Volunteering at the BBC

   Since Summer 2015, I have been volunteering with BBC Voices in The Forum, Norwich, to film and edit events, edit music videos, and assist with film making workshops for schools. This blog post explains how all of that came about.

     I first discovered BBC Voices several years ago, when attending a basic film-making workshop. I was the only young person there! The course taught me a simple introduction to making films professionally, as oppose to the awful films I had attempted to make since being 8 years old. I learnt how to use a camera, how to frame the perfect shot, and how to edit. Part of my work with Voices now is to help teach the young and old those exact skills Voices taught me.

     In early 2015, I returned to BBC Voices almost by accident. Somehow Gary and Wendy recognised me, even though the short and spiky hair had long gone... This workshop allowed me to have my first shot at multi-camera directing, a career I had already decided upon and am still determined to achieve. After the workshop I returned to the BBC basement in the Forum - somewhat hesitantly - to find out how I could possibly do more of this. I was told I could attend an upcoming volunteering evening in a couple of weeks time and - not so long story short - I was later accepted as one of the volunteers.

     Simultaneously, I was accepted onto another project with BBC Voices, involving the filming of events for the Young Norfolk Arts Festival. We were given complete creative freedom to choose the events to film and how to do it - I even had a go at presenting in one of them. This short documentary covered the Jazz Night at Epic Studios in Norwich, which I worked on with two other BBC Voices volunteers to film and interview musicians, and then edit the next day.

 

    Since then I have been taking one day to volunteer at BBC Voices. Since then my roles have mainly been filming and editing music videos for some of the live sessions from the Introducing In Norfolk show on BBC Radio Norfolk, help teach editing at workshops, editing short school films together for showings at Cinema City, and producing short documentary pieces about local events. My role also extends to setting up the studio for events and tidying up after them, setting up computers, and of course making lots of tea and coffee! Below is some of my more recent work for BBC Voices, including edits of live performances for The Cut event and BBC Introducing Takeover Day, and a documentary edit on Pirate Radio.

Ref: Gary Standley / Wendy Witham at BBC Voices, BBC East, Norwich.