Danny Wilkinson
“I captured all the action at a local hustings before the general election. The experience has fueled my ambition of becoming a video editor.”
Hello, I'm Danny Wilkinson, and I study Level 3 Creative Digital Media at East Sussex College Hastings.
I really enjoy studying here and have learnt so much about creating digital media. The content of the course is varied, and most recently, I've been learning how to create, shoot, and edit a music video. I've learnt that I need to create a narrative and tell a story with the video. My tutor, Jake, has been excellent at explaining how to structure the film, making sure we have a beginning, middle, and an end.
It's a really great project to work on, as we're able to collaborate with students from the music department. They're creating the music, and we're making music videos for their pieces.
I already had quite a good knowledge of video editing before joining the course. I used Sony Vegas at home to edit films for fun, but it was handy to know the types of software we'd be using on the course, such as Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, so I could start to become familiar with how they work - and get better at using them!
Learning a few things before the course has helped me during class and assignments, but learning at home on your own doesn't really compare to learning at college. I have the support and expert knowledge of my tutors who actually know what they're doing. Plus, the other students in my class enables us to work together - that creates a really friendly and supportive learning environment.
It's not just learning inside the classroom either. I've been able to work on and gain experience during some really great media events. In the run-up to the 2019 General Election, I had the chance to record the Hastings hustings event that took place at Station Plaza. We set up cameras, interviewed MPs in the elevators so they could give us their 1-minute manifestos, and live-streamed the Q&A with the audience.
It was a great experience and went even better than I thought - one of our videos went viral and was shared on national news outlet websites after one of the candidates made a few controversial points. It was a real insight into how news can travel so fast in the digital world.
After the course, I want to go into either the gaming industry to design games or follow a new ambition and go into video editing. This course has helped me discover a passion for editing because I really enjoy putting my creative ideas into a video, helping me bring the story to life in a way that I envision it to be. So I'm really excited and like the idea of working in that sort of industry.