Hello!

Today was my first ‘proper’ day doing work experience at Channel 4 – my first day with the online department and a long and interesting day it was!

I thought I’d struggle to wake up in the morning but luckily (in a way) I was so nervous that when my alarm went off at 7.30am I was very awake! So I got dressed, did my make up and went to make the most of the free breakfast before coming back up to my room to brush my teeth and get ready for the day.

Then a bunch of us walked over to the Channel 4 offices to await our managers from each department to pick us up and reveal what was in store for the three days we’re working!

I was picked up by Lauren and James (who are both so unbelievably lovely!) and they took me up to their department and gave me a computer and I had to set up a log in. There was having to ring some sort of tech guy and battle with my awful hearing to understand someone on the other end of the line but eventually I got it all set up and was ready to start.

From there I went for what was basically a chat with Lauren and James – we sat down and talked a bit about me and a bit about them and then spoke through the brief of the Shorts that get put up on Channel 4’s website (I thoroughly recommend watching a few – most of them are about 3 minutes long and some of them are really thought provoking!) and essentially, I’ve got the next three days to come up with an idea to pitch to the Shorts Commissioners on Thursday – it’s a bit daunting right now but I think it’ll be okay.

I spent the rest of the day browsing the Channel 4 website ‘All 4’ to watch recent Shorts and old Shorts to give myself a feel of the kind of content Channel 4 make and what works well on their website. I have a few ideas but I’m going to solidify and work on a few tomorrow I think!

I have a lunch break just after 1 and I realised that the food voucher’s we were given go a long way! I got a plate of chips and two cans of coke (one for lunch, one for back at the hotel later because it’s free!) and I still had more than half of the voucher left. I picked up a twix, some malteasers, a packet of hula hoops and some ‘Proper corn’ and I still didn’t max out the £5! Will definitely be making the most of it tomorrow, more free food yes please!

After lunch I went back to my desk to watch more shorts and later on in the afternoon James and I met with Nicole from Commissions and her work experience girl Alana (who is staying in the same hotel as me!) and we all had a very informal chat about what we want from work experience, where we’d like our careers to go and our home towns! It was all very casual and relaxed and it’s such a cool vibe there at Channel 4.

Around half past 5, I was finished for the day! So I walked in what I knew was the opposite direction to the hotel, thinking I’d find a Tescos that we spotted last night. What actually happened is I got a bit lost, some weird boys tried to talk to me and then I searched for the hotel on maps and found a Sainsburys on the way!

The guys were so weird – I could hear them talking, loud and obnoxious, behind me then they over took me. One of them made a comment but as he turned to look at me he did a double take and said “Oh you’re quite cute actually, lose the glasses and the green coat”. Biting back a snarky comment about needing my glasses to see but if I took them off it meant I wouldn’t be able to see him and let him walk away. I’d shaken off the creepy feeling by the time I got to Sainsburys and then got back to the comfort of my room.

This evening has been particularly chilled – I had a shower when I got back and I’ve been under the covers in bed ever since, playing around on my laptop, eating my Sainsburys dinner and trying to motivate myself to do some work and instead playing mindless games online. Not productive, but fun nonetheless!

Tomorrow will be another day of working on my pitch and dropping in on more meetings and talking to new people and getting contacts hopefully! I’ll feed back again tomorrow night!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx





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