Media students make the news

Luis Oddy 17 from Rochdale presenting the news

Media students from Hopwood Hall College have been tasked with creating a weekly 60 second video news segment for a local news website.

Pauline Journeaux, Managing Director of Rochdale Online, contacted the media department to offer media students some work experience. She had in mind a video news slot, where students would present the week’s news in brief from the Rochdale area.

Pauline sent them stories she wanted them to cover, along with images and the students used the College’s state-of-the-art TV studio/green screen to produce the final piece. The students produced a script and completed it in 24 hours. Michael Hall did all the post production wizardry using ‘Adobe After Effects’ software.

The first video was edited by 18-year-old Michael Hall from Middleton, with
Natasha Fitzpatrick, 16, from Rochdale, as the presenter, Jordan Whittle, 18, from Failsworth, behind the camera and Karl Harris, 18, from Middleton, as the producer.

Students will take turns with different roles in the show each week so they all get work experience.

Luis Oddy, 17, from Rochdale, who along with 18-year-old Ines Uwase from Oldham presents this week’s news, said: "It's a really good opportunity to gain some valuable work experience in a professional studio. Having the teleprompter really helped. The more stories I presented, the more confident I became.”

Rob Maddison, media tutor at the College adds: "Working with Rochdale Online is a great way to give our students real world experience of working in the media. Rochdale Online has given us a lot of support already this year and it is great to be working with them."

Pauline Journeaux said: "We have a long tradition of offering work experience to local students and are pleased to now be able to offer real world experience to the media students at Hopwood."