Bunting and Shopping Trolleys and a Bit of Hacker Time

First of all I'd like to say sorry for neglecting this blog of late. It has been fairly quiet on the telly job front recently and I have been busy temping my way through life by mainly manically grinning at people as they walk past my reception desk in a very scary fashion. However I have set up another blog in my absence about all the crafty things I make in my spare time so if there are other prolonged periods of inactivity on here I'll usually be posting pretty pictures on there. Here's the link if you're interested: The McPoodle Blog

Last week was a bit more eventful however. On Bank Holiday Monday I was making bunting and colouring in fruit with a load of kids and the BBC Outreach team at a charity event in aid of The Christie. It was a very hot sunny day (remember those) with good music and more importantly good bunting...I like bunting a lot, you may have noticed.

On Wednesday I was helping out at an event at MediaCity called Made in Studio where a whole host of celebrities and producers and other important people of the TV world sat in a panel in front of an audience of even more important people of the TV world and discussed pressing issues regarding studio based television. I got to stand in the green room with Richard Osman which was quite an exciting thing for me...I do love a bit of Pointless and it turns out that he is as tall as he claims to be! Then I got a wee bit tipsy with Sam and Mark at the after party and regaled them with the story about the time when I was on the same series of Pop Idol as them (I really should stop doing that, it was a whole decade ago now and I need to move on with my life already).

Then on Thursday and Friday I got to make props for the CBBC show: Hacker Time and generally get excited about working on a show with the coolest puppet on CBBC since Edd the Duck. I also got to traipse around Manchester City Centre with a huge long shopping list and one of these...

Yes, that is a very sexy granny shopping trolley pictured above. The photo was taken by the checkout in ALDI as I was waiting to buy a pair of highly attractive granny slippers...working for CBBC makes you the height of cool don't you know! I also wandered back down to the studio on Sunday to see some of it being filmed at the meet the main dog himself. Here is a photo of him taking a quick power nap during the lunch break.

And so concludes my brief round up of last week. This week I have mainly been sending out a million job applications and getting annoyed at my internet when it crashes every five minutes. Ho hum.

I Now Work for the Beeb Don't You Know

...well I say that but in reality I only worked for them for two days a couple of weeks ago. It's not really anything to write home about when you look at it like that but it is one massive break through for me and considering that working for the BBC and especially in Children's is something that has always been extremely high on my career wishlist ever since my work experience placement on the CBBC show Do Something Different way back in 2007, I feel that this particular baby step needs all the enthusiastic clapping and the "who's a clever girl" comments I can get. I now have a fully authentic BBC Casual Staff Number of my very own which is massively exciting and hopefully it's going to lead to much more work with them in the future.

I was the Art Department Runner for a CBBC show called Who Let the Dogs Out? which is a really lovely little show where children teach their dogs how to do tricks and yes, I have had that song by The Baha Men stuck in my head ever since I worked on the programme. I was helping the rest of the Art Department (three highly amusing Scottish men) transform a beautiful but very dusty Victorian bath house into the most amazing dog agility course I've ever seen...it even had a trampoline! Much heavy lifting and prop assembly and sticking my fingers together with masking tape and using industrial strength white tac to stick things to the walls and hoovering and dusting later (ironic really seeing as it was International Women's Day at the time and I was the one wielding the duster!) we had a really stunning setting for the initial dog try-outs. The next day the rest of the crew came on board, filming began and there were lots of little doggies everywhere for me to make friends with. It was all a very exciting experience and even better in hindsight when I found out a week later I had just missed the day when all the dogs started weeing on the carpet which I would have found very amusing if I was there at the time except for the fact that I would have had to clean it up. Still it could have been worse I guess...

I learned so much from this job and not just the fact that I really miss having a dog in my life. This is not the first time I've worked within the Art Department of a show but it is the first time I've worked in an interior setting where we've had to dress everything from scratch. Normally I'm outside digging trenches in fields, planting flowers, lugging hay bales around and doing other crazy things whilst the rain pours down but this is the first time I've been involved in dressing sets with graphics and it was a new and exciting experience for me. It was also very nice to work with people who have much more experience that I have (the Production Designer has also worked on Waybuloo and MI High amongst many other things...I was slightly in awe) and it was good to be shown the ropes by someone who has been in the industry for many years.

The entire crew were just a bunch of really lovely people who made me feel so welcome and it reminded me why I love working in Children's TV in the first place. It was just a wonderful experience and I'm itching to work on more kiddie's shows now. Bring it!

Blue Peter's Big Olympic Tour

Last week I was on a bit of a downer after The Children's Media Conference. For a month and a half leading up to it I've had back to back work lined up but nothing set in my diary for afterwards so it got to Thursday and after sending masses and masses of emails all week to people chasing up potential work with no results I was feeling slightly sorry for myself. I watched the lunchtime showing of Neighbours and jumped into the shower before sitting down in front of the laptop once more to pour over all the jobs websites again when two exciting things happened...my phone rang and I got offered a two day job at the end of this week working on Heston Blumenthal's upcoming series then an hour later my phone rang for a second time, this time from a lady at BBC Learning practically begging me to work on Blue Peter's Big Olympic Tour at the weekend which would involve me hopping on a coach with the rest of the BBC Learning crew the very next morning to make our way down to Bournemouth for the big event on Saturday.

I was meant to be going down to see my dad at the weekend in Gloucestershire but obviously you don't turn down such offers (even if they're not paying you for your services) so after doing a bit of grovelling to my dear papa and conveniently forgetting to mention that I was doing this as a labour of love I was officially added to the call sheet which consequently has the Blue Peter ship on the bottom of every page which I got a slightly excited about. Just to put my excitement into context, Blue Peter and Newsround are the two programmes that made me decide that I wanted a career in television in the first place. I was a classic CBBC child growing up and my ultimate goal has always been to one day work on either of those two flagship programmes so it's kind of a big deal for me.

On Friday morning I shoved a few things in a bag and made my way to Manchester Piccadilly Station which is where the coach was departing from, I introduced myself briefly to the few people I had spoken to on the phone the night before and we all set off on a six hour coach trip down to the south coast. As luck would have it, the girl who I met first and sat next to on the coach was put into the same hotel room as me so when we arrived we dumped our stuff and instantly headed towards the beach.

After seeing some rather exciting looking beach huts, paying a grand total of 60 pence for the privilege of walking along the pier (a season ticket cost a whole pound) and watching Twist and Pulse prancing around a stage as the warm up act before the Olympic Torch got there, we decided to get back to our hotel room before heading out to meet the rest of the BBC Learning gang for a lovely meal at Ask where we got to meet the rest of the team properly. Much food and a complimentary glass of wine later, one of the team announced that it was 11.30 already and that maybe we should all go to bed soon seeing as we had a taxi coming to pick us up at 6:50 the next morning to take us to location.

For those of you who don't watch Blue Peter and have never heard of the Big Olympic Tour (shame on you)  I shall fill you in on what goes on during the day...The Blue Peter team go to a different location every week following the Olympic Torch around the country, there's a live outside broadcast that happens at 9am which gets shown on the CBBC Channel and BBC2. Then for the rest of the day there are various events dotted around a field that tie in with the Olympics which is where I came in. I was located in a tent called the My Sports Report tent, which was set up as a little mock studio and aimed to teach the general public about chroma key technology (more commonly known as green screen). The kiddies could try their hand at operating one of the cameras or the vision mixer or they could get on stage and dress up as an Olympian or be a co-presenter. We had some rather interesting kids on stage during the course of the day, one of the co-presenters was the most adorable three year old who as soon as she sat down grabbed the mic and started rambling on about being a ballerina. The biggest challenge was getting the children to form a nice orderly queue and trying to persuade them that being behind the camera or on the vision mixer was just as fun and important in the television making process as being the guest star.

Half way through the day, I accidentally exposed my Blue Peter ship tramp stamp tattoo to the rest of my little team and they were trying to persuade me that it would be a good idea to march over to Barney Harwood (he's one of the presenters) and expose my back to him. I was highly reluctant despite everybody reassuring me that he wouldn't think I'm a crazy mad woman but fortunately for him, the opportunity didn't arise. Besides which I was too excited about wearing my totally beautiful high viz jacket and didn't want to have to pull it up  for no good reason.

All too soon it was time to hop back on the bus and make our way back up to Salford. It was a great honour to work on a Blue Peter event and with the BBC Learning team and I had a lot of fun doing it but my story doesn't end just yet which is where we skip forward to the following Monday. 

My friend has come up for the week and my flatmate has taken some time off work as well. They are both highly nerdy boys and on the bus back to Salford on Saturday I caught wind of the Batmobile making an appearance on the Piazza at MediaCity. With all three of us free to do whatever we like for a week, I dragged them both over there yesterday morning to marvel at it but I wasn't counting on Blue Peter recording a little piece for this week's show. Barney was standing around in the rain right next to this wondrous piece of machinery and I thought I would take the opportunity to do the thing that I was too chicken to do at the weekend. I walked up to him, apologised for interrupting and launched into an abbreviated version of the story  you've just read...then I turned around quickly and flashed my back at him. I'm guessing he was slightly in awe because he asked to take a picture of it which later appeared on twitter. What a result!

Barney's reaction after taking a photo of the best tattoo he's ever likely to see.

nb. I apologise for all the photos that are featured with my back turned to the camera....I'm not a very photogenic person so it's probably for the best.

Interviews, Coffee and Networking

I promised myself some time off when I got back from the Championsheeps and despite my temping agency trying desperately to get me to work odd weeks here and there I've stuck to my word and turned down the irrelevant job offers. Now before you start thinking this is a really stupid idea (I am still in two minds about agreeing with you) I should add that I have had a flurry of interviews and networking things to attend.

Last week I had an interview to work in the art department on a very exciting sounding feature film. That was  on the Tuesday and seeing as I am very new to working in the art department and have only worked on the Hollyoaks promo before as a set dresser I suddenly had to dash around Manchester trying to put together a portfolio the day before the interview with only two decent photos to add to it. Plus it was the first portfolio I've constructed since I did A Level Art so the man who was interviewing me probably was thinking "what a bloody joke"...I know I certainly was! So that was last Tuesday and I still haven't had an answer about that job despite a few texts and phone calls trying to chase up an answer. 

On Thursday there was a networking doo at one of the buildings in MediaCity. It's called the Greenhouse and it's where a nice assortment of small indie production companies and other small businesses live. On my way there I went via the Blue Peter Garden and was delighted to discover that someone has erected a little cage type dome thing that goes over the pond and there are real live fish happily swimming around in there now. Getting back to the reason I was there (well apart from all the cupcakes, ice cream and macaroons I was promised) the networking event was very well put together. They had the advantage of all their tenants being in their own offices so it was easy to navigate and target the companies that you actually wanted to introduce yourself to. I came away from it feeling that I made some very useful contacts.

Last Saturday there was a cider festival happening in the centre of Manchester. This had been in my diary for months as I have been moaning rather regularly about the lack of decent cider that's been missing from my life whilst going out and about since I moved here. I come from a little village in the depths of Gloucestershire and down there they feed it to us before we progress onto solids so cider is something that is very dear to my heart. Originally it was going to be just my flatmate and I attending but two days before this most wondrous and hallowed event I tweeted about it and then all of a sudden somehow it became a mini networking afternoon/evening for people who I've worked with in the industry and people who I'd like to work with in the future...the power of Twitter hey!

On Monday I had a big scary but mega exciting interview at the BBC for a job in the indie acquisitions team in the Children's department and for the first time ever at a BBC interview my brain didn't turn to mush and I was giving coherent answers to questions that in the past I have just fallen flat on my face with before I've even had a chance to get any words out of my mouth. Obviously my plan that I came up with in November actually worked, which was to move as close to MediaCity as possible so that I could change my perception of the BBC from the mystical fantasy palace where all my dreams and wishes would magically come true yet when invited to an interview would not feel I am worthy of working in such an awesome place - to - a nice company that I'd quite like to work for. I'm not sure if I have the job yet or not but the interviewers said as we were wrapping up that I gave a very strong interview (I was waiting for the but...) so I guess that's a result in itself. They promised to let me know by the end of the week so they have roughly a day and an hour and half to keep that promise. 

I had a coffee date on Tuesday with a little chum of mine who I work with on Dickinson's Real Deal and then yesterday morning I went for an interview at an indie company who specialise in commercials who are looking for freelance art department people, production assistants and runners (I took my newly made portfolio and flashed my two photos from the Hollyoaks promo at them) and then another coffee date in the afternoon with a relatively newly formed indie company that I've built up a nice little relationship up with on Twitter. It was a way of introducing ourselves to each other and putting a face to the tweets but we ended up have a good natter for about an hour! Next week I'm off to Sheffield to volunteer at the Children's Media Conference and then I get back on Friday and volunteer over the weekend down at the BBC for Give an Hour. 

So my plan to take some time off hasn't really been any less manic than if I had been working, and much more so than if I had agreed to sit on a reception with no way of furthering my career or stimulating my brain cells. 

Happy National Willy Fog Day

You may or may not know this but today is National Willy Fog Day. This most celebrated day was first dreamed up in a Broom Cupboard by Andy Crane back in 1988 to coincide with the transmission of the last episode of Around The World With Willy Fog when it was first broadcast on Children's BBC.   For those of you who need your memory refreshed (or don't know what the hell I'm on about), Willy Fog was a distinguished gentleman cartoon lion who decided to go on a jaunt around the world with his butler and his butler's best friend, Tico, who was a cheeky Italian hamster or something, picking up a beautiful Indian cat princess called Romy on the way. The story was based on Jules Verne's novel: Around the World in 80 Days and in my opinion is much better than the original story.

Prior to the monumental day, children up and down the land were encouraged to write in with a stamped addressed envelope and request a song sheet with the lyrics of the theme tune so that when the day arrived everyone could all sing it in unison from the comfort of their own sitting rooms. Legend has it that in the lead up to the event, Television Centre was so inundated with sacks of mail that they needed to hire extra staff to keep up with the demand. To this day, Andy Crane still receives emails and tweets from people wishing him a happy National Willy Fog Day (they're not all from me I promise). So have a lovely Willy Fog filled day, if you don't have the complete box set to feast you eyes upon [then shame on you] have a look the clips below and feel free to sing along to your heart's content.


Back in the Broom Cupboard in 1988

This continuity link was broadcast last Christmas on the CBBC Channel and I may have got a tad excited about seeing Andy Crane back on CBBC

Life's a Treat With Shaun the Sheep

I've been told off in the past by friends and parents for doing voluntary work in the industry. However, as I have only recently moved to Manchester, giving a day or two of my time every now and again to a worthy cause can be good for my soul, it gets me out of the flat and gives me an opportunity to work with people in the industry.

As soon as I moved to Manchester at the start of November I was constantly badgering the BBC to help out with Children In Need until eventually I was pointed in the right direction and added to the list of volunteers. When the day came around, my designated job was chaperoning Pudsey Bear around MediaCity and also helping out with a teddy bear's picnic event put on for two sets of pre school kiddies. This however was over by 11am (and Pudsey had been whisked away by someone else) so I set about finding other things to do. The guys from Aardman Animations had some rather exciting games going on outside on the Plazza including Welly Wangling and  Championsheep competitions which involved running around an obstacle course rolling a sheep that was a metre and half in diameter and a coconut shy type welly throwing thing. It was all crazy fun and although they had designated people working on the games I helped out here and there  inbetween selling Children in Need merchandise. At the end of the day I helped them pack up all their gear and just happened to be there when the lady in charge passed round a piece of paper so we could write down our email addresses for any other future Aardman events and thought nothing more of it.

Fast forward four months and out of the blue, in amongst all the spam that Linkedin send me on a daily basis, I found an email in my inbox from the very same lady from Aardman who was looking for people to work on an event for a week over the summer down near Luton. My initial thought was "it's too far away" and then remembered that one of my best friends lives not so far away from there who hopefully wouldn't mind putting me up for a week and a bit. Then I read to the bottom of the email and saw how much they were willing to pay for me to stand in a field and have and awesome amount of fun (with extra money for travel expenses) and I thought that I needed to do it no matter if I have to live in a tent for the duration . Basically, with my really pathetic temping wage I would get the same amount for nine days work as I would sitting behind a reception desk for a month so it's a no brainer really. It has only taken me four years of working really low paid jobs whilst trying to fit it around slightly more secure mind numbing temping jobs and trying to scrape together enough pennies to pay rent and bills but this is my first paid job that I can comfortably afford to live off that will last longer than a day. I know it might not seem like much (after all it is only going to be for nine days) but I feel it's one huge giant leap in the right direction towards an actual career for me and it's a very exciting thought.

How to Fail a BBC Interview - part 2

I spent most of yesterday filling out an application form for a Floor Runner position on Russell T Davies' new CBBC drama called Wizards Vs Aliens which will be shot in Cardiff. Whilst I was in the midst of writers block it gave me the perfect opportunity to reminisce about the last time I went down to the capital of Wales for an interview with the BBC back in December 2009. Although it wasn't as horrible and daunting as my first interview experience with the Beeb in Glasgow (you can read about that here), I still didn't get the job and I thought it would only be right to recount the experience to you all.

Since the interview in Glasgow where I completely failed to come across as a normal, rational and competent human being in every way possible, I had been applying for any kind of job within the the industry that I felt I was capable to do. I was still living in Chester but had found some regular work experience with a retired BBC cameraman who lives in the city and covers a whole range of corporate and council run events. I was doing a lot of boom and sound work with him and he was a good laugh to be around. With every job I helped out on, my confidence was growing so I felt more justified to apply for jobs at the BBC, ITV and other larger broadcasting companies. I also have a lot of admin, customer service and reception experience under my belt which helped broaden the range of jobs I felt confident applying for.

Luckily I only had to wait a couple of months for my next BBC interview. This one was for an Information Archive Assistant down in Cardiff and I would be lying if I said I didn't have visions of spending most of my working days being paid to watch Doctor Who.

On the day of my interview it was really cold and there was snow on the platform when I got off the train at Cardiff Central. I was cursing the fact that I had listened to the advice of my friends and colleagues who after much persuasion convinced me that turning up for an interview at BBC Wales wearing a 20-foot-long hand knitted Tom Baker scarf would not be a good idea. I had left myself plenty of time to figure out where the hell I was going and to navigate buses and as such I ended up getting there a whole hour early. Normally this wouldn't be a problem because I would just find myself a nice little cafe to sit in and compose myself whilst drinking my entire body weight in mochas. On arrival however, I soon discovered that the headquarters for BBC Wales was situated right on top of a hill with nothing else in the near vicinity other than some residential bungalow type buildings. Luckily though, the chap on the front desk took pity on me and directed me to the canteen where I could sit and stress in comfort whilst hugging a huge vat of tea.

When it was finally time for someone to collect me I wasn't actually feeling too nervous which took me completely by surprise as I normally turn into a blundering mess at even the most basic of interviews. The panel was made up of two lovely women and the atmosphere in the room was quite relaxed. We had a bit of banter going on between the three of us, they told me about their brief encounters with David Tennant in the corridors and we all had a little collective wishful sigh at the end of that conversation. They didn't ask me any really horrible questions apart from one (give us an example of a deadline that you failed to meet) and I calmly delivered a witty response about trying to knit Christmas presents for my family in time.  I realised I was actually enjoying being there and talking to these women rather than wishing it would all be over as soon as possible and hoping the ground would swallow me up.

I went away from the experience feeling that I probably could have answered the questions slightly better but I didn't really care because my overall emotions from that day were of extreme happiness and joy due to  remembering to take my confidence into the interview room with me rather than leaving it in the foyer, asking it to be good while I'm away and picking it up on my way out. At the time I felt that even if I didn't get offered the job (I found out a week afterwards that I was unsuccessful) I knew that I actually had the power within myself to refrain from turning into a blundering mess as soon as I sat down in front of an interview panel and I didn't have to be the cowardly lion any more.

Read about my first BBC interview experience in Glasgow

Coming up in part 3 - I revisit Television Centre for probably the last time.

A Wander Around the Garden of Dreams

I like wandering around MediaCity, I figure it's good for the soul and since I live only a 15 minute walk away from the place, I haven't come up with a good excuse not to. Today was one of those days when I just wanted to go and stretch my legs but today I also had a very specific reason to take a trip to this most hallowed and wondrous place. On Thursday 23rd February (only four days ago), Princess Anne went to a very special function within the MediaCity complex. This wasn't just any function, this was the grand opening of the new Blue Peter Garden.

The Italian sunken garden complete with fish pond, sundial and the
hand, foot and pawprints of past presenters and pets

Unfortunately I was unable to get there on the day due to work commitments but I knew I couldn't put it off for long so today I trundled off with my camera to take some cheeky snaps of the northern incarnation of the garden of dreams. For those of you who don't know, the Blue Peter Garden had been set to move up to MediaCity along with the rest of BBC Children's ever since the BBC made the announcement that they were moving a whole load of departments to Salford. However, the logistics of how exactly they were going to relocate the garden obviously proved to be a bit of a challenge. At one point they were considering having a rooftop garden situated on top of The Studios building but it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when the press release confirming that the garden was going to be in the Piazza, which is completely open to the public, was issued. Features from the original garden at Television Centre in London were transported to MediaCity including the Italian sunken garden, the statue of Petra (the first Blue Peter dog), the sundial, and the hand and footprints of past presenters - Lesley Judd, John Noakes and Simon Groom along with pawprints of past pets - Shep, Goldie, Jack and Jill and Fred the tortoise (although I'm not too sure if tortoises have paws as such).

As the garden is in a completely open space, obviously the question of how they are going to deter people from trashing the place was at the forefront of my mind but rest assured dear readers, there was a security guard watching over it when I got there, which was handy because I roped him into being my photographer's assistant) and he promised me that there will always be someone on duty standing next to it at all hours. Below are some photos I took to preserve the memory of the first time I visited my own personal Mecca. I'm sure there will be other occasions and I apologise for the lack of sunshine but hey, that's Manchester for you!

Potted plants surrounding the fish pond

Myself with Petra. Coincidentally I finished knitting the jumper at the
weekend and couldn't resist dressing up for the occasion

View of the garden which is situated right next to the MediaCity tram station

Current presenters Helen Skelton and Barney Harwood had their hand and
footprints set in concrete to mark the opening of the new garden 

Who needs security! Petra looks like she's handling things just fine

How to Fail a BBC Interview - part 1 of 5

I know I promised a ranty blog post about the BBC application process in general but as I was typing it out, it mutated into a really long and boring essay of all my previous interviews for jobs at the Beeb. So in my editorial decision I have cut it down into small, readable and [hopefully] less boring chunks about my cringe worthy experiences of trying to infiltrate the BBC. There will be five initial instalments (with a bit of background reading at the start) but I'm pretty sure there will be more bloggable experiences in the future.

* * * * *

It all started in the summer of 2007. I was a second year student studying Journalism at the University of Chester. My main aim in life was to become a Newsround presenter (this has since changed when I came to the realisation that my mind turns to mush as soon as there's a camera pointing in my direction). As part of my university course it was required for me to undergo a work experience placement. Whilst most of my fellow course mates let the university find mind numbingly dull places for them to waste six weeks of their life contemplating why they had ever been born, I went straight to the top and applied to do work experience for CBBC.

When I got the call saying that they would love to have me for a month down at Television Centre to work on a programme called Do Something Different (DSD for short) it was possibly the greatest feeling in the world. I was off on the most exciting adventure ever and going to be sharing corridors with the likes of Konnie Huq, Chris Jarvis and Lizo Mzimba in the East Tower (the former home of BBC Children's). The first thing that popped into my head when I emerged from the White City tube station was "it looks exactly like it did on Live and Kicking". This was my dream and I was well and truly living it! I spent the happiest month of my life there. It really was the most fantastic working environment I've ever experienced, everyone was so wonderful, friendly, and enthusiastic about their job, which after temping for many years you quickly come to realise that this is not the norm with most work places. On my last day, the team brought me chocolates and a card, something that I wasn't expecting and something that they assured me they didn't do for everyone.

During this month I came to the definite conclusion that I had made the right decision about aiming for a career in broadcast media. At the time my future career path to happiness went exactly along the lines of: go back to Chester, finish my degree, get a job with the BBC soon afterwards where I would live happily ever after for the rest of my working life. That was the plan and I completed the first part of it at least, I graduated in 2008 with a shiny 2:2. However during the time it took for me to finish uni, the BBC had announced that they were going to be moving out of Television Centre and relocating a large selection of their departments to Salford. This was fantastic news I thought, not only will I get a job with the BBC but I don't even have to move down to London for it.

So I waited and waited and waited some more and in the meantime I was applying for jobs all over the country. Eventually I received an email from the BBC inviting me to an interview up in Glasgow for their Runner Talent Pool so I caught the train up two days early and made a long weekend out of it. I visited friends and family that I don't often get the chance to see and then trundled along to Pacific Quay to await my doom. The interview was set up in two sections, there was a group exercise with two other candidates (both of whom, I discovered whilst chatting to them in the reception, had far more experience than I had) where we had to create a schedule for two hypothetical runners during the course of a day from a hypothetical brief that covered a whole three sides of A4. We had to sit in silence for half an hour making notes and then have a group discussion afterwards to bounce ideas off each other so we could come up with an effective schedule between the three of us. We also had an adjudicator sitting in the corner of the room to watch over us writing her own notes about our performances. For all intents and purposes, it was the most stomach churning exam situation ever. I am a very practical person, I love keeping myself busy and being at the hub of a problem in the real working world. In a normal working environment I would be able to come up with a load of useful and practical suggestions, however sitting there in silence with the ticking of my watch boring into my brain, it was impossible to focus. This meant that when it came to the group discussion I had little to offer and tried to compensate by encouraging and praising the other two (they give you brownie points for that). When I got feedback from this interview about a month later they told me that I should pay more attention to briefs and that I needed to contribute more to the group discussion. However (they were obviously really struggling to find something positive to say about my performance) I was the only person who remembered to factor in a lunch break for the runners.

The interview wasn't much better, if was full of "give examples of when" questions and it seemed to go on forever. The only question I felt I gave a reasonable answer to was “You’re driving Edith Bowman to the studio along the motorway. You’re already running behind schedule but then you get a flat tyre. Edith wants to get out of the car and hitchhike to the studio. What do you do?”

That evening I went back to my uncle's house and drank lots of whiskey. A few days later I stopped beating myself up about what an incompetent fool I was and put it down to experience. The main thing I learned from the ordeal was that BBC interviews were just as long winded and ridiculous as the application forms.

Coming up in part 2 - Fiona goes to Cardiff! 

Welcome and Hello

Hello and welcome to my brand spanking new blog where I will be telling anybody who cares to read my future posts (I'm not holding out for a huge fan base but a couple of people would be nice) of the trials and tribulations that I face whilst trying to break into a full time and sustainable career in the television and film industry and possibly recount some amusing stories of the sort of people I meet and things I get up to along the way.

I decided to create this little web space after claiming that I already have a blog of this nature set up when filling in the most recent (and truly horrifying) BBC Production Talent Pool application form. I reassured myself at the time that it's not technically a lie if I take the trouble of actually setting up a real blog straight afterwards and so true to my word, this blog has now been truthfully and officially spawned into existence.

In honour of said BBC Production Talent Pool application form, my next post will be dedicated to it and the BBC application process in general. This will have to wait until tomorrow however as I need a day to recuperate and pretend I didn't spend every waking hour of the last three days filling it in (or pretending to fill it in when really I was actually using my time to procrastinate like I have never procrastinated before). Besides which, I have set aside the rest of today to prepare for the great pancake feast of 2012 so you can all go home, stuff your faces full of battery lemon and sugared goodness and come back tomorrow when I will be pouring my little heart out about the soul destroying way in which the BBC goes about in its quest to find new talent.