A group of thirty media studies students from LVS Ascot enjoyed a unique learning experience at the Sky TV studios in London recently. The special behind the scenes visit took place on Thursday 12th September, with students’ voices being recorded to help Sky perfect their voice recognition software. It also allowed students in Years 10 to 13 to enhance their GCSE, A-level, and BTEC preparations by seeing at first-hand life at the busy Sky Academy studios.
The recording session saw students from the independent all-ability school approached to support Sky’s development of exciting new voice recognition technology by providing the voices of teenagers for them. The students were taken into soundproofed booths to be recorded talking, which will be amongst the samples used to drive technology by providing a range of pitch, tone speed, and accents that will allow customers to control TVs with their voice.
Students also explored the issue of “celebrity culture and its influence”, creating their own news reports on the positive and negative sides of today’s celebrity culture, investigating the subject and then selecting props, writing a script, editing, and filming.
LVS Ascot Media and English teacher Sarah Melhuish said: “We were privileged to be able to inspire our students with a trip to the Sky studios in Brentford. It was an amazing insight into the practice of news reporting and a unique experience that will stand them in good stead for their qualifications and future careers.”
Here is a report from Charlie Attard, a Year 10 who was part of our trip:
“Behind the lines @ sky studio”
Going to Sky Studios was an experience I will never forget, with a behind the scenes tour to making my own news report. When we arrived, we walked through office space where each desk had up to 4 monitors on every desk. We then all tested Sky’s brand new product using speech recognition, which is another version of the Alexa made by Amazon.
After waiting for everybody to finish we were all brought to a room where we waited for our instructors to turn up. We were then split up into groups, given a television studio to work in and we were all given jobs to do, like camera operator, reporter, editor and many more.
We then got to work deciding what topic we were going to film about. Our group ended up coming up with a scandal done by a really big YouTuber by the name of Morgz. Us along with three other groups all created a news report and it was all put together in the same video. After all the groups had finished we were then escorted to the main Sky studio centre where we got to see the set where Sky news was being recorded.
We were later told that Sky looks to be environmental and tries to use no plastic with water being provided in a can. All around the site there was no plastic to be found and in the centre of all the office blocks, there was a massive structure of a whale diving into a pool of plastic. I really enjoyed my day at Sky studios and wish my job will be as good and interesting as that when I am older.
When I got home my Dad asked me if I had seen anyone famous…… I don’t think I would know if I did!
