Amy MacBeath

Last week I spent my third and final placement at the BBC in Inverness.  Having already crammed serious amounts of information into my head since New Year I arrived prepared to stuff in even more!  Being a Highlander my plan was to go to Broadcasting House up north so that I would be working in a familiar area and, if need be, be able to pronounce places!  The first couple days were spent writing, cutting and researching for the Highlands & Islands news bulletins and going out with the Reporting Scotland presenters to film packages.  The timing of Inverness Caledonian Thistle sacking their manager worked well for me as there was plenty to film – I narrowly escaped an appearance myself!  The best part was getting the chance to research, script, edit and voice my own piece for the morning bulletin – they actually aired it too!  I even noticed one of the scripts I wrote made the website. 

Thursday was spent in the features department researching for the BBC Radio Scotland ‘No Going Back’ programme…basically I called random people and asked for their memories and stories on the naval base and protester camp at Faslane, Argyll & Bute.

On my last day I worked with the Gaelic team on An La (the news for BBC Alba) – it was an interesting experience to say the least as everyone dipped in and out of Gaelic all day..I found myself smiling when they all laughed just so I looked as though I was in on whatever the joke may have been…could have been at me for all I know.  As the producer had handed over control to someone for the night I shadowed him and he gave me a very useful and much needed lesson in avid - I think all his work took him five times as long due to the fact that I had to press all the buttons. 

Overall I really enjoyed my week there and think I learned a lot, having a chance to put my begginer’s skills into practice….

…..I also hope that it will be the end of being asked which school I go to for a wee while!

Last night I went along to the BBC at Pacific Quay to see the filming of a new comedy, The Old Guys.  The programme was filmed in the new high definition studio and starred Clive Swift (Richard Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances), Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger in Only Fools and Horses), Jane Asher (actress and novelist who also developed a range of cakes) and Katherine Parkinson (Doc Martin, the IT crowd).  The comedy is basically about two guys growing old disgracefully and I have to say had a good few laughs but I won’t spoil it as it will be on tv soon enough!

I haven’t been along to anything like this before and it was really interesting learning about the mechanics of how it all works and the amount of work that goes into sets down to the tiniest detail like live goldfish and the various books and props cluttered around.  I was also very impressed at the professionalism of these actors, which may seem like a given as they have been in the business for many years, but I suppose I expected more mistakes and joking around. 

I feel I should mention the warm up guy, Tom Bins, who provided plenty of hilarity throughout and kept the crowd going…not to mention the (not at all planted BBC staff member) guy who was in front of me who cackled on cue and whose enjoyment of the programme (as instructed?) did entertain us considerably.

After the show I also managed to introduce myself to (a somewhat surpised) Jeff Zycinski, Head of BBC Radio Scotland.  It did come as a bit of a surprise to hear from Claire that I had been mentioned on his blog though, although I must have done well to hide my delightful Invernesian accent!