Question Time

Wednesday, 01 July 2009 09:09

Television comes to Treviglas!

BBC’s Question Time was broadcast from Treviglas Community College, Newquay on Thursday 25th June, and ten Treviglas students were given the chance to go behind the scenes and join the preparations for broadcast.

The experience began with meeting the director of the show, Rob Hopkin, who enthusiastically showed the students around the set, detailing the processes involved in putting on an outside broadcast such as Question Time. It was remarkable to see the changes to the college’s main hall, which had overnight been transformed into the well recognised studio. The groups were taken into the ‘scanner’, the control room from which Rob Hopkin, together with his vision and sound mixers, co-ordinates the cameras and microphones to produce a polished live show.

The highlight of the afternoon was to participate in rehearsals. Five of the students occupied the panel seats, whilst the others became audience armed with questions. David Dimbleby joined the students on set, immediately establishing a good rapport with everyone in the room. What was striking was that such a well known and sometimes challenging presenter, could be so warm and friendly to the youngsters, sharing with them his love for Desperate Housewives, the popular Channel Four show. A few questions were asked of the students, who in turn were ‘grilled’ by Dimbleby. Once camera positions had been established, and microphones tuned, rehearsal came to an end, as did the students’ experience of television production.

The students were all really excited to have had this opportunity, and felt they had learnt a great deal from it. Several of the students were Media Studies students at the college, and were motivated to pursue their dream career.

Who knows, one of them may be in the hot seat, leading the Question Time of the future!