It's a dogs life pilot: visual anarchy production | Alan Taylor

It's a Dogs Life is a pilot I worked on as Camera Operator during the completion of my BA (Hons) Television production degree in 2012. 'It's a dogs life' they say especially for Rover- a jive talking street-wise son of a b****. He has everything a dog could want; a roof over his head and a shrewd best friend in Bobby the Stray. Rover's creature comforts are threatened though when his owners, Jeff and Betty decide to end their sham of a marriage Rover becomes a pulling partner for his lothario master, with hilarious results. Will our hapless hound succeed in his attempts to reunite his family and win the love of prize-winning pooch, Misty The Dalmatian? This project was produced by students from the BA (Hons) Television Production degree and BA (Hons) Acting for Stage & Screen degree at Edinburgh Napier University. The Edinburgh Skillset Screen & Media Academy runs a programme of professional practice development to support student and graduate professional development through interaction with working industry professionals. It offers a combination of placements, mentoring and a range of masterclasses and practical workshops. The BA (Hons) TV course allows you to work on four team projects, producing pilot programmes in the factual and fiction genres. You also work together within a team to produce a studio magazine style programme using a modest TV studio based on it's Merchison Campus. A presentation module allows you to practice learning new skills in front of the camera, not only to benefit yourself as a potential journalist but as a means of understanding how a presenter or actor feels on set. For that module, you script, produce and edit your own short package with yourself as presenter. Within the course, you can specialise what you would like to do. I chose to gain more practice as a Camera Operator within the team projects. There is a great deal of writing required more than the practical side by far but it will develop your researching skills by sourcing material in the library, online and through undertaking face to face research interviews. You create yourself a plan of action which I turned into a report which I use today. You also choose a topic to investigate in great detail by writing a written report. I chose to write about wildlife film making, something I aspire to work in when I can think of a way to earn enough money to support myself independently. There are placement opportunities within the course where I worked with a small digital media company based in Edinburgh. I also was lucky enough to be a part of the Edinburgh Napier Mentoring Project which is a separate entity. There, I gained a placement at STV for a few days, learning from the staff based there and getting to grips with their catch on demand service and youtube management systems. On the course itself, I was lucky to watch an episode of the Hour being filmed in the STV studios at Pacific Quay where we were given a tour of it's multi camera studio and post production suites. The Scottish Screen Academy allowed me to attend many workshops which included learning what it takes to be a production assistant and even special one off events with Doctor Who writers!