Learning on ScreenSpringboard Gives Norfolk TV Punch!
This is a huge advantage for students, giving them an incentive to produce outstanding work which their peers can then comment on, day or night.
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Springboard has managed to produce a diverse range of video genres created by the vocational BTEC Television and film students. It is a valuable opportunity for them to display some of their work online and for followers to rate it and leave comments. This is a huge advantage for students, giving them an incentive to produce outstanding work which their peers can then comment on, day or night. In addition to providing a great platform for potential media entrepreneurs, it also gives learners who don’t study on the media course an opportunity to promote their coursework and be interactive. Importantly springboardtv.com doesn’t just show student video productions which focus solely on their own interests or videos that media students are required to make for their course, but it also creates documentaries around the college and in the community. Examples of these include a film, Hate Crime, made in association with professional film company gighousefilms.com; a multi-camera debate about immigration involving leading politicians on the panel; and uniquely an organ renovation film project developed to enhance the community. A commission from West Norfolk County Council lead to a hard hitting thirty-minute DVD called Think Twice about the misuse of drink and drugs on road, river and rail where students interview bereaved parents with dramatised reconstructions and interviews with paramedics and police; the finished product is salutary and harrowing. A college promo for its textile course, among many others being made for different department, gives West Anglia an advantage by being able to promote themselves against the ever increasing competition of sixth forms and other educational establishments, giving students valuable insights to its ‘training for industry’ ethos.
Course work has produced a diverse variety of productions, from an Eastern European stop motion poetry piece to a music video involving cardboard encased musicians. Five channels to date broadcast work under the headings of: poetry in motion, documentaries, community, films and music. More channels are planned to exhibit, among others, Art Department installation experimental films. Links have been developed between with the popular bi-weekly local paper Lynn News, giving springboardtv.com the chance to post videos on their website, opening up a whole new audience.
In the future, springboardtv.com are hoping to expand further into the local community and get more people involved. They have already started to work towards this goal by forming new links with www.felixstowetv.co.uk, Eric St.John Foti’s latest foray into internet television where he continues to progress his vision of live streaming from local communities throughout the UK. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s recent announcements for local community TV are naturally welcomed by Eric, the College of West Anglia’s very own visionary pioneer.
Excitingly springboardtv.com has also recently started to garner links further into Europe, taking part in a foreign exchange with French and German students who filmed the whole trip, with them posting it online to encourage the exchange students and many other people to come and visit the website and see the vast range of projects already created. The films were all made with subtitles so that they were easy to follow for people across the world.
The future of springboardtv.com will depend on how successfully it builds on the new opportunities Hunt foresees for community TV. With this head start, the College of West Anglia hopes to be at the forefront.
Article compiled by course leader Anthony Barnett and second year ABC Journalism students Hannah Allen, Amy Eglan, Elizabeth Clarke, Hayley Johnston, Lauren Isebell, Rosie Brown, Shannon Wiles-Van Dyke, Victoria Langford
www.springboardtv.com/
