Media students work with local education charity Think for the Future to create a promotional film

A group of BA (Hons) Media students worked on a live project with the charity, who aim to help young people reach their full potential

The students filming in Think for the Future's offices

Final year BA (Hons) Media students have completed a live project with Midlands charity Think for the Future, which aims to tackle social and emotional barriers to learning. The project forms part of the module Advanced Media Practice (Now named Client-Led Media Practice and Production), which sees students working to a brief from an external company in order to create a promotional video.

The students worked closely with Think for the Future to complete the brief; their first experience of working with an external client. The students created a 2-3 minute video that summarises what the company does, highlighting the innovations the company uses to create outcomes for students. Think for the Future will be featuring the video on their social media pages and website in order to promote their services.

Think for the Future was established in 2012 to use a data-driven approach to tackle social and emotional barriers to learning. The charity delivers behaviour mentoring, workshops and assemblies, staff training and works with youth groups in Nottingham City, in order to help 11-16 year olds to reach their full potential.

We caught up with BA (Hons) Media student Noushka Seher, who spoke to us about her experience of the live project. She told us: “What I've enjoyed most about the project is working with Think for the Future. We've developed a really good working relationship with them and we've all really enjoyed creating the video for them.”

She continued: “It’s also been fantastic seeing how far we've all come from first year, when none of us had much experience editing or using media equipment and now we're putting together a professional video for a company that's going to be used on their social media channels. We're all really proud of that.”

Taking part in a live project as part of the Advanced Media Practice module allows students to experience working with a client, enhancing their transferable skills and further developing their media production skills. It enables students to put into practice the skills and experience they have gained throughout the course to produce a video that can be added to their portfolio. Noushka added: “I've gained confidence from this module in terms of being comfortable using all of the equipment as well as with working closely and communicating with a client which has given me real world experience.”