Coventry learners shine a spotlight on the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games

Coventry College’s creative media students have been helping to shine a spotlight on the work of one of the official suppliers to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Five of the college’s students were selected to work with Bristol-based technical production specialists SLX, to take part in an industry experience placement after the company was chosen to be the event’s official broadcast lighting provider.

The Level 3 Creative Media students – Max Malsbury-Allen, Conor Sturmey, Haroon Rafique, Brendan Smith and Stefana Dumbrava – were tasked with producing behind-the-scenes social media content of SLX’s work in a bid to attract future talent and clients for the business.

This involved the students creating Instagram and TikTok accounts – called slx.gameon – with posts that reached more than 900 accounts during the games and gained more than 100 new followers for the company.

This included creating glimpses into the behind-the-scenes operations at SLX’s warehouses on ways that they were working to speed up the installation of lighting when they arrived at venues, through to the company’s work on-site during the build-up to events, including the installation of more than 100 lights on the main hockey field at the University of Birmingham.

Max, who led the students at the start of the project, said: “I loved how the whole Commonwealth Games came together, and seeing them through the eyes of working for a lighting company such as SLX made me really change my views on how these events are set up and held. I feel like I have improved in my filming abilities as I took lead in filming the videos from the Commonwealth Games.”

Conor added: “This project has really given me an insight into how a Commonwealth Games of this magnitude is set up and ran, from a lighting perspective.

“This project has definitely made my photography skills better, and I hope that I can use that to my advantage in my later years.”

As part of working with SLX, all students were given a range of hi-tech tools to create content, such as an iPhone 13 Pro, as well as training on photo editing, branding and social media posting.

Micah Parsons, Industry Placement Co-ordinator at Coventry College, added: “Our relationship with SLX started back in December 2021 and developed over the course of the project. Understanding their requirements as a growing business and how our students could play a part in that through the Commonwealth Games, whilst gaining valuable experience was incredible to see first-hand.