There is a very important issue here and one that annoys me deeply and that is the wholesale betrayal of young people and the ruining of their lives.
But before we get to that issue, lets deal with a few points -
What is your website? I'd like to see your film & tv work.
If I wanted you to know who I am, I'd have told you. Let us just say that I have worked in the media right across Europe for nearly 50 years (on and off). I began at Granada TV at the age of 16 and have worked for various diverse organisations across Europe, from Pro7, RAI, RTL, BBC, Sat1, Disney and a whole host of others that I have forgotten. I have worked on band videos, corporate videos, TV series and feature films. I have worked on small hip-hop urban road shows and huge rock tours that require 30+ trucks of kit. I have also worked in the trade press and even ran a news agency.
So Shez, trust me, if I make a comment on someone's attempt at making videos, music or any other media related activity, I do so from a position of some experience. My personal advice to you, is to go back and read and then reread those two books I recommended. I have no idea what you learned at Westminster, but your lighting and framing skills require a revisit.
And that brings me neatly to the main issue. Education.
Shez is typical. Every year, our educational system churns out some 12,000 Shezes. In audio and music technology alone, universities are pouring about 3,000 graduates. In film and video, the figure is about three times that.
That is about 12,000 graduates for what is quite literally just a handful of jobs, most of which go to two colleges - music production staff are usually taken from Surrey Uni's 'Tonmeister' course. TV and film tend to limit their new intake to graduates from the National Film and Television School. Stage and live performance also look for techs from LIPA (Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts).
The rest get the crumbs that fall from the table.
The big players, such as the BBC are drawing down on staff as automation and other technical developments kick in and reduce the need for skilled personnel. The days of reel-to-reel tape recorders and Steenbeck editing tables ended over a generation ago. Some of the most sophisticated software for editing film and television, creating computer graphics or editing audio is now either free or available for pennies. Computers are now so powerful that you can buy a 36-core, multi-CPU PC for a few thousand, that can edit 4K film in RAW (i.e. uncompressed) format in real time without even breaking a sweat.
These are exciting times and new opportunities are opening up everywhere we look.
BUT
This flood of humanity that pours from our universities have been told that there are jobs in the media out there. This blatant lie flies in the face of TV, film and radio employing fewer and fewer staff, print is totally on its uppers and the UK music business staggers from one Adel release to the next with almost nothing in between!
Every film studio, production company, recording studio, live sound company and broadcaster gets hundreds and some even thousands of CVs every year. I think Abbey Road, Air and Angel Studios have received a CV from almost every 'Music Technology' graduate out there - yet they just look for Surrey 'Tonmeister' grads. People have even offered us money to work at one of my companies. That is bonkers!
So the next obvious question is, why do the main players only want graduates from two or three courses and shun the rest?
The reason is simple - those three provide students with a rigorous, thorough and demanding education. The Tonmeister understands IT to the point where he or she can build and trouble-shoot a network. But they also understand orchestration and have to pass a musical audition and be able to sight-read a score. LIPA wants people who already have experience in stage, screen or music. NFTS wants to see a show-reel BEFORE you get in.
And of course, all three demand a high level of academic achievement (i.e. good A-Levels in proper subjects).
The others? Some are sort of OKish, but most are pretty dire! I have seen one university advertise its requirements for Music Technology as "one A-Level, grade D or higher, or equivalent life experience."
In other words, if you are able to talk and are warm and also happen to be able to give us £9,000 p.a., we can waste three years of your life and give you a BA or a BSc that is not only totally worthless, but will have every sane employer slamming the door in your face!
Graduates are therefore given a stark choice of three options -
1. Keep on banging your head against a brick wall, trying to get a start in a business that does not want you, whilst you inadvertently develop a career in shelf-stacking.
2. Give up, throw that 'sheepskin' in the bin and do something completely different.
3. Start your own company, making videos, recording bands, creating that gritty urban drama masterpiece in hi-def, making corporate promos mostly for relatives and for nothing, etc., etc., etc.
Shez, like thousands of others, went for option three. This is where the wind blows colder than anywhere else!
The three big problems are -
1. All the other hopefuls out there looking to sell their services. I think we get an offer to do our business video or similar beast at least once a week.
2. A lack of business acumen and capital. All the things you need to know in order to run a business, like how to build or commission a website that sells, how to run the books, how to do your VAT returns, how to judge a P&L account. How to judge RoI, etc. is totally missing. After all, the graduate did not study business administration!
3. A poor education in their core subject. All these bogus courses do is teach kids how to play with toys. Cameras, software, microphones, lights, all good fun. But no art and design. No study of the classical painters that created the look that a cinematographer is supposed to achieve. No mention anywhere in these courses of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Chiaroscuro or Hopper, despite the fact that nearly all our modern imagery is based on those four painters (and others of course!)
It is quite usual for a graduate of a Music Technology course to be totally unable to read a score or read a circuit diagram - they got a 2:1 in playing with toys, but 'Music Technology' involved neither music, nor technology!
I have come across film graduates that have never done any ADR (additional dialogue recording - i.e. dubbing) sessions and would not know where to begin in conducting such a session (despite the fact that most film dialogue is ADR). As for the technical requirements of the various delivery platforms, or how an Atmos soundtrack is encoded and decoded, or how sound and image is digitally quantified, or even have knowledge of the various aspect ratios, the situation is often that the so-called graduate is totally clueless.
The sad truth is that nearly all these 'sexy' vocational degree courses are just one huge con-job.
12,000 graduates are added to the 12,000 graduates from last year and the 12,000 graduates from the year before that, looking for jobs in one of the 50 recording studios, three film studios, 20 TV studios, or ten live sound companies - none of which need many, if any, staff at all!
