A School Pupil's Work Experience Diary (Part 1)
Avani - My Experience at Take One TV
I have just finished Year 11 at a secondary school in South Bucks and looked locally for a media company to gain some work experience. Karen, the director at Take One TV was happy to help.
Day One
On my first day I was welcomed by Steve, he took me to the reception area where we had a brief chat about my interests and hobbies. He then showed me a tour of the building to which I enjoyed. Everything looked very tidy and a comfortable place to work in. Upstairs in the main office, I was welcomed by Karen and later Elvan who were really friendly and nice.
My first task was to read documents and sheets regarding my safety and privacy. It was quite boring to be honest but it had to be done. I was then given a task sheet full of different exercises that I had to complete. At first, I thought I had to complete the whole sheet in a day, so I felt sort of pressurised. However everyone reassured me that there was no time these had to be completed and for me to take my time.
When I started my first task (to create a synopsis for 3 topics from the book ‘Watch Out’ by OK Our Kids) I was set up on my ‘own’ desk in Edit 3 with Elvan which I absolutely loved. The chair was so comfy and my desk setup was perfect.
My first task was the synopsis which I found quite confusing at first as I had no idea what a synopsis was. I was told it was like a mini blog but I had never written a blog before so I tried my absolute best.
My 3 topics were:
‘Road safety’ - I already knew loads about it so therefore, I would be able to explain and understand it a lot easier. Also, road safety is an important topic that all kids must know and understand especially in today’s society.
‘Planet Earth’ – this topic needs to be talked about more often to kids as our earth is getting more damaged everyday so the more people who get involved, the better our Earth will become.
‘How to say NO’ – this is a serious topic kids need to learn in order to protect themselves from predators and danger when adults aren’t around.
When writing the synopsis, I just wrote it as if it were a summary of the topic for kids to understand as I wasn’t quite sure how to write it otherwise. As it was my first day, I felt quite nervous therefore I didn’t ask for much help.
After finishing the synopsis, I moved on to a new website called Canva. My task was to create 2 snippets on Canva. I felt quite confused on how to create the snippets as I had never used Canva or even heard of it. I was told to just play around with the templates and try out the different layouts to which I did. I made a Canva on the topics ‘Road safety’ and ‘Planet Earth’ mostly because I had a clear vision to how I wanted them to look and it was the easiest to portray (in my opinion).
For the ‘Road safety’ Canva, I planned how it wanted to look in my notebook where I just drew rough sketches of the topic. I wanted the text to really stand out so I used bright text colours and backgrounds. I used a big and bold purple text as it stood out and it was the OK Our Kids company’s logo colour with a yellow background to make it stand out even more. The text was short and simple (Stop, Look, Listen and Think) therefore making each word stand out more and easy to read and understand. I also used a road as a background giving the audience an idea that it’s about road safety. Also, I added transitions to the pictures to make them grab the audience’s attention and make it more exciting.
For the ‘Planet Earth’ Canva, I really wanted the background to stand out and deliver the right message. I included a beautiful picture of a natural landscape to remind people how amazing our world is and how we must keep it this way. I made the text in a pretty font with short text. The subtitle was a short and easy message in order to be easily read and motivating. The heading was also made short but powerful in a purple colour again for the company’s logo. The designs were specially made to grab people’s attention.
I had fun using Canva and enjoyed expressing my creativity on these projects. I did find it a bit annoying that some of the options weren’t free; therefore I was not able to use them. Also, my vision of each topic wasn’t portrayed to how I imagined it due to the non-free pictures.
My next task was to write 2 short social media statuses that would be suitable for the company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts on each topic. I found this quite confusing as I don’t own Facebook or Twitter and don’t usually write social media statuses for any of my social media apps. Normally, when I post a picture on Instagram or Snapchat, I would add a very short quote. It would be cute and simple. I asked Karen for help on this occasion as I didn’t understand the task. She explained how it was just a very short paragraph explaining each topic. Therefore, I wrote small paragraphs on each topic encouraging and explaining them along with a picture. I made sure the pictures complemented what the text said to make readers understand the message I delivered. I made the text clear and easy to understand by using short sentences and bold words.
To be honest, these didn’t take a long time and I completed them within a few hours.
Day Two
I moved on to creating my first PowToon video animation on the 3 topics I had chosen from the OK Our Kids ‘Watch Out’ book. I had never used PowToon before and was looking forward to making my first animated video. At first, I had no idea how to use PowToon and just played around with it. My first PowToon video was on the ‘Road safety’ topic, I started off by making a storyboard on how each slide was going to look.
For my first slide, I introduced the topic along with 2 kids as presenters. I used children to be a presenter as it would make the kids feel as if they have a friend or perhaps, they would feel more interested as a child would feel friendlier to them. On the second slide, I introduced the characters (Amy and Michael) just so each character would seem as if they have a personality.
Throughout the whole PowToon, I made the presenters’ expressions very cheerful and happy just to make them seem friendlier and also the make the animation more fun to watch. I made the text big bold with very short sentences so children are able to read and understand it easily. I left the text up for a while too so that children were able to read it with no rush. I learned that text needs to be big and clear to read on all devices including such as mobile phones. To make it more exciting I added text transitions to make it stand out such as pop, fade, slide or reveal. The backgrounds were chosen specifically to have bright colours to make the video animation more fun for kids and to grab their attention. I also included easy steps to remember throughout the video the so the message would stick in their head better (Stop, Look, Listen and Think). With each word I added a picture so it would be more memorable to kids. Furthermore, the locations of the backgrounds were a road portrayed in a colourful neighbourhood in order to set the scene. This background was the most used as I explained each step in a scenario where they had to cross a road.
At the end of my PowToon I had a slide where the presenters would congratulate and reward the audience. This would make kids feel like they accomplished and achieved something. When I had finished all my slides, I added transitions to the slides making it more exciting to watch. Then I added some playful music to the PowToon in order to make it more fun! Lastly, I added the OK Our Kids logo and contact details.
