Media Studies

Melissa Bartlett
BA (Hons) Information and Media Studies, 2003

Whilst I was studying for my degree I did a 4 week placement at BBC Watchdog, which confirmed to me that a career in TV was for me.  When I left university, I did various work placements at different TV companies as a runner and then got a long running contract on an ITV show for RDF Media. After finishing this, I was made Assistant to the Head of Production and helped co-ordinate various projects, as well as assisting her and the other production executives. It was whilst doing this job that I got to know lots of people within the company, which enabled me to gain some more experience co-ordinating lots of development and commissioned projects.

It was after working on these projects that I was promoted to Production Co-ordinator, which is my current position.  I have recently been working on many projects, including 2 x 5 month stints in the Cook Islands filming the reality television show, Shipwrecked, for Channel 4.

I love my job, especially when I am on location and am able to get really involved with the filming.  I don’t enjoy working on projects that involve a large amount of office work as much, although this is sometimes unavoidable and paperwork is a big part of the production process, especially post- production, which everyone has to learn.

I am now permanent staff at RDF and plan to stay here for the foreseeable future.  My future career plans include, to work as a location manager on big location projects and travel as much as possible within the job.