It's the second day of my work experience at the Stranger Collective, and I've got to grips with my press release assignment. It's for a very reputable bespoke shoe company, and I had to promote their new range of women's shoes. I found it easy to emulate the tone of voice of the company, but finding a story in the material I was given from the website was more time consuming. However, with some feedback from Claire, I soon realised where I was going wrong and cut out some pointless repetition and re-drafted the whole thing.
I've waiting for my next assignment, which has something to do with the Exeter University prospectus. I'm enjoying the variety of work, I think that you can find a way to get the company's voice across, without losing your own voice. Learning to write in different styles is important to me because I think the more versatile I can be, the more recognition I will achieve. I don't want to get tied down to one style, it's better to be open and embrace everything that is assigned to me.
In my previous entry I was panicking about work experience options, but I need fret no more. I got two responses in one day yesterday. One from a copywriting company called Ink, and a TV production company called Calling The Shots, both based in Bristol. I don't think I'll take the Ink offer up, because I'm already doing copywriting with Stranger. But I called one of the managers of Calling The Shots earlier to discuss the placement and they sounded enthusiastic.
I would be reading drama scripts for them and making suggestions/alterations. I wanted to OK it with Christina first, and she has encouraged me to accept the offer, as it is often difficult to get a foot in the door with independent production companies. I hope they get back to me soon, the only problem being, the set time frame for the placement. They wanted me to stay there for a month or two, but I had to explain that that wasn't possible, even though I wanted to. But, Jeremy said there may well be a few projects under way by March, so that is encouraging news.
I also emailed an influential woman at the BBC drama department today, with the recommendation of Paul Dodgson (ex BBC 4 radio producer). It's a bit of a shot in the dark, but even if I helped out as a runner for a couple of days, it would look great on my CV. I hope I hear something back from her, even if it's a rejection letter.
So I've got another three days at Stranger, then a week to prepare myself for the second semester. Which means deciding which publications I want to aim my features at and coming up with at least five ideas to be getting on with. Then, I've got to do the same with TV/Radio ideas. As well as starting some research for my dissertation. Phew... That's a lot of work - But I love it.
I still haven't paid the rest of my fees, I'm going to wait until they get heavy on me. I figure that I should get my free Cornish money as soon as I finish at Stranger and Claire has signed the papers. If that is correct, I will only have to pay about eight-hundred pounds to the college. Which will cut some slack on my credit card, and lessen my monthly repayments. Then hopefully I won't need to get out another card to pay for the repayments. Yah.
