The BBC Academy Podcast

This is the second part of our 4K podcast with Philippa Law, technology engagement officer for BBC Research and Development (R&D). In our last podcast, 4K and UHD: Why does it matter?, we broke down what 4K and UHD mean for your production. This week we talk more about the practical aspect of filming in UHD - the kit you'll need, data storage and the production workflow. Philippa speaks to Mar...

It seems that the 4K and ultra-high definition revolution is just around the corner. But what will this mean for broadcasting? And is adopting 4K for your production really necessary? In the first of two podcasts, the technology engagement officer for BBC Research and Development Philippa Law speaks to Mark Harrison, director of the BBC Technology Futures Group, John Heraty, a broadcast technology...

The BBC Academy's Najiba Kasraee is joined by BBC Swahili service editor and presenter Zuhura Yunus, BBC Russian's Renata Tairbekova and Mahjooba Nowrouzi from the BBC Afghan stream. They talk candidly about the challenges of being a woman in the newsroom and offer advice on how to progress while maintaining a work/life balance. These four journalists, all based at the World Service's London headq...

The year is nearly over, but not before the BBC Academy Podcast review of the year! We've had another fantastic year catching up with the likes of award-winning writer Mike Bartlett on his hit TV series Doctor Foster, Sarah Solemani on going from acting in comedies to writing them, and radio presenter Noreen Khan on getting more black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) talent on air. We’ve also had...

Downloadable to your device, ebooks can contain text, images, video, audio and other multimedia, creating many exciting storytelling opportunities for content producers. D-Day’s Last Heroes, A Guide to Your Cat and The Road to Milk Wood are just a few of the ebooks based on BBC TV programmes. We find out about the practical aspects involved in creating interactive ebooks with Anya Saunders and Pas...

Radio 1 Newsbeat presenter Tina Daheley talks to sports presenter Manish Bhasin, the commentator and retired England footballer Lucy Ward, BBC Sport senior producer Pete Andrews and Julie-Pia Aberdein, digital executive producer for Manchester United Football Club. Recorded at the 1Xtra sessions, part of 1Xtra live, in Bradford on 2 October 2015, the panel talk about how they worked their way into...

Radio always gets a bit of a ribbing compared to television (it’s only a bit of audio, where are all the pictures? etc). But actually, let’s be honest, we all love radio. Millions tune in every morning to breakfast shows, drive-time programmes, broadcasts in the middle of the day… so we obviously haven't fallen out of love with it. Radio is not dying this death that someone always predicts. Presen...

Executive producer Will Trotter, producer Sandra MacIver, director Matt Carter and Jon Boyce, who provided technical expertise, join the director of BBC Birmingham and the BBC Academy, Joe Godwin, for this masterclass on BBC One's The Coroner, recorded on 12 November 2015. The Coroner is produced by Birmingham's drama village - producer of Doctors, WPC 56 and the worldwide successes Father Brown a...

In a time when it seems young people are only in the news for the wrong reasons - stabbings, cyber bullying and binge drinking - here is something positive that will give you an insight into the thoughts of young people these days. And all from the horse’s mouth too, as the saying goes. Podium.me is a platform set up by Camilla Byk and Annabel Merrett where all the work is done by young people age...

Amy Kean is a media futurologist and the head of Havas Media. Media futurologist, you say? Yes it is a real thing. What does she actually do though? Amy looks at current data and trends and from those she draws conclusions about how we should behave in the future. Technology is really changing how we live our daily lives and the thing that has changed it the most in the past few years is without a...

J. R. Little is the head of global innovations at Carat Productions, which is part of Dentsu Aegis Network, the global network innovating the way brands are built. His job “is to help companies innovate, stand out, disrupt and to deflect disruption”. What does this even mean and why would we want to disrupt a company’s brand? "Fall in love with advertisers, fall in love with experiences and fall i...

Danny and the Human Zoo is a fictionalised account of Sir Lenny Henry’s life as a teenager in 1970s Dudley. The drama centres on Danny Fearon, a talented impressionist played by young actor Kascion Franklin and his large working class Jamaican family, with Cecilia Noble as Danny’s mother and Lenny Henry as Danny’s father, Samson. It was also another 'first' as it was the director Destiny Ekaragha’...

Award-winning writer and director Mike Bartlett didn’t always write: he dabbled in acting at university and afterwards wanted to go into directing theatre but would always “flunk the interviews”. Bad times. He began to write for a few reasons - one of which was boredom - and suddenly found his job interviews started to go well. Good times. The reason? “Because I didn’t have to sell myself - I just...

The Outcast has been described as a deeply romantic, uncomfortably honest coming-of-age story set in booming post-war Britain. A best-selling novel by Sadie Jones, the book has been adapted by Sadie for BBC One with Iain Softley directing the two-parter. Iain Softley is probably better known as a director of Hollywood blockbusters such as Hackers, The Wings of the Dove, K-Pax and Inkheart. So how...

Beth Pattinson, development executive at BBC Films talks to Sadie Jones, screenwriter and novelist, ahead of the debut of her two-part drama, The Outcast, on BBC One. Sadie details her journey as an unproduced screenwriter to novelist and back. The Outcast began as a feature film script but when producers were unable to make it the way they wanted to Sadie turned the story into a novel. Within a y...

Is life across the pond different for writers and producers compared to over here? Steve Lightfoot is an executive producer and writer who has worked on BBC One's Casualty and the Emmy-award winning House of Saddam. He is currently showrunner on Hannibal on the American network channel NBC. Having made the leap from the UK to the USA, he shares his experiences with BBC Writersoom's Henry Swindell.

In this podcast we speak to presenters and producers alike including Capital Xtra's Marvin Humes, Radio 1Xtra's Yasmin Evans, Radio 1's Greg James and award-winning BBC Three Counties presenter Iain Lee on what radio producers do and how having a great the producer/presenter relationship is beneficial to both roles. The producer/presenter relationship is such a vital aspect to radio that Greg Jame...

Bloodthirsty hunters or social and complex creatures? Natural History Unit producer Simon Blakeney talks to us about the making of the landmark series Shark, a new three part trilogy by the BBC's Natural History Unit.

What place do traditional broadcasters have in this ever-evolving online world? Is there really one law for broadcasters like the BBC and another for nameless individuals? Gathered around the table to discuss social media, broadcasting and the law are Anna Doble, online editor from BBC Newsbeat, Mark Frankel, assistant editor from BBC Social News, and producer Tim Johns from BBC Radio 2's Jeremy V...

In this podcast, we meet some of the latest intake from the BBC's Radio Journalism Apprenticeship scheme - Ben Mitchell, Daniel Parker, Kathryn Twelvetree and Thomas Harding Assinder. They take a fresh look at one of the new ways to get on the media career ladder.

Expert Voices is a nationwide BBC initiative which aims to get more Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) experts from a wide range of fields on air and on screen. The all-day training events give delegates the chance to meet senior industry figures, share their own knowledge and expertise with other like-minded people and to learn skills that could help them work on air as contributors or prese...

We went to the RTS Futures Careers Event – the first of its kind – to speak to broadcasters such as BBC, ITV and Channel 4, as well as organisations such as the Mama Youth Project and Creative Access, to find out exactly what schemes they had on offer. You'll also hear from apprentices past and present as they talk about their experiences of applying, what they did during the scheme and what they'...

In this podcast we hear from Pat Campbell, production designer on the hugely successful BBC drama Wolf Hall starring Mark Rylance and Damien Lewis. Pat outlines the role of the production designer on set and tells us about the starting process for any project - scouting for locations. She also talks about the scale of the art department with its many different roles, discusses the relationship of...

In this podcast we hear from costume designer Joanna Eatwell, lead designer on the landmark BBC adaptation Wolf Hall starring Mark Rylance and Damien Lewis. She tells us how she "fell into" costume design initially training in theatre and moving on to work in music videos - but now with nearly thirty years experience under her belt, she describes it as "the best job in the world." She talks to us...

From ingesting to cutting to colour correcting, editing can be one of the most time consuming and costly processes of programme making. In this podcast, we go back to basics with editor Garry Paton, and discuss what editing is, who’s involved, why it matters to your production and how to overcome the challenges to make the editing process a little smoother.