Jack beats hundreds to land Channel 4 spot

First year student, Jack Fitzpatrick, was among the 150 successful applicants to take part in a Channel 4 Production ‘Pop Up’ in Liverpool in early April, and his work impressed so much that he is now one of just a handful of young people selected for two days’ all-expenses-paid work experience at the TV channel’s London headquarters in May.

The Pop Up was aimed at those aged 16 and over who are interested in TV production and journalism, teaching the basics and then putting people into teams to produce their own work.

Here, Jack writes about his experience on the day:

I was fortunate to be selected by Channel 4 to attend one of their Pop Up events in Liverpool. It was an absolutely fascinating insight in to the world of TV and TV production.

On arrival, everyone was given a task to do as an ‘ice breaker’. This was human bingo: a set of questions and you had to find people who could answer them.  After that, there was an entire morning on the brief in which they outlined each of the roles that we had to cover during the day. These were: editor; producer; runner; researcher and the person on screen acting out the story.

I formed part of a group of eight and we were given a task to produce a short film between one and two minutes’ duration that was based around Channel 4’s advertising campaign for the Paralympics during London 2012. There had to be at least one reference to the Paralympics in the film and we had to think outside the box to get our film to a wide demographic which was the cross section of people that they had chosen for the day, who came from all walks of life.

Jack (second from left) with his team at the Channel 4 Pop Up in Liverpool

My team had a deaf person on it and this opened our eyes as to how difficult it was for disabled people to communicate with the outside world. I also have a diagnosis of Dyspraxia and Autism so it was interesting to see how we all coped with the day.

Our film was on ‘Barriers’ and this was highlighting the daily struggles of a disabled person.  Our team decided to make the first part silent to highlight deaf awareness and the deaf person signed their story, whilst the other part was highlighting Autism and Dyspraxia and I delivered this presentation on behalf of the group, describing how with awareness and education a person can thrive. There was also an additional message explaining how people need to break down the separation between disabled people and everyone else.

Due to this unique take on the task, our film got selected to be aired to the rest of the group. The message enabled a greater understanding and acknowledgement that disabled people are here and that they are people too.

The Channel 4 Headquarters in London

At the end of the day, there was an awards ceremony to select rising stars who stood out throughout the day and three of our team including me got selected to be part of 17 people to get two days’ work experience in the London HQ of Channel 4 in May.

To conclude, the day was absolutely fantastic and I feel really proud to progress to the next stage in the process. My personal interpretation of the day was that it has given me unique skills that I can highlight on my CV and has enabled me to meet like-minded people which has led me to progress to the London stage. Hopefully I can come away from that stage as well with some more insight as to how the media industry works and with even more skills.

Watch Jack and his team's video production from the day below: