Beeb life update...

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I am a month into my BBC Blast Creative Traineeship, as a Broadcast Assistant at Radio One!

I can hardly believe how quickly the time has gone, I have done a number of different duties, some of which I have never undergone before so it's brilliant to try new things and have an insight into how the station operates.

I'm hoping to visit Newbeat whilst i'm here and possibly get some written reviews up on the online music news pages, as I am keen to try out new areas of work and keep my written skills in tact (/practice them...!!)

A video I helped to film, of Kid Harpoon in session was up on the Radio 1 website for a while, I am hoping to get a copy of it from the team - but here's where you can find out a bit of info about the session:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/videos/inmwtstevelamacq/video/090709_kidharpoon

At the moment i'm looking for a project to undertake for the Arts Award. I could simply document my time here, but I'd like to go beyond that and create a mini-project, perhaps a mini-documentary about the station and it's current position...I have ideas - it's just putting them into a workbook, playing them out and putting together the final product! Not tough then, ha. Here's the site:

http://www.artsaward.org.uk/site/?id=66

Calvin Harris is coming on the show tomorrow - which should be funn! :)

Beyond that I have done a fair bit of sightseeing, but need to do more (London is massive though, I could spends days writing a 'must-see' list alone.)

Life at Radio 1

Wow.

I can hardly believe where my life is taking me at the moment. It seems all the hard work is beginning to pay off though - but not entirely, there's still loads more hard work to be done!

I feel as though I rarely stop to think or relax anymore, it's non-stop, mission after mission, seeking out new experiences at every opportunity. Which isn't such a bad life - I just need to make sure I remain in touch with people and don't neglect my home-life.

I'm at home at the moment, taking a breather - uploading new CDs to my mac and syncing it with my ipod - so I finally have some music to listen to whilst I roam around London!

But here's a run down of my BBC Blast placement so far...

I started on Monday 22nd June, 10am - had an induction and tour of Yalding House, home of Radio 1 and 1Xtra. All week I completed inline training courses, a policy of the Beeb.

Joe Harland, one of the Specialist producers gave me a few tasks to get on with as well, before my time on the Nick Grimshaw Show began.

These included:

Removing bad language from the Gaslamp Killer set live from Sonar festival
Brainstorming for the T in the Park competition
& putting together clips of slipknot (to test my editing skills)
He also made sure I was shown the R1 system, so I could load in tracks for shows etc!

We had a few training sessions, in the studios - Joe even gave me half an hour or so to muck about on the CD-J's & Zane's Kaos Pad! (eee)

Week 2 and I've started on the Grimmy Show, 10-midnight, the hours are odd (4pm until midnight) but it's great that I get to work within a lovely team, on a brand new show that is finding it's feet.

So far i've been loading in tracks, writing notes for the scripts, compiling info about forthcoming guests & typing up trackilistings & online content whilst we're on air. I also occasionally manage text messages (when the Assistant Producers are away) & maintain the facebook/BEBO accounts!

The hostel was nice, but extremely hot (I think we had a heatwave and besides, London is stuffy!) There was no air-con, I had a top-bunk, there were 4 girls sharing one very small room & the kitchen was in the basement. So halls is a step up! Plus I now have the internet to update (whoever reads this) on my antics - finally.

I really must update this more often as I am hoping to put together an arts award project! see ya