As part of their coursework, Year 13 Media Production students have been creating a series of short documentary films on a variety of topics to appeal to young people.

The client brief for the factual production unit offered a great deal of creative freedom in that students were allowed to research and propose a unique topic for their documentary. This open brief resulted in a wide range of fascinating productions from ‘Fybromyalgia and Me’, an intimate documentary about this debilitating medical condition and the difficulties faced by those who live with it on a daily basis, to ‘The Ugly Truth about Social Media’, which examines the negative effects of social media upon self-esteem. Other topics include the impact of gaming upon young people, fitness addiction and the music industry crisis as a result of lockdown.

The unit has given students the opportunity to build a host of transferable skills; not only have they successfully planned the whole production but they have also written the script, conducted interviews, presented on camera and filmed all of their own footage before editing into a finished product.

In 2021, the Media Department hopes to launch it’s very own online video-on-demand service called ‘KJTV’. Similar to BBC iPlayer, KJTV will give the community access to a wide range of programmes and videos in categories, all produced by media students at the Academy. These documentaries will be the first to help populate the site along with a news programme produced by Year 14 student, Logan L who is studying the advanced course. However, the intention is to collaborate with other departments to produce videos for other categories such as a cooking programme from Food Science & Nutrition, music videos from Music, and fitness videos with Sport & PE