I decided to look for a formal internship in the summer of 2020 to broaden my horizons and to do more practical work. Through my classes at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies from 2018 to 2020, I learnt a lot of very basic theoretical knowledge about the media industry, but I never had the opportunity to go hands-on in the industry. So, in this situation, I took a step forward, and I submitted my CV for an internship at many media company and included Guangdong Radio and Television station. Many companies rejected my application because I had no background in internships, but the leader of the Guangdong Radio and Television Station was a University of Westminster graduate, and she decided to give me a chance. She interviewed me by asking some basic questions and gave me some material to try to edit a video. I did my best to make a video that was suitable for posting on TikToK, although I didn’t edit it well, later she gave me the opportunity to stay on as an intern director at Guangdong Radio and Television Station. I am still very grateful to her for giving me such a good opportunity.
In August 2020, I officially became an intern director of Guangdong Radio and Television’s “Yu Le Mei You Quan” programme. During my one and a half months internship at Guangdong Radio and Television’s Pearl River Channel, I mainly helped the team to write tweets on WeChat Official Account; collect interview questions; conduct interviews; write storyboards; participate in promotion activities and try to produce videos. Apart from that, I also learnt some basic photography knowledge and sometimes I would participate in filming and production, mainly helping artists to take some promotional photos during variety show recording and interview recording. During this period, our team launched seven programmes. I learnt a lot during this valuable internship, not only about basic TV operations but also about challenging myself and experimenting more.
As a first-time intern, I had no experiences working in the media industry, constantly trying out various jobs. The first assignment I got was to interview a few artists for a variety show at the recording studio. First, I had to design the questions to be asked and then send them to the artist’s agent team to check and then print them out for the interviews. On the day of the interview, it was just me and the cameraman, and I was very nervous that I would be rushed by the artists’ team if I didn’t ask enough questions, or that the quality of the video would be affected if the interview didn’t turn out well. In the end, I was brave enough to finish the interview. Although I didn’t think I did it well, my leader encourage me a lot and give me some tips about how to interview an artist. After the interview, I had to go back through the footage and write an outline for the editing department. The difficulty of this job was to select good footage to record and to design the layout of the shots by changing the scenery.
Later on, I also took part in other variety shows at the Guangdong Radio and Television Station, where I was helping with the co-ordination work. For example, checking that the guests were present and checking the programme flow. This has also enriched my knowledge, for example, I know how a TV station plans an event in its entirety and what to look out for during the event.
I am also responsible for writing the tweets for the WeChat Official Account, writing a tweet based on the content of the weekly programme. The aim of the tweets is to catch the viewers’ attention and get them interested in our programme and turn on the TV to watch it. So, when writing the tweets, I learnt how to incorporate real time hot topics into our show and use some of the buzz words as headlines.
There was a lot I didn’t do well as a newcomer to this internship, not having proficient editing skills or being able to independently help the TV presenters run their social accounts. Writing content as well as interviews are new skills that I have learnt. But I think it was a good exercise and I was very happy to meet good seniors who were very patient in teaching me how to design an interview outline, how to do an interview, how to design an editing outline, and how to help the team with variety or promotion activities.
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