Studio, Location or Zoom?

Convenient and cost effective, this is currently our most popular option. We were offering the service pre-pandemic, mainly to overseas clients, but now it has become the preferred option for many companies. The media training course content is the same as if we were training in-person, including the recording and playing back of all interviews.

Currently, and for the foreseeable future, broadcasters seem keen on conducting actual interviews over Zoom. Therefore it makes sense to train spokespeople to use the platform as effectively as possible.

Playback of interviews takes slightly longer, so for this reason we suggest keeping the number of delegates down to just one or two. If more spokespeople need to be trained we can split half or full day training into multiple, smaller sessions to accommodate everyone.

We use a number of partner studios, in London and beyond. They are working broadcast studios so give delegates an excellent experience in relation to what it’s like to “sit on a sofa” and be questioned. Hot, bright, studio lights and multiple cameras create an absolutely realistic setting for the training.

Because of Covid-19 we try to keep the number of people attending the training (as delegates or observers) to six or less, but this is subject to change. As you’d expect, we follow government guidelines as a minimum.

This is face-to-face training at a location to suit you. It could be your office, a hotel room or anywhere else you prefer. Either way we bring our broadcast quality television and radio equipment to you, just as a broadcast journalist might do if they wanted an in person interview outside their studio.

We simulate the same sorts of interviews as we do with Zoom and studio training. That includes live and pre-recorded interviews; down-the-line (remote) interviews; sofa chats. In addition location training allows us to practise “set-up” shots, establishing pictures of a spokesperson that can sometimes feel a bit awkward to do; for example, a TV journalist may ask an interviewee to “just” walk down the pavement, looking as natural as possible. Where appropriate, we can also act out door-stepping, a technique in which a journalist springs a question on a person with no notice, expecting them to answer on the spot. Generally this involves a bad news story, on which the person doesn’t really want to comment!