It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that this week was a resounding success! This included several visits from the BBC, industry professionals running animation workshops, local colleges providing support and competitions, professional graphic designer talks and visits to and from a range of highly successful Manchester based creative digital media companies – not to mention the ‘You Tell Us’ competition run by Manchester College that is still ongoing and continuing to help build strong ties with the school and a range of creative media companies.
As a direct result of the week, students have gained a fantastic insight into how to get into the industry and were given a real taste of the realities of working within the digital creative media arena.
This was especially thanks to amazing talks by Allan Beswick (the breakfast programme presenter on BBC Radio Manchester), Angela Russell (a Producer/Director from the BBC) and Dan, a professional graphics designer.
Also, thanks to Trafford College’s Animation tutors, David and Paul, students had the opportunity to learn about a range of equipment and techniques used within the media sector and then used this knowledge to create their very own animation masterpieces!
The ‘You Tell Us’ Competition
One factor during the week that must get a mention is the ‘You Tell Us’ competition, coordinated by Manchester College’s John Anderson. With the support of Manchester College’s Camille Riley, Vicky Harrison, Lisa Cary & John Anderson, the Year 10 competition team really got to grips with the competition concept and apprenticeships.
Following this, Mrs Smith (Employability Team) arranged spectacular follow up sessions with Manchester based digital media companies. These included an amazing competition team visit to Ideas By Music (who designed the new version of the Brit Awards, re-designed the look of Chester Zoo, work with Manchester City – amongst too many other fantastic things).
At Ideas By Music the competition team had a tour of the offices and had a sit down planning session with creative director Orla McGrath – who has also supported other sessions in school and is looking forward to coming back again!
Also during the week, the competition team met with Simon Swan (co-founder of Hiring Hub), who came in to support and put some professional perspective on how to ‘sell’ our competition campaign successfully. As a result the team gained strong ideas of how to achieve their campaign vision.
Pixilation
Below is an example of a pixilation animation made by the students during one of the workshops.
Note to students: if you produced an animation and it has not been featured on the website - but you would like to see it, please visit Miss Bowden in the Employability office (at the bottom of 6th form) during your free time.
Note: if you cannot see these animations, you may need to download and install the latest versions of Adobe Flash Player. Please also note these animations are not viewable via any Apple devices e.g. MacBooks, iPads or iPhones.
'Digital Next' to mentor Yahya!
Finally (but definitely not least) Nadia & Anthony from Digital Next, came in to the school with the idea of supporting the team in how best to market their ideas for the campaign – which they did brilliantly.
However, that’s not all they did. They were so impressed with one member of the competition team (Yahya) that they sent out a press release about him that attracted follow-up articles, TV news reports and radio shows which has then had further ‘ripples’ as media companies have also contacted the school to offer internships to Yahya!
Further to this, Digital Next have offered to do the PR for Yahya, which means to essentially manage him.
I can say that we have all been thoroughly inspired and have been amazed with the support of local companies, individuals, students and staff.
Ms Bowden
Employability Team
Manchester Academy