RTS Northern Ireland

"Lights, Camera, Access": how to get your foot in the door

Chaired by RTS Northern Ireland Futures Vice-Chair Geraldine Smyth, the event saw local media experts share their top tips and hacks for breaking into what is a competitive industry.

When applying for a first job, agreed the panel, the importance of doing your research cannot be overstated. “Do your research very thoroughly on the company that you’re going to meet, know what content it has made and what its strong points are,” advised Kate McGlade, Development Executive at Alleycats TV.

RTS Northern Ireland Student Awards 2024 celebrates student talent

Spring Is Sure to Follow – “a beautiful story of acceptance with great casting and performances”, said the judges – triumphed in the Drama category. The “funny, whimsical and well-acted” Mantis Shrimp won the Entertainment and Comedy prize.

The Animation category was won by Ulster University, Belfast student Patrick Faulkner with Unseen: Alone in Space, and Ulster University, Coleraine’s Nathan Edgar took home the Factual Short-form award with On the Edge.

Charlotte Moore hails authenticity at the Dan Gilbert Memorial Lecture

Discussing the BBC’s Across the UK strategy – which seeks to shift creative spend and decision-making out of London – the BBC’s Chief Content Officer praised Blue Lights and Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland.

Moore said: “What both Blue Lights and Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland demonstrate so brilliantly, is that thinking bigger about how we harness and showcase the creativity of the whole of the UK is paying huge dividends – for us and for audiences.”

Real Lads of Lockdown bags two wins at the RTS Northern Ireland Student Television Awards

Ulster University, Belfast, student Aidan Rafferty was a double winner at the RTS Northern Ireland Student Television Awards. He was part of the team that won the Comedy and Entertainment award for Real Lads of Lockdown – and the writer/director also took home the Craft Skills: Writing prize.

The judges said the film “wasn’t afraid to touch on the more serious aspects of the pandemic, while providing lots of laugh-out-loud moments – a great balance of comedy and pathos”.

Good design wins viewers, says Pascual Diaz

Talking to students at Belfast Metropolitan College, Diaz said: “Because we live in a very visual world, design has a key [role] in delivering our content... [and] attracting the attention of our audience.

We can also communicate our content through social media... in a visual way.”

Diaz, a native of Spain, has worked in the UK for the past decade. Good design, he said, should be “integrated in the content.... If nobody notices the design, it’s a good thing.”

Winners of the 2021 RTS Northern Ireland Student Television Awards 2021 announced

Ulster University Belfast picked up the Animation Award for The Forlorn Piscator by Matthew McGuigan. A highly commended award also went to Antisocial Behaviour by Lyndsay Clarke and Phillip Steele from the Northern Regional College, Coleraine.

The Non-Scripted Award winner was The Rising of Jordan Adetunji by Joe Warden, Nathan Emery and Reece Williams from Ulster University. Isolation - Overcoming Adversity as a Community by Aodhan Roberts from the North West Regional College was highly commended in this category.

How Waddell Media is riding out the coronavirus storm

Little on TV cheers up audiences more than seeing animals brought back to health, so Waddell Media’s new series Work on the Wild Side is coming to screens at just the right time.

The 20 one-hour shows will be stripped across the daytime week on Channel 4 from mid-May. They follow vets and volunteers who have given up their jobs in the UK and moved to South Africa to rescue animals, and reintroduce them to the wild.