I could’ve stayed in Liverpool for days. So much I didn’t get to see and experience. But that is the way these trips and the course go. Leaving you with a desire to return is the goal. And I promise to return.
We headed to Manchester for the University of Salford’s campus at MediaCity, home of the BBC’s headquarters and production facilities. Quick ride, really, on a beautiful sunny day here. We packed – literally – into our bus and headed out.
Point Park has just reached an agreement for our students to study at Salford. Last year Hattie Charney, one of our journalism majors and an honors student, studied there for an entire semester. David Fabilli took a group of students there last year to for a radio workshop, and unfortunately, they were there when that awful bombing killed so many people attending an Ariana Grande concert.
Dr. Annabelle Waller, associate dean for international studies, met us and led us on a tour of the Salford component. She also explained how Manchester changed an old dockyard into this gleaming and modern complex with BBC occupying a majority of the space, with competitor ITV there as well. Lots of restaurants and shops, the Imperial War Museum, and a train stop there hat can whisk people right to Manchester. We saw lots of employees and others out and sitting in the lounge chairs, enjoying the sunshine, even sunbathing. Good walking trail there, which Jan and I took advantage of after lunch.
Salford has four TV studios and control rooms there, two radio studios and another sound booth among other facilities. There’s a Maker Space for students to make props and much more, complete with 3D printers and big areas to work. We envied the high ceilings in the TV studios. But as Robin pointed out, we have two TV studios for a small school; Salford has four for about 4,200 students in Arts and Sciences among a 24,000 total student population.
The school does have a close relationship with the BBC, with the public broadcaster working with students on all types of programs, including a possible children’s TV show that master’s student have developed. “They like our students’ energy,” Annabelle said. And the synergy is great. “They [Salford students] learn from pros, and the pros take the ideas and energy from the students and can possibly employ them.”
The term is ending at Salford, and we saw lots of students finishing projects and filming and doing other production work as we walked about. We didn’t see any of the public relations, photography or graphic arts students, as they are at the main campus.
In her presentation, Annabelle showed us how she believes virtual reality has a place in documentary and other forms of journalism. It is not new; what has held it back, many believe, is the cumbersome headsets people have to wear. There is also some anxiety about young children wearing the devices.
The real key to all of this? “VR can put you into someone else’s world and into their race, gender and situation,” Annabelle said.
Hollywood director Alejandro Inarritio has done great work on the immigrant experience,, she said, and a VR documentary “Clouds Over Syria” spurred major donations for refugees. Another, “Mundruku,” stopped a new dam that would have flooded tribal land in the heart of the Amazon River.
The major result? An immersive and empathetic experience. Best of all, Annabelle said, is the use of sound takes it all back to radio, which was itself such an innovative and frightening to some medium when it all began.
We had the good fortune to hear from James Probst, the son of Jan’s UK friends, who has spoken to our students several times. He now works for “Blue Peter,” a long-running children’s show, after working his way up through a number of positions on BBC sports shows. He’s been fortunate to work on the 2012 Olympics, World Cups, Wimbledon, the Commonwealth games and much more. He’s now a producer/director.
“Blue Peter” is an iconic show in the UK, he said, and he has had the opportunity to work on many different magazine pieces for the show, which uses two or three presenters. He showed us a fun clip of one of the presenters leaving the show, performing all types of stunts and athletic adventures, from jumping out of a plane to nailing a gymnastics routine. Through this show he’s met Prince William and Kate Middleton. An amazing range of experiences for this young man we met way back in 2008.
Just recently he was filming way up in the face of Big Ben, which is undergoing renovation. And covered in scaffolding That segment will be shown on its July anniversary this summer.
The weekly show work satisfies this former French major at Leeds, who was not sure what he wanted to do but knew he didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk. He shoots, does some of the editing and post production work. He also writes and participates in the brainstorming sessions for the show’s episodes.
He recently worked on a documentary about the Indian partition from the UK, mainly concentrating on India and Pakistan, something James admitted he didn’t know very much about. Traveling there and seeing the poverty of people in Thailand living along a railroad track and making a life for themselves was stunning and moving. “I get to go places and see things that other people can’t see for themselves,” he said.
James has the luxury of time on “Blue Peter” most often, not the same with the crunch of deadlines on the sports shows he has worked on that has to be timely.
The best thing it seemed as are all the ideas – weird ideas – he said, that “Blue Peter” attempts. Those come from everyone, he says. Some are scary – like jumping out of the plane and trying to tightrope walk across two buildings. Some are just fun.
How did he move up from the runner we met in 2008? James said he made sure he was energized and motivated. He had to interview for each position; contract positions are the norm at the BBC for young employees. He learned how to shoot, write and edit on the job. And it has certainly paid off.
The final part of our stay – a great BBC tour of its buildings led by two wonderful guides. BBC is the large public broadcasting system with seven national and 39 regional stations in the UK plus all of its worldwide locations. I enjoy listening to BBC World, which Pittsburgh’s local NPR station, WESA, plays mostly overnight or in the evenings. Others enjoy many of the BBC programs on our TV channels.
We saw the BBC Breakfast set with its famous red couch. The guides explained how the cameras and teleprompters work, although the presenters, as anchors are called here, still have paper scripts for all programs no matter the technology that permits them to read off that teleprompter or through the desk.
Both guides emphasized that the BBC will not broadcast any news unless it has been vetted by its reporters and producers. It does not relay information from other media without that. In fact, it has shows that bring in editors from the national papers to talk about what their reporters are covering. Very interesting indeed.
We saw the radio operations, too, and the presenters had fun with a few students going over the song playlists. Radio is still incredibly popular in the UK. BBC Radio 6, for example, has 3 million listeners.
One thing BBC Radio has been working on is digitizing audio files for the last 20 years to create a history. It has some of the most famous recordings – including an interview with Florence Nightingale – already done.
Despite all the gleaming buildings, economy and sharing of studios is emphasized. BBC rents out its studios to bring in additional revenue, and some studios can be reconfigured for shows rather than build so many different studios. An example of that are the sports shows. Three different shows have different looks, thanks to graphics, creative camera shots and angles, and lighting.
One program I saw during our stay involved critiques of BBC coverage. Two men expressed their dissatisfaction with reporting of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s new baby boy. Same thing all the time, with no real news, they both groused. All I could think is that is the way I feel about sports coverage and the weather …..
We ended our tour with the demo studio, where students tried their hand at forecasting the weather and news. That is always a hit and a great way to end the tour.