The Parallel University is a response to an increased volume of student demand for training/mentoring in skills that are relevant for work in the new small-scale TV broadcasting and web based TV industries. This includes platforms providing access to news and commentary via social media feeds such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as dedicated TV sites supported by YouTube or Vimeo.
From its Summerhall HQ, ILT will run a course of forty hours in duration (running part-time over three or so months and to suit student availability) to fine-tune TV skills among students studying TV and Journalism, in preparation for work in local and community TV. Students will get the opportunity to make 8 clips, 2-3 minutes in length. To successfully graduate the student’s TV clips will need to be accepted for screening on one of several approved .tv sites, and/or local TV (initially NvTv in Belfast).
Each 2-3 minute clip will follow a simple template or pattern comprising interview(s) and cutaways. Some clips will be time-critical. Production and editing will be expected to take less than four hours while for time-critical interviews filming, editing and publishing will be completed over the course of a single day.
The primary objective of the course is to bring student TV-making practices up to speed with increasing social demand (in Scotland) to generate alternative sources of TV news and cultural documentation.
ILT’s Director, Dr David Rushton, has been involved with local and community of interest film and TV making since 1979. Rushton taught TV and Communication Policy at Queen Margaret University from 1990-2000, establishing Channel Six Broadcasting Ltd in 1999 with Local TV Masters graduates who ran Edinburgh Television and Channel Six Dundee until 2003. Rushton has long been an advocate of local broadcasting in local hands and his doctorate concerns the demands for an as-yet un-realised local public service television. He has written regularly on applying the principle of subsidiarity to broadcasting in Scotland.
Courses will take place at the Institute of Local Television’s offices at Summerhall, Edinburgh.
For more information, please contact Institute of Local Television on 07906 692506 or local.tv@virgin.net.