part of what could be a very historical day. One day i hope that i can write "I Was There". I truly do hope this makes a difference because it is the future of the country at stake.
Over and out!
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Many new experiences!
Oh dear. It's been a while hasn't it?!
In all honesty, i have been awfully busy this weekend!! I've had two assignments due in the last two days, one of which i could not begin until i had been to a gig on Friday evening.
Friday morning was possibly the most stressed i have been since the beginning of the uni year and it had nothing to do with any deadlines looming. No, this stress came from three and a half hours of getting nowhere. Friday morning saw the release of Take That's 2011 Progress tour and my aunt, her sister and me were absolutely desperate to go! Having been at the final night of the 2009 Circus tour i could not resist spending £60 and many hours on tickets. But, perhaps naively, i thought it would be easy. A couple of phone calls, perhaps logging onto a website and it would be sorted. Alas, 210 minutes later i was still ticket-less and very close to pulling my hair out. Just as i decided to give up i saw a side note from one fan on the TT fan page to try an Irish website and suddenly i was the very proud owner of three Take That tickets for June 5th 2011!!!!!!!!!!! Words simply cannot describe how happy i was and still am!!
Having had a lot of early mornings last week i was looking forward to leaving the gig at Ruby Lounge fairly early, coming home, writing a basic review to go over at the weekend then sleeping for many many hours. Unfortunately there were a lot of friends at this gig and somehow i was convinced to stay to the end and then convinced to go to Satan's Hollow afterwards. This was my first new experience because i had always steered clear of the infamous rock club, being a huge fan of Take That, it was unlikely to be my cup of tea! But, i am all for trying new things and this lead to what turned out to be a really great night!
The next day saw me doing absolutely no work and instead baking cupcakes for a Halloween party that evening. Many hours later and the day had been wasted. I was making myself Zombified because this was Halloween weekend and i had some scaring to do! Unfortunately i've never been one for acting so ended up simply grinning the whole night and scaring nobody. Still, two great nights in a row so one can't complain!
Sunday. 1,500 word assignment due Monday. A draft had been written thankfully but more work was needed. I spent the day in bed, eating hangover food but also working. Eventually it led to a final product, a waffly self-assessment and a desire to never see the words pageant, beauty or competition ever again!
Monday, the work was handed in, the Shorthand lessons had returned and predictably the one week of no practice had sent me back at least two weeks in the process! Still, i had got almost all the work necessary done in time so i was happy. All that was left to do was write a live review based on the one A4 page of notes i had made at the gig!!
Surprisingly enough i managed it! After Chinese takeaway and Paranormal Activity Monday evening i knuckled down and the live review was written. All that was left to do was sleep! And sleep i did!
Over and out!
Gemma
Thursday 28 October 2010
Time is flying and i'm not having any fun!
You know the old saying "Time flies when you're having fun". Well, it's not just when you're having fun, it's also when you need a couple of hours of rest, and when you have deadlines looming, and when you're trying to get ready to go out. Time flies by me all the time, and i don't seem to be getting any of the fun!
Actually, no, that's not entirely true. Last night i did get a night off from writing Shorthand, busting my gut to write an album review on the complete opposite of my taste in music and keeping on top of all the demands on me. I got to go to my very first gig at Manchester Academy, Academy 2. I have been to a concert before (in my defence music has never been a huge passion in my life), but never to a gig and my friend Maz thought that insane when he first found out. He vowed to take me to the first gig i would agree to and that happened to be folk-pop singer Lissie.
I have to say, she was amazing and it was the perfect gig to ease me in. There was no moshing (well, one fifty year-old was trying it but nobody was encouraging him!), there was a bit of dancing, it was upbeat and fun at a nice venue. The gig only lasted just over an hour but it was so enjoyable and this time, time really did fly while i was having fun!
I am going to be writing a review of the gig for the Student Direct: Salford Edition and think i might show it to my lecturer who thought my last review only good enough to just scrape a pass. The more time passes, the more bitter i get about the whole affair!
Then, 8 tragically short hours of sleep later i was up and out the door for my very first Reporting class, where i was joining an MA class. That was nerve-wracking! I was so sure they were simply going to turn on me as i entered the room and screech at me to leave! But they were so lovely, very welcoming, and i even had a cup of tea made for me!
The class was also extremely useful, very informative. There was a guest speaker today, a chap from the NCTJ marking people and he talked us through a sample people because this is the first year of this Reporting section of the diploma (it used to be News Writing, but this is more of a multimedia paper now). He went into so much detail that i feel completely prepared for the paper and like i could do it tomorrow if asked to!
In the next two days i want to finish my feature, tomorrow night i have another gig to go to, this time for my assignment due in next week and it is the Halloween weekend which means time for writing up this gig is slim so it's going to be a busy few days! Still, all in the name of bettering myself eh?
Over and out!
Gemma
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Biggest Interview of my Career
Twelve hours ago i woke up to a dreary, wet Manchester morning but i was not perturbed. I had a spring in my step because today was the day i got to interview the Head of BBC North, Peter Salmon.
My mood was dampened slightly by a very poor mark in a Music Journalism album review but i was not going to let anything get me down. Even the persistence of the rain as i stepped outside an hour later. Within minutes my feet were soaked and i discovered that my boots leaked. And yet, there was still a smile on my face.
By this point i was getting a little nervous and when i'm nervous i go one of two ways- i either go much louder to over-compensate or i shrink into myself. Today i chose hiding away as i shook the hand of the university Press Officer, a man from the BBC and many others who i failed to catch the name of.
Then Peter Salmon walked in and i didn't know what to do. Editor Emily had just briefly left the room and i had sat at a table. I watched as he was introduced to the others in the room and i felt completely out of place. I just stayed back and hoped nobody noticed i was invading on their very grown-up meeting!
Emily returned, we were introduced to Peter and then taken upstairs to where fellow students had set up equipment. We sat in the background and took notes while Peter was filmed for the university and a student project for twenty minutes then it was our turn.
Emily had originally said that i would ask most of the questions but we had sat down, turned on our dictaphones and then i had completely forgotten everything i wanted to ask! So Emily very deftly too control of the situation. Unfortunately we only had five minutes so Emily asked a few questions, i got one very important question in and then that was it. Peter Salmon was swept away to the next important meeting and we were left in someone's office in the wake.
I then came into my element, got chatting to the other students and recognised a few from my features class. I even managed to get them to promise to write a few features for me, they were very impressed that i was Features Editor so i felt much better about myself by the time i left the room!
Once again i have failed to do any Shorthand. Must rectify that now!
Over and out!
Gemma
Monday 25 October 2010
The Black Hole of the weekend!
Well, today is Monday and has been very busy with tasks but the weekend was a lot less productive to the point of no productivity at all! You know how it is, you write a to-do list, adamant that by Sunday evening you will have completed it, then you turn on the TV Saturday afternoon for the football and suddenly it's Sunday evening and you've watched several episodes of Come Dine With Me, the whole of the f1 qualifying and race, three football games, all of X Factor and Xtra Factor and now it's the results and you can't possibly miss them!
The Black Hole that is the weekend has consumed all of your time and you have none left to practice some Shorthand or write a draft of your feature. So Monday morning came, almost no work done whatsoever (there was a TV lull between the football finishing and Come Dine With Me starting so i'd done a quick draft of my feature) and of course i felt so guilty i had to get up early despite it being my one chance at a lie-in for the week and do some work.
Except nobody had emailed me back about the campaign idea, i hadn't heard anything from the lady at the local paper back down South about work experience and had no desire to get out of bed to sit struggling to write Shorthand about the Teletubbies (apparently children's TV is slower with less complicated words so is ideal for perfecting Shorthand).
The afternoon however was much more productive. I left my computer for all of thirty minutes between leaving home and travelling to university and was greeted by three emails. Two were helping me with the disabled access campaign and the third brought very good news indeed! I have secured myself a one week placement at the Kent and Sussex Courier for the Christmas holidays. Unfortunately one week is all they could offer with so many looking for experience but it is the week leading up to Christmas so it is going to be extremely busy and i will hopefully get a lot out of the experience!
After printing my poor excuse for a first draft of the feature i then met with my feature teacher who was impressed, laughed at all the appropriate places and gave some great advice for how to take it a little further. One week until that is due, i'm feeling very confident about that.
Then, a quick rush to the other side of campus for a meeting with Editor Emily about doing a front page story which will take centre stage in my NCTJ Portfolio. For this story i have to interview the Head of BBC North, Peter Salmon!!! I am very very nervous about the interview but thankfully it is not all alone, more like a group interview but Emily got us in on it and we've been given permission to ask him questions so it should be a great experience! That is happening tomorrow morning so there really is no time to panic about it because it will all be over by this time tomorrow!
Final task for the day was an interview with a fellow student about his experience of being semi-disabled in our university accommodation which by all accounts sounds pretty tough! He was really helpful and the campaign assignment feels like it is coming along really well.
I am constantly amazed at how together my life feels at the moment. All my assignments seem to be coming together in plenty of time, i'm stressing about one in particular and am managing the stress i am harbouring so all is good! Of course, having said that, something is bound to go hideously wrong so watch this space!!
Tomorrow brings with it the biggest interview of my 'career' to date, a long overdue lunchtime catch-up with a friend, writing up the front page of next week's uni paper and i should probably squeeze some Shorthand in there at some point!
Over and out!
Gemma
Friday 22 October 2010
The shortest interview ever
Hey,
Well today's journalistic tasks were to harass lots of people for information, utilise the internet for facts and figures for an article and conduct an interview. All were achieved but to varying degrees of success!
First was the interview which was for my campaign journalism assignment. The idea is to create a newspaper campaign for a local paper and conduct interviews which get to the heart of the story. My idea is a campaign to get improved disabled facilities in the university accommodation and the interview was with a guy i know of who is in a wheelchair which would really help the article. The trouble was i was completely unprepared, had some questions in my head but none written down so ended up forgetting half of them and after ten minutes the interview was over.
Granted, i did get a few good quotes and the interview is at least usable but it doesn't do much for ones confidence when an interview is finished before the drink i ordered was! And yet the interview i had done days previously with none other than Miss Manchester 2010, Elicia Davies lasted an hour and only ended because she had a prior engagement to get to. So i am not too disheartened but slightly!
The second task of the day was to email a lot of people about the same article since i have been getting nowhere with anybody. Well, this was slightly more successful, i at least got a response with one lady who has promised to set up a meeting once she is in her office next week.
And the third task was to collect facts and figures for both the campaign article and the feature article for which i was interviewing Miss Manchester. The feature article was originally going to be about the dying age of pageantry in the UK but having spoken to Miss Manchester i am inclined to change my opinion and the figures i found supported this. So having found dozens of interesting facts about the popularity of pageant competitions i was feeling very confident about the feature article and will attempt a first draft this weekend.
Unfortunately facts and figures about disabled access in universities across the country are much harder to come by so one article is coming along nicely and the other seems to be stuck in the mud a little at the moment!
So, journalism tasks done for the day and the house to myself for the evening. And what am i gonna do with it?? Catch up on some well-earned sleep i think!!
Over and out!
Gemma
Thursday 21 October 2010
Day One of the rest of my life!
Hello,
Technically this is not the first day of the rest of my life because i have been studying Journalism and Sociology (strange mix i know, i'll get onto it later) at the University of Salford for two years now and started my third year four weeks ago.
But in many ways this is the first day of the rest of my life because this blog will be updated daily, no matter what i have been doing. I have found in the last four weeks that i have done something towards becoming a journalist every single day and so it seemed an appropriate time to start a blog all about my journey along the road towards becoming a journalist.
So, as the title suggests, many people wonder why i have chosen a career that is often low-paid, gets little recognition unless you are either extremely talented or extremely opinionated and is one of the most hated professions in modern times. Well, unfortunately i cannot say that i am extremely talented; talent comes with experience and i have little in real terms, nor am i extremely opinionated. Opinionated yes, but not extremely. Not yet anyway!
The answer is simple- when other teenagers were outside riding bikes around the local park and playing kiss chase (i only played once and knocked my two front teeth right out, never again!), i was sat indoors creating a newspaper all about 'So Little Time'- Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson's attempt at teen drama before they became real teenagers and truly discovered the opposite sex! I have always loved to write. Of course, at the age of 13 i was adamant that i would write the next Harry Potter and would be insanely rich by the age of 21. I am 21 now and still waiting for the insane richness to kick in! I had a momentary lapse of judgement at 14 when i decided i wanted to be an air stewardess but it was short-lived when i was told i would have to study French and German at GCSE level. Never going to happen.
So i reverted back to my roots of writing. And it hasn't really stopped since. Reading and writing has been my escape from an otherwise mundane life so when the careers advisor asked me what i wanted to do with my life the obvious answer was writing. She soon set me straight about my chances of writing a best-selling novel before leaving school but lead me to journalism courses.
I chose Salford University because it offered Shorthand as part of the course (of course i didn't realise that was only if i did Journalism as a straight course) and the rest, as they say, is history! I chose Sociology because i had done at A-Level- there were no other viable options for me to pick in all honesty- and discovered i was actually quite good at it. So i figured why not continue being good at it? Turns out sociologists blame most of society's problems on media saturation and sensationalism, hence the clashing course but i have not been perturbed and stuck with it.
And so we come to now. I am in my third year. I have studied reviewing, public relations, feature writing, news writing, music journalism and journalism in the context of everyday life. I am also in the process of learning everything i need to know to take my NCTJ's (National Council for the Training of Journalists exam), including a whole new language in Shorthand. I am Features Editor of the university paper- Student Direct: Salford Edition- for the second year running, i contribute regularly to www.unitown.co.uk and now i have this blog, as well as my modules for my final year.
But it keeps me busy, on my toes and prepares me for the real-life, day-to-day schedule of a journalist so i am very happy. There isn't a day goes by where i don't do something towards being a journalist so everyday i will tell you what i did that day. You'd be surprised how much work goes into saying how you feel about something!!
Over and out for now!!
Gemma
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