Sixth Formers get inspired at Media Magazine Conference

The Media Magazine Conference at The British Film Institute was an essential part of our budding Film and Media students’ journeys, with six essential talks ranging from the subject of AI, fandom and filmmaking to the topic of YouTubers and newspapers.

Within the conference, we all learned that it means to be a part of the industry from all aspects. We had exclusive talks from Chris Hog, Alison Phillips, Hannah Ewens, Harv Frost, Nida Manzoor, and David Hesmondhalgh, all prominent figures in the media industry, encompassing all essential roles such as lecturing, filmmaking and editing a national newspaper.

During each lecture, I observed a significant expansion and growth in mine and my class’s understanding of the media industry. This was all very useful and gave everybody insights on what they want to use their Film Studies and Media Studies A-Levels respectively for in the future. We all felt that having a talk directly from Hesmondhalgh came in handy as he is one of the media theorists that we are expected to write about in our exams, so to be able to meet him face to face was something I could never have predicted. One year ago, I was learning about him as if he were a celebrity, and suddenly he was there in front of my face.

On top of this, getting to meet everybody who spoke was wonderful and gave me some real insight on the types of amazing creatives that I one day hope to be around within the media industry.

By Hugo Sheppard 13OT, Film Studies and Media Studies student