Journalism student, Maisie Watling, reports on the Semester One Media Futures series
Maisie gives her account of the talk by TV Producer and Media Trainer, Julian Dismore.
On 20 October 2020, our students attended a Media Futures event with TV Producer and Media Trainer, Julian Dismore. Julian’s talk outlined ‘Getting into the media industries and getting on once you’re in!’
Julian started the event by playing an interactive game with our students; four truths and one lie. The statements which the students were to decide from reflected on moments of Dismore’s career, such as:
- I fell 30ft from Volcano Krakatoa in the middle of the night;
- I filmed undercover as a paedophile in sex bars;
- I flew through a warzone and was placed under hotel arrest.
When explaining the context of these moments, Dismore highlighted how he believed moral messages/ career tips were encoded into them. The advice was as follows:
- ‘Detail is very important’
- ‘Always have a spare pen’
- ‘Be multi-skilled’ and,
- ‘The show must go on.’
Dismore then played a personal video message from ‘The Queen of daytime TV’ Lorraine Kelly, who described Julian as a ‘complete joy’ to work with. Before complimenting him further, ‘Julian is organised, professional and cool under pressure.’ This demonstrated the impression Dismore has made on his collegues in his career; something which he was about to encourage our students to do.
Julian described the Media Industry as being ‘fiercely competitive’ and highlighted that it is a job that ‘lacks security’. So, he went on to give our students his best advice on how to be successful within the industry.
The six elements that were most poignant in Dismore’s advice were:
- CONTACTS: Use LinkedIn to send contact requests. Watch the credits of shows and find people’s email addresses. Join websites such as ‘Talent Manager’.
- ORGANISE CONTACTS: Make a table that clearly outlines who you have emailed/called, the date, have they got back to you?
- CHARM PEOPLE: Make an impression, if you’re invited to a social event, go! Get along with people, keep them in your contacts.
- EMAILS: ‘Keep it succinct, focus on essentials i.e. what you want and why they should give it to you.’
- CVs: use this as your ‘selling document’. Only include specific job skills and experience and ‘real world jobs’.
- LinkedIn: Don’t put ‘student’ on LinkedIn, call yourself what you want to be! You need to appear professional and ready to work!
When the students asked how to deal with moments of self-doubt Dismore said “Don’t take no for an answer, be resilient, keep battling to make your own luck, the more seeds you sow the more chance you have of flourishing.”
If you would like to seek further advice from Julian Dismore:
Youtube: Directproductionstv
LinkedIn: Julian Dismore
Website: http://www.directproductions.co.uk
