Over the course of the three weeks in Finland I gained more experience than I had expected to. I went over with a plan to learn more about camera work, with a view to becoming a cinematographer over the course of my career, at the college in Nakkila the range of cameras was staggering.
The hands on, one to one classes with Frej our lecturer were unbelievable. He taught me about cameras that I haven’t otherwise had the chance to use. This was in preparation for working at the local Yle station where I had opportunities to learn a lot about how the state broadcaster works in Finland. Another great aspect was spending time learning and working alongside the Finnish people
themselves, they were all so welcoming and kind. There was no real language barrier most of the time as I came across very few people who spoke no English at all, but through spending time with them I even picked up some Finnish. By the time I left I was trying very hard to use my small amount of Finnish as much as possible, even getting caught out sometimes when my pleasantries were so good people tried to strike up a full-on Finnish conversation.
I’ve come back having done what I believe is some great work, work that I will look back on for years to come as a very worthwhile experience. That said, as an exercise in personal growth the Erasmus+ programme has been invaluable. I have pushed myself in ways I never thought I could before, from meeting people, to getting up and working because I want to and not because I have to. It’s shown me a side of myself that I can be very proud of. After this experience I have not only learned that I could safely work in another culture, in another country, with another language, but i’m actually seriously considering looking for work in TV or Film in Finland. Once I can learn the language a bit better...
The hands on, one to one classes with Frej our lecturer were unbelievable. He taught me about cameras that I haven’t otherwise had the chance to use. This was in preparation for working at the local Yle station where I had opportunities to learn a lot about how the state broadcaster works in Finland. Another great aspect was spending time learning and working alongside the Finnish people
themselves, they were all so welcoming and kind. There was no real language barrier most of the time as I came across very few people who spoke no English at all, but through spending time with them I even picked up some Finnish. By the time I left I was trying very hard to use my small amount of Finnish as much as possible, even getting caught out sometimes when my pleasantries were so good people tried to strike up a full-on Finnish conversation.
I’ve come back having done what I believe is some great work, work that I will look back on for years to come as a very worthwhile experience. That said, as an exercise in personal growth the Erasmus+ programme has been invaluable. I have pushed myself in ways I never thought I could before, from meeting people, to getting up and working because I want to and not because I have to. It’s shown me a side of myself that I can be very proud of. After this experience I have not only learned that I could safely work in another culture, in another country, with another language, but i’m actually seriously considering looking for work in TV or Film in Finland. Once I can learn the language a bit better...
Ever since I came back from my work experience in Finland I have realised how lucky I was to have gotten the opportunity to work over there. This year was the first year that media students were sent to Pori so I feel that we were lucky it was such a good experience. They all spoke English very well so the language barrier was not an issue. As for my learning experience I feel that I have benefited quite a lot. When I sent my CV over there I had mentioned that acting and camera work would be the main areas of film that I wanted to learn more about. In all honesty I had not expected that they were able to accommodate me for acting since it was a film school that I was sent to and not an acting school. But lucky for me they had a professional actor and stunt man as one of their students so they had asked him if he could teach me certain things about acting and the way it works. I also became more comfortable with a camera whilst being over there. We had a cinematography workshop during our first week of work experience and during that time I became more comfortable with using a camera. I was pretty much thrown into the deep end as I was straight away given full control of the camera. I had to figure out how it worked by myself yet at the same time they would give me helpful advice and tips while I was using the camera. It was because of this that I was able to become more familiar with cameras and how to use them. As I was also learning about acting over there I went to see a Finnish play. It was held in the Pori Theatre and the play was a musical version of ‘The Full Monty’. The play itself was entirely in Finnish but it didn’t matter to me as I had already seen the movie version. But I was also watching more of the acting rather than trying to figure out what they were saying. If there was one thing that I learned about acting over there it was how to act without using words and for me that was pretty much what I got from the play. I didn’t understand a word that was said in the play yet at the same time I was easily able to follow the story as the actors had done a great job with just their acting in general. Another thing I will say is how well we were treated over there. The Finnish people that we met were very patient with us as we could not speak their language and they would constantly have to switch back and forth between English and Finnish. Granted we learned some Finnish but it still wasn’t enough to keep up with their conversations. But they didn’t mind explaining stuff to us again even though they just had a conversation about it in Finnish. I also got to learn and operate the ‘Blackmagic’ Camera. I basically got to use it during the first week of our work experience and we were using it for a scene for our cinematography workshop video. I had such a fantastic learning experience in Finland and I think that I am not the only one that thinks the same way either.
The thing I found most beneficial about the Erasmus+ programme was the opportunity it gave me to work alongside people who have English as their second language and successfully complete several projects with them and have the language become a noneissue
in a number of days. The Programme did a superb job in showing me the power of communication and it gave me the concrete evidence that I needed that I could leave this country in search of work and that I could find and carry out that work in a successful fashion. It’s undeniable, I am a more confident person after the Erasmus+ programme. Over the course of those three weeks I was thankfully dropped into the deep end in terms of work and I adopted a sink or swim attitude because of it. Because of the programme, I’ve learned to think on my feet and adapt to new situations as they’re put before me. I also know how to handle a big number of crew now whereas I did not before. Coming home from Erasmus, I have a much larger portfolio than when I left. I am grateful to the programme for that because I believe that without it, I would have never have had the confidence to go to a country like Finland and chase the kind of opportunities that I was presented, whereas I would now.
in a number of days. The Programme did a superb job in showing me the power of communication and it gave me the concrete evidence that I needed that I could leave this country in search of work and that I could find and carry out that work in a successful fashion. It’s undeniable, I am a more confident person after the Erasmus+ programme. Over the course of those three weeks I was thankfully dropped into the deep end in terms of work and I adopted a sink or swim attitude because of it. Because of the programme, I’ve learned to think on my feet and adapt to new situations as they’re put before me. I also know how to handle a big number of crew now whereas I did not before. Coming home from Erasmus, I have a much larger portfolio than when I left. I am grateful to the programme for that because I believe that without it, I would have never have had the confidence to go to a country like Finland and chase the kind of opportunities that I was presented, whereas I would now.
I began my journey to Finland with the goal objective of learning more about editing and learning new ways to edit and would be beneficial to me for coming back to Ireland and slotting it all into place. When I arrived in Pori I was kindly introduced to Frej, my teacher / supervisor and my mentor Anna who had previous done Erasmus to GTI where I study so she knew my background in Editing before any editing began in the College in Nakilla. Frej showed me the editing software I was to learn to use before I did a placement in the Finland National News Station YLE. The software was called AVID and it was so much different to Final Cut Pro X that I was more familiar with back at home. Anna was really helpful but even for her, a 3rd year student in editing , still wasn’t too keen on using AVID as the school also had Adobe Premier Pro editing software and Final Cut 7. Frej also had problems trying to break down some editing techniques using AVID because again the college uses simpler editor programs but YLE stay traditional and use AVID unfortunately. I got the hang of the program before my time in YLE PORI. When I got to the news offices there, the AVID had a different version compare to the one in the college and it was a lot more complicated. Cathal and I were given an interview we had filmed with a journalist in Yle Pori and it was our job to make it worth being used for their Facebook Page. It took 2 days and it wasn’t the funniest thing to edit ourselves talk but we handed up a video on time and it got 1,000’s of views from the Facebook because Yle have such a huge support throughout Finland so that was a really cool project to have completed. Cathal and I then got to shadow Kati, another Yle Pori Journalist who had fantastic English and great Energy to her job. We saw her do the whole process of getting to the news location. Filming the cutaways, filming the interview with the person in question , then coming back to the station and we saw her take a 5 min worth video into 30 quick seconds in the editing. It really impressed me and I saw why she enjoyed her Job. Back to the College and the other lads had filmed a music video. Jussi, a student at the college in Nakilla, had already made a video edit by the time I got there. I was requested to make my own cut also. To my own faults though I skipped the first day of editing thinking i'll bring my laptop and edit a video in seconds but the next day the video files were far too big for my laptop
to use. So i tried loading the clips onto another computer and that took another while. During the waiting times I would walk around the college checking on the other lads and when I saw Ronan doing a fighting scene practice with his mentor Janne, I was fascinated by this.
The director of the short film that was to be filmed that week asked me to be a ‘bad guy’ in the short film they were shooting and without hesitation I accepted the offer. Janne told me how I was to take a punch off the hero, Ronan , and how I had to be convincing. For the rest of that day i was with the crew, practicing my stunt in this short film and I loved every minute of it. I arrived later the following day because Ronan and I were collected by the students and director to go look for costumes for the short film. When i arrived I went back to the editing, trying to figure out how to set up a project with the clips in Adobe Premier Pro. I was trying to learn it as soon as possible while Jussi was flying through his edit. He helped me set up but even so I was still confused with it. I started panicking about it. I decided that I would tell my supervisors that I would edit the video when I was back in Galway where I knew how to edit using Final Cut Pro x. To their disappointment they accepted my offer and that gave me time to rehearse with the short film crew which I was more happier doing at the time. The day we shot the short film was by far the highlight of the trip, I absolutely loved being on the set of the shoot and I loved being involved in it. Throughout the day when I wasn’t yet needed i would visit Jussi doing his editing, and it made me think. I was so much happier being on the set while Jussi was like a Zombie, working hard in the Editing room to edit the music video. It made me rethink whether or not I wanted the Editing lifestyle. We finished the shooting for the short film and it was the most fun and I had a massive smile on my face. The following day Taru, the main supervisor, had a chat with me and even said on my report that I don’t have the backbone, the patience for editing. My opinion is I have always liked editing but during this very real life short film shoot I really loved being on set helping out and being involved and coming away from this trip, I'm not single minded about film making anymore. At first I just only wanted to edit but now I want to help and learn everything to do with filming. I’ve taken more out of this Erasmus+ project than I expected. I see myself working with lights or as an extra, to be on set.
to use. So i tried loading the clips onto another computer and that took another while. During the waiting times I would walk around the college checking on the other lads and when I saw Ronan doing a fighting scene practice with his mentor Janne, I was fascinated by this.
The director of the short film that was to be filmed that week asked me to be a ‘bad guy’ in the short film they were shooting and without hesitation I accepted the offer. Janne told me how I was to take a punch off the hero, Ronan , and how I had to be convincing. For the rest of that day i was with the crew, practicing my stunt in this short film and I loved every minute of it. I arrived later the following day because Ronan and I were collected by the students and director to go look for costumes for the short film. When i arrived I went back to the editing, trying to figure out how to set up a project with the clips in Adobe Premier Pro. I was trying to learn it as soon as possible while Jussi was flying through his edit. He helped me set up but even so I was still confused with it. I started panicking about it. I decided that I would tell my supervisors that I would edit the video when I was back in Galway where I knew how to edit using Final Cut Pro x. To their disappointment they accepted my offer and that gave me time to rehearse with the short film crew which I was more happier doing at the time. The day we shot the short film was by far the highlight of the trip, I absolutely loved being on the set of the shoot and I loved being involved in it. Throughout the day when I wasn’t yet needed i would visit Jussi doing his editing, and it made me think. I was so much happier being on the set while Jussi was like a Zombie, working hard in the Editing room to edit the music video. It made me rethink whether or not I wanted the Editing lifestyle. We finished the shooting for the short film and it was the most fun and I had a massive smile on my face. The following day Taru, the main supervisor, had a chat with me and even said on my report that I don’t have the backbone, the patience for editing. My opinion is I have always liked editing but during this very real life short film shoot I really loved being on set helping out and being involved and coming away from this trip, I'm not single minded about film making anymore. At first I just only wanted to edit but now I want to help and learn everything to do with filming. I’ve taken more out of this Erasmus+ project than I expected. I see myself working with lights or as an extra, to be on set.
My Erasmus+ work placement was a great experience. The real life situation of working as a cameraman on an event such as the Saku Stars talent show in Omnia college, was a great insight into how this would be performed in real life. The getting from venue to venue on time and knowing that you only get one take on things was really exciting. All of us having to cooperate as a unit was a good bonding experience for us. The managing to do all of this in a different country was a great confidence builder. I learned how to use very state of the art cameras and a new editing software. I made some new Finnish friends and learned a few vital phrases in their language. It was a very eye opening experience to see how a school was run in Finland, I was quite shocked to learn that they have lunch ( which is the size of a dinner) at 11am but I wasn’t complaining as it was paid for by the school. Overall it was great to see Finland and experience the culture. I am very excited to be putting my involvement in the Saku stars documentary on my cv.
I really enjoyed my time on erasmus. I loved having the opportunity of working abroad for the three weeks in Finland. I was involved in making a documentary for Omnia college in Espoo. This work involved planning and forced me to develop my organisation skills, which were previously poor. Working as a team , my fellow students and our leaders, discussed different ideas for the documentary and different visions we had. This helped us all improve our communication skills and we had to be respectful to others ideas and listen to chosen ones. These skills were also used to communicate with other students of Omnia on a casual, daily basis and also the students we worked with during the documentary. This included students we interviewed as well as the editing group that worked on displaying live footage onto the projector in reception for the public to see. I gained confidence in my own planning and organisation as this was a difficult task for the competition, however because of the planning, the filming of the competition went very smoothly. During the placement , I was introduced to new equipment and filmed interviews with them.I was happy to see the footage turn out well as filming was something I was not confident about before Erasmus. We had a great responsibility as a team to perform and produce a good documentary and also responsibility for the equipment ,which was worth over E20k. I had not been trusted with such valuable equipment before and forced me to be very mindful and responsible.
Three weeks was quite some time to be away from all friends and family and although I found it hard, I’m surprised how well I coped.This as made harder by living with so many strangers which led to good and bad times. There were personal challenges for me throughout the three weeks and I feel quite proud of how I managed with them.This has given me confidence to consider living and working abroad in the future. Not having friends with me meant that to do anything or sightsee, I had to find my own way around and had to be sure of where I was going and how I would get there.Whether it was going in and out to Helsinki or heading to Tallinn on a day off.This encouraged my confidence and independence. Overall, I feel that my time on Erasmus in Espoo, was very beneficial to me on both a professional and personal basis.
Three weeks was quite some time to be away from all friends and family and although I found it hard, I’m surprised how well I coped.This as made harder by living with so many strangers which led to good and bad times. There were personal challenges for me throughout the three weeks and I feel quite proud of how I managed with them.This has given me confidence to consider living and working abroad in the future. Not having friends with me meant that to do anything or sightsee, I had to find my own way around and had to be sure of where I was going and how I would get there.Whether it was going in and out to Helsinki or heading to Tallinn on a day off.This encouraged my confidence and independence. Overall, I feel that my time on Erasmus in Espoo, was very beneficial to me on both a professional and personal basis.
Our first week in Finland involved us mostly getting used to our surroundings at our accommodation in Finns, the Omnia college in Espoo and the capital city itself, Helsinki.
Our accommodation had everything you could need, with clean comfortable beds, a shower, a cooking area and a living area. There were other students working on Erasmus staying there from Estonia and Germany and they were all nice to deal with, we mixed well with them.
The Omnia College we were working in was hugely impressive and was vastly more sophisticated than of the colleges or vocational schools back home in Ireland. There was a noticeable focus on funding in terms of education in Finland. All of the staff and students we worked with at the college were all pleasant and easy to deal with. Roope, who was basically our boss/guide for the 3 weeks we were there, helped us immensely throughout our stay.
The group and I were set to be working on a large talent show within the college known as ‘SakuStars’, which had over 800 contestants in total. My job was to supervise the editing room during the week of SakuStars and organise all of the footage/audio recordings into respective folders sorted by the type of the event, camera etc.
The week after I was editing a section of the footage as everybody else did. There were hours of footage but it wasn’t a difficult task editing through it. Our employers were completely down to earth and were happy to give us plenty of our own editing licence upon the footage and audio we were editing. I had not used Sony Vegas before but I had a good grasp of other editing software such as Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premier, so it wasn’t a problem getting the hang of it. Everybody there seemed to be very happy with the job we had done.
In terms of language skills, I didn’t really need to use much past saying ‘Hello’ or ‘Thank you’ because 99% of the people I met over there spoke very good English. This was very useful when it came to mixing with other students over there and socialising outside the college with them. I definitely met a few people I would contact if I ever went back to Finland and will most likely stay in touch with them through social media. I have been told multiple times that having Erasmus on my c.v is a massive boost and I can definitely see why so I’m very sure that it’ll help me when it comes to applying for jobs in the media industry.
Our accommodation had everything you could need, with clean comfortable beds, a shower, a cooking area and a living area. There were other students working on Erasmus staying there from Estonia and Germany and they were all nice to deal with, we mixed well with them.
The Omnia College we were working in was hugely impressive and was vastly more sophisticated than of the colleges or vocational schools back home in Ireland. There was a noticeable focus on funding in terms of education in Finland. All of the staff and students we worked with at the college were all pleasant and easy to deal with. Roope, who was basically our boss/guide for the 3 weeks we were there, helped us immensely throughout our stay.
The group and I were set to be working on a large talent show within the college known as ‘SakuStars’, which had over 800 contestants in total. My job was to supervise the editing room during the week of SakuStars and organise all of the footage/audio recordings into respective folders sorted by the type of the event, camera etc.
The week after I was editing a section of the footage as everybody else did. There were hours of footage but it wasn’t a difficult task editing through it. Our employers were completely down to earth and were happy to give us plenty of our own editing licence upon the footage and audio we were editing. I had not used Sony Vegas before but I had a good grasp of other editing software such as Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premier, so it wasn’t a problem getting the hang of it. Everybody there seemed to be very happy with the job we had done.
In terms of language skills, I didn’t really need to use much past saying ‘Hello’ or ‘Thank you’ because 99% of the people I met over there spoke very good English. This was very useful when it came to mixing with other students over there and socialising outside the college with them. I definitely met a few people I would contact if I ever went back to Finland and will most likely stay in touch with them through social media. I have been told multiple times that having Erasmus on my c.v is a massive boost and I can definitely see why so I’m very sure that it’ll help me when it comes to applying for jobs in the media industry.
I really enjoyed my placement in Finland, I found it to be an excellent opportunity to live and work abroad, if even for a short period, it gave me a taste that there is more out there in the world than just what is available to us in Ireland. I met a lot of new friends on my placement at Omnia In Espoo, which had some really good facilities and equipment which helped massively in the production of our project, some of these friends i am still in touch with on facebook and am staying in contact with as they have relative experience in my field, which is music production. I really liked the lay of the land in Espoo also, taking multiple trips to Nouxionpaa(national park) simply to take in my surroundings and get away from civilization when i needed to .
One thing that would have improved when i was over there was my spoken English, as English is a second language in Finland, I would sometimes need to slow down and articulate what I was saying more so people would be better able to follow what i was talking about.
One thing that would have improved when i was over there was my spoken English, as English is a second language in Finland, I would sometimes need to slow down and articulate what I was saying more so people would be better able to follow what i was talking about.