EBC TV

Surviving School is a TV drama series (written by Polly Symes) which covers the range of relatable experiences and challenges you go through during your time at school.

Year 9 pupil Piper ’ s first day (Sophia Marshall) at school doesn ’t go quite as planned due to fellow Year 9 student Taylor (Oguz Karaca). Piper then looks for advice from her popular older brother Leo (Jack Evans) and his best friend Daniel (Zizie Ndlovu). Meanwhile, Year 13 pupil Carla (Katie Hilyer) is Head of House, which creates conflict between her and her best friend Rosie (Verity Terry), leaving their best friend Ollie (Herbie Sleep) stuck in the middle, not wanting to choose a side between the two girls. You ’ll have to watch the programme to find out how everything gets resolved.

We began filming at the start of Michaelmas Term and, so far, after filming just two scenes I have learnt so much. Through the camera work (operated by Leander Walters and Tom Müller-Broich), I’ ve discovered the importance of the span of different camera frames and the number of takes needed for just one scene. To get the best possible quality of sound, a boom is used, which causes a lot of aching arms as you hold it out over the actors out of shot. However, this also means every background sound is also picked up. Imogen Symonds is the costume designer. She tells each cast member her vision for their outfit and then we make sure whenever we ’ re on set that we are wearing the same costume each time (as all of episode 1 happens on one day).

Audrey Hang, as artistic director, has created the great marketing video as well as making sure each detail of the set correctly fits the narrative.

Our director is the talented Mr Fathers who is well established in the industry, ranging from being in Disney Channel’ s Camp Rock to one of his most recent, The Witcher. Mr Fathers has given us all great advice, tips for learning lines as well as showing examples of different ways we can act in a scene. He ’ s taught us exactly what professional filming will be like in the outside world, enabling us all to gain a greater insight into the TV and film industry. I think the results will speak for themselves.

Sophia Marshall