Bournemouth students train for Olympic broadcasts

The Olympic Broadcasting Service is on campus this week training selected students from Bournemouth University’s (BU) prestigious Media School.

Broadcast training started on Monday on the sports fields at BU’s Talbot Campus. Sessions ranged from theory in the form of lectures and seminars to more practical lessons filming sports trials and practices. Students then applied their newly learnt professional technical skills to gain as much experience in filming live sport as possible in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.

Bournemouth University is one of only five higher education institutions that have been chosen for the training. Jim Owens, manager of the broadcast training programme said they chose to train students at BU because: “Bournemouth has a great reputation, you probably have as many students as any other school, and there are a lot of people prepared for camera work and the practical side of broadcast that interested us.”

He continued by saying training students to help film historic Olympic events has a strong heritage. “In 1984 the president of our company, Manolo Romero, was challenged to start a legacy at the Olympics through broadcasting and when he thought through the various options he said: ‘I would like to enhance the education of students and have an impact’. A lot of time when you’re broadcasting you’re just coming in and then moving on quickly, so he decided that education is the key. When we leave the UK we will have enhanced the education of many young people and helped them in their media careers.”

Jennifer Pullan a Radio Production MA graduate says of the course: “It’s invaluable, I’m learning a lot about the industry, the technical side and the practical aspects of filming on a field and differences in contact, lapel and shotgun microphones.”

Jennifer also says that the Olympic training programme has inspired her choice of coverage: “I would love to work in the Olympic stadium or in the Velodrome or to pick up the sound effects of the swimming. To work for one of the most important events in the country next year will be amazing.”

Mr Owens explained that the programme has grown in scale since it started: “In the first year we used volunteers, a very small number, and the programme was successful although Romero felt the students were worthy of being paid. So from then on we paid the students as entry level professionals and beefed up the programmes. Here we have about 1,100 jobs to give and 1,800 students in training, so we have invested a lot into this, bringing in equipment and some of the best people in the world in broadcasting to train the students.”

Mr Owens goes on to say that the trainers have been really pleased with the skills students from Bournemouth possess and overall the tutors have found the students especially well prepared.

• MA Radio Production
• BU’s Insight into 2012