An area of professional media which was spoken about in our guest speaker series was production. Personally, production had never really interested me before as, after hearing from people I know on production-based courses, this seemed to be all about video editing. This thought of mine also seemed to be supported by my further reading into this field as the majority of sources tended to emphasise video creation. (Study.com, 2019) Whilst I have experience with video editing for projects, I am not the most enthusiastic about this and did not look further into this career as I thought I wouldn’t want to stay in it. 

This perception of mine shifted when I listened to the talk from guest speaker Phil Arkinstall, the managing director for ARK Media. Phil has been at ARK Media for over a decade (Arkinstall, n.d.) and therefore I believed that he would be an expert in the production industry and be able to provide accurate information as to what a career in this field may be like. 

One point of Phil’s talk which changed my perception was that every day is different in production. Part of my disinterest in production was based around the idea that production would be an endless cycle of editing and staring at a computer as, during my personal experience in producing video projects, this has certainly been the case. However, Phil’s description of attending team meetings and working in local communities, such as his work with the Sutton Coldfield Chamber of Commerce, made me realise that there is far more to production than I first thought and, whilst this still might not be my first option, I could certainly keep it in consideration. 

Additionally, Phil mentioned media producers often develop their skills through a mixture of self-teaching, such as watching tutorial videos, and formal training. This interested me as a number of my current skills are self-taught, for instance how I almost entirely learnt how to use Photoshop by myself. I have also been considering taking practical placements as part of my professional experience which would therefore provide me with formal training. Phil’s point here has encouraged me even more to seek professional experience as then I have met both criteria mentioned by a media professional.

A key skill identified by Phil was the ability to. Be diplomatic and listen to feedback. This is a skill I need to work on as currently, I sometimes take feedback too personally which leads to me losing interest in a project. Phil claimed that with feedback he has received in the past, he has had to acknowledged that not everyone will be entirely positive about work all the time and so learning to separate constructive criticism from negativity is beneficial to success. As a result, I have decided to ask for more criticism in my work and actively seek areas which I could improve upon as this will give me the experience necessary to identify when criticism is justified.

References:

Arkinstall, P. (n.d.) Philip Arkinstall  [LinkedIn Profile] LinkedIn. Retrieved April 1, 2021, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/philiparkinstall/ 

Study.com (2019) Media Production Careers: Options and Requirements. https://study.com/articles/Media_Production_Careers_Options_and_Requirements.html