In September 2014, Film Hub Wales partnered with the University of South Wales (USW) to offer students from the Media Audience course an opportunity to exchange skills with exhibitors in cultural Welsh venues.
The scheme was designed to build long term relationships between venues and young people interested in learning more about audiences. Students gained real world experience and boosted their CVs, while venues gained support across priority areas such as social media, programme research, administration and fundraising.
Following our call out to both exhibitors and students, 5 individuals were offered placements.
| Student | Venue |
| Charlotte Brownhill | Riverfront Newport |
| Maksymilian Karczmar | Culture and Media Centre, Loudoun Square |
| Samuel Gill | Theatr Felinfach |
| Chloe Evans | Valleys Kids |
| Benjamin Shallcross | Theatr Gwaun |
Charlotte Brownhill started her placement with the Riverfront in Newport as a second year BA (Hons) Media, Culture and Journalism student in February 2015. She attended weekly, well into 2016 which is clearly a sign of a successful experience! Her main role was to create weekly press releases and social media for the film programme. Charlotte even wrote a blog for us called The Work Experience Diaries where she explained what she was getting up to in the marketing team that week.
The FHW team were excited to hear that Charlotte’s current and future studies have been inspired by her time with the Riverfront team:
“It has been a real eye opener and has made me realise a career path I would potentially like to go down. I am also contemplating doing a masters in film curating.
“The experience also became the main point for my dissertation as I wrote it on the importance of marketing in arts community centres.”
Charlotte Brownhill, University of South Wales student
The Riverfront also found the scheme beneficial:
“Charlotte was really helpful and a welcome addition to our team. We have not been able to give one staff member the time to focus on marketing our regular cinema programme. Charlotte gave us this and much more; she came with other ideas and worked hard in her hours that she put in with us to develop our audience and engagement with our customers.”
Michelle Perez, The Riverfront
Charlotte also talks about her placement in this video from the University of South Wales and her university blog.
We are exploring the potential to run this scheme again in future. If you are an exhibitor in Wales and interested in participating, please contact hana@filmhubwales.org
