Student recordings are the raw material of every course. We watch them closely, return notes and use them to decide what to cover next in live sessions. They are working exercises, not polished showreels.
Watching your own footage is the quickest way to see habits you cannot feel while shooting. A slightly tilted horizon, a rushed ending to a sentence or a microphone that drifts into shot becomes obvious on playback. Tutors mark the moment and explain what to change. You can pause, replay and compare your later attempts with your first one, which makes progress easy to see.
Feedback arrives as written notes and, where it helps, a short spoken recording from your tutor. Notes name specific moments in your clip rather than offering general comments. Each set ends with one or two things to focus on next, so practice stays manageable. Live sessions then give you the chance to try those changes with someone watching and ready to adjust your approach.
Exercises often involve real people on location, so we encourage students to ask permission before recording and to explain how footage will be used. Material shared with tutors is used for teaching only. If a recording includes someone who later asks not to appear, we set it aside and do not use it again in any session.
Online field camera and on-camera reporting training for journalists and camera operators, run from Colchester since 2014.
