On Saturday morning, I arrived at the Roundhouse, Camden, with no idea of what to expect. The weekend before, I had applied to take part in the Roundhouse Bloggers' Project, which is a course aimed at 16-25 year olds, who want to get into the competitive media industry. The workshop immediately appealed to me as an aspiring journalist, so I sent my application form, along with one blog post idea for the Roundhouse website, and hoped for the best.
As I had applied at the last-minute, I didn't have to wait long to find out if I had been successful and, the next day, I was delighted to find out that my idea of a series of 'How to Get Into the... Industry' blog posts had won me a place on the project- yippee!
Famous for welcoming some of the world's most famous stars through its doors, the Roundhouse is currently staging the annual iTunes Festival, which music acts such as Kasabian, Kylie and Ed Sheeran are all taking part in. Therefore, when I arrived at the venue, I was pretty nervous, knowing that such people had walked exactly where I was treading!
Once I found where I was going to be spending the day, I realised that there was absolutely no need for me to feel anxious. There were only six other people taking part in the same project as me, all of whom were very friendly and, like me, just wanted to get some tips for kick-starting our ideal careers.
Our tutors for the day were Emma Warren and Monique Todd, both journalists who have worked their way up to the top. We started the day by having an insight into the Roundhouse blog- which will hopefully soon feature some of my own work!- and were then taught about the different types of articles that can be written. Following this, we had a Twitter inspection.
Yep, our two tutors came and looked at our accounts, helping us set them up to be the most professional and captivating they could be. This was really helpful as social media is such a crucial way of attracting an audience to your work nowadays, so I instantly began to feel more confident about putting myself out there.
After an hour of adjusting our profiles, it was time for lunch.
As the Roundhouse is situated just a few minutes' walk away from Camden Market, my new journalism pals and I set off to get ourselves a delicious meal from one of the many stalls at the food section of the site. Whilst the others decided on curry and pizza, I, on the other hand, went for something a little sweeter- a Nutella crepe, of course!
It was divine.
Having finished our food, we headed back to the studios to continue the project. As a group, we discussed how we could build on the ideas we had each applied with. The Roundhouse had given us three main topics they wanted us to write about: 'Orfeo', the first ever opera to be staged at the venue next January; Fun Palace, an event where scientists, set designers and the public will be working to build a sculpture of a brain, and Amazing Spaces- basically anything about the Roundhouse building. We all worked together to come up with possible blog post subjects, using the ideas we had each already come up with. After whittling our extensive list of articles down to just 12, it was then time to get into small groups and start questioning members of the public on their experiences of the iTunes Festival.
This activity was much harder than I had imagined. Normally I find it easy to keep a conversation going with someone I don't know well but, when you've got headphones on, a dictaphone in your right hand and a camera in your left, it is much, much harder! At first, I found the pressure of recording whilst practically interviewing someone quite hard to deal with but, within a short space of time, I had gotten the hang of it. Whilst I wouldn't say that I am now an interviewing professional, I would definitely say that it is something I would feel more comfortable doing than before the course.
And that was it, my first day as part of the Roundhouse Bloggers' Project was over. Before leaving the building to allow the iTunes Festival to sort things out for Rudimental who were playing that evening, Emma and Monique distributed the article subjects between the seven of us. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be writing up these posts and then I will soon also be return to the studios to start the second stage of my course. Overall, my first day as a Roundhouse Blogger was truly inspirational, and I cannot wait to continue! Thank you so much to our lovely journalism tutors for the day, Emma and Monique, who made it so interesting and useful.
As I had applied at the last-minute, I didn't have to wait long to find out if I had been successful and, the next day, I was delighted to find out that my idea of a series of 'How to Get Into the... Industry' blog posts had won me a place on the project- yippee!
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| Photo taken from the Roundhouse website: www.roundhouse.org.uk |
Once I found where I was going to be spending the day, I realised that there was absolutely no need for me to feel anxious. There were only six other people taking part in the same project as me, all of whom were very friendly and, like me, just wanted to get some tips for kick-starting our ideal careers.
Our tutors for the day were Emma Warren and Monique Todd, both journalists who have worked their way up to the top. We started the day by having an insight into the Roundhouse blog- which will hopefully soon feature some of my own work!- and were then taught about the different types of articles that can be written. Following this, we had a Twitter inspection.
Yep, our two tutors came and looked at our accounts, helping us set them up to be the most professional and captivating they could be. This was really helpful as social media is such a crucial way of attracting an audience to your work nowadays, so I instantly began to feel more confident about putting myself out there.
After an hour of adjusting our profiles, it was time for lunch.
As the Roundhouse is situated just a few minutes' walk away from Camden Market, my new journalism pals and I set off to get ourselves a delicious meal from one of the many stalls at the food section of the site. Whilst the others decided on curry and pizza, I, on the other hand, went for something a little sweeter- a Nutella crepe, of course!
It was divine.
Having finished our food, we headed back to the studios to continue the project. As a group, we discussed how we could build on the ideas we had each applied with. The Roundhouse had given us three main topics they wanted us to write about: 'Orfeo', the first ever opera to be staged at the venue next January; Fun Palace, an event where scientists, set designers and the public will be working to build a sculpture of a brain, and Amazing Spaces- basically anything about the Roundhouse building. We all worked together to come up with possible blog post subjects, using the ideas we had each already come up with. After whittling our extensive list of articles down to just 12, it was then time to get into small groups and start questioning members of the public on their experiences of the iTunes Festival.
This activity was much harder than I had imagined. Normally I find it easy to keep a conversation going with someone I don't know well but, when you've got headphones on, a dictaphone in your right hand and a camera in your left, it is much, much harder! At first, I found the pressure of recording whilst practically interviewing someone quite hard to deal with but, within a short space of time, I had gotten the hang of it. Whilst I wouldn't say that I am now an interviewing professional, I would definitely say that it is something I would feel more comfortable doing than before the course.
And that was it, my first day as part of the Roundhouse Bloggers' Project was over. Before leaving the building to allow the iTunes Festival to sort things out for Rudimental who were playing that evening, Emma and Monique distributed the article subjects between the seven of us. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be writing up these posts and then I will soon also be return to the studios to start the second stage of my course. Overall, my first day as a Roundhouse Blogger was truly inspirational, and I cannot wait to continue! Thank you so much to our lovely journalism tutors for the day, Emma and Monique, who made it so interesting and useful.
Florrie x
For more information on the Roundhouse, or to find out more about their Young Creatives initiative, visit www.roundhouse,org.uk
For more information on the Roundhouse, or to find out more about their Young Creatives initiative, visit www.roundhouse,org.uk
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