My experience with Take One TV has been challenging.  I started my placement in February 2024 after completing a Video Production course at Amersham College.  There has been a lot to learn here about the technical processes and terms used for professional, corporate filming. One of the Directors of the company, John Groves, said that in filming production….. ‘You never stop learning.’   John has had over 30 years of experience, yet regularly learns new things and needs to develop new methods of working to solve production challenges.

I have been able to understand more about the IT side of things in relation to film and digital communications, and worked on:

1. Using video animation templates.  You have to think really hard about the words, and generally use less of them because the viewer only has a short time to read.  I’ve been learning about where to place words on the screen, the order in which they appear, what font and size of text as well as colours that work best.

2. Creating social posts on Promo Republic. This means uploading the animation work I’ve already done and creating comments that will attract viewers on social platforms. Once I am happy with the content I then need to create schedule for the items to be posted to our followers.

3. Editing the Chiltern Chamber website events page  take a look at my work   by adding new content such as member details and events. There are many different settings and features on this new website.  One of the my initial tasks was to create a ‘How too…’ manual for managing the site and then check that the manual was right by adding new content.

4. Creating blogs on the Take One TV website. On the Take One website I can load a word document blog and then fill in an excerpt which readers see first when searching on the site. I look at where to position pictures to support the blog, and change the format of the text so it can be bolder and attractive to the reader.
5. Creating a newsletter on SendGrid. I created a Christmas newsletter for Take One TV by writing the sections related to Christmas media and added some pictures which were creative commons licence, meaning anyone can use them within the licence guide. Take a deeper dive.   
6. Creating events for Bucks Business First. To create an event on Bucks Business I need to fill out a lot of information including:

• Event title
• Event type
• Summary (in 140 characters or less)
• Full description
• Image (this can an image selected on their page or an image being uploaded)
• Start date and time
• Organiser name
• Organiser email address
• Venue address
• Venue address town
• Venue address county
• Address post code
• Telephone number
• Venue notes
• Ticket price
• Where and how people can buy tickets

Once the information is completed then Buckinghamshire Business First promote the events to their members and website visitors.

I also went on the filming shoot for Makaton sign language videos.

I managed to record the log entry for every shot and clip that was used in filming.  This is an essential element of the production process as it enables the editor to quickly clip the good takes from the rushes, which saves valuable edit time.

Currently, I am learning about strong and weak axioms which help frame a sentence better and get your point across faster.  Strong axioms make sentences less complicated and easier for the reader to follow your message.  I shall be putting this into practice with my next newsletter, so watch this space.