Are you a trainer? Keeping up to date is vital

graham reed

Author: graham reed

Published 1st September 2015

by Graham Reed Issue 104 - August 2015

When you are a tutor in a training organization, or if you are a lecturer teaching TV production in a university, it can be very hard to keep up-to-date with all that is going on and changing in the world of broadcast.
Keeping up-to-date with developments is also very hard for those working in the industry like myself, but it must be even harder for those teaching broadcasting to keep abreast of developments.
If you are of course leader running a course at a university or college, not only do you have to teach, you also have to manage all the other things that are required in running a university course. There are the lesson plans, working with the students when they are producing their projects, then there is the constant marking and assessment. Dealing with budgets can be incredibly time-consuming as well as dealing with the college politics. Whilst you are doing this as of course leader the world of broadcasting is moving on rapidly. Meanwhile many of your students will have had work experience with production companies or broadcasters and they will come back and discuss with you some of the equipment that they have been using, it is very hard as the course leader to talk with them about this equipment if you only have little knowledge of it. So what is very important is that you maintain your knowledge and experience of new equipment and working practices that are happening in the world of television.
The Institute of Training in Television Production, ITTP, are very aware of these problems so are running Continual Personal Development, CPD, workshop so that those who are teaching at universities or colleges can be updated on the developments in broadcast TV.

At the first very successful ITTP conference at Pinewood Studios last year one of the many things that was discussed was the need for trainers and teachers to be helped with maintaining their knowledge and experience of current equipment and working practices. At the 2nd conference this year, again at Pinewood it was announced that the CPD workshops would commence this year.
Also there are many trainers teaching broadcasting operations who had a career as, for example, a sound recordist, but now have to teach cameras and lighting and feel they could do with much more help in teaching in these areas.
Initially the ITTP will be running three workshops on cameras lighting and sound at Pinewood Studios over three days in September.
The first day is Monday 21st on sound, cameras on the second day, 22nd, and Thursday 23rd on lighting, very soon after these dates there will be a day on directing and vision mixing yet to be announced.
As a lighting cameraman I will always found sound very complicated, it can sometimes almost work but then you have hisses ,hums and crackles which seem to come from a unknown source! In recent years it has become even more complicated with 7.1, AES, fibre both symplex and duplex, so keeping up-to-date with these and many other aspects of audio can be really difficult. Barry Cobden who has years of experience in working in live sound for the BBC in both television studios, radio and location recording will be running the sound CPD workshops.

The ITTP is very lucky in having Peter Leverrick to run the workshops on cameras, he started his career at BBC Television Centre as a cameraman working on many high profile TV shows and now still works on outside broadcasts and studios, he is also an experienced teacher.
There will also be camera peds supplied be Vintenso there will of be plenty of time to practice using these with guidance from Peter.
It seems that LED lighting has suddenly taken over the world of lighting both in studios and locations, but there is now a puzzling array of different types of LED luminaires, so it will be incredibly useful to use these different types of luminaires at the lighting workshop so that you can experience using them at first hand.
The course leader for the lighting workshop is Graham Jaggers he is a very experienced lighting director and trainer who has lit many high profile shows as well as lighting long running serials such as The Bill
All of these workshops will be limited to 10 delegates so it is important you book very early.
For more information contact, info@ittp.co.uk

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