BEHIND THE SCENES: RADIO COURSE (AUGUST) 

Our two-week digital broadcasting course kicked off last month, inviting young people across Manchester to learn about all things producing, presenting, scripting, live broadcast and more. This programme was kindly made possible by Manchester Adult Education. 

Participants came together to learn how a working radio environment functions and equip themselves with the skill set to pursue their dreams of finding careers in digital broadcasting. 

We caught up with one of the participants to chat about their experience. After studying Film at the University of Central Lancashire, 27 year old Zack Khan from Manchesterhas since aspired to work within the TV or Film industry. We had a chat to find out a little bit more about Zack, why he joined Radio Course and his goals for the future. 

Please can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

My name’s Zack and I’m from Manchester. I’ve been back and forth between Manchester, Preston and Pakistan over the past ten years. After moving to Preston for University and then dropping out, I decided to come back to Manchester and live in Oldham. 

Film has always been a huge part of my life and my childhood dream was always to grow up and work in the film industry. That’s partially how I ended up here! 

How have you heard about Radio Course and what prompted you to get involved? 

My work coach at University had received a call out about the course and reached out to me asking if I wanted to get involved. I never expected to be doing anything in radio but I thought, why not!? 

If money wasn’t a thing, what would you like to be doing full time? 

As a kid, it was always film and TV. During lockdown, I tried podcasting for a couple of months. It was mainly about films and entertainment, such as what’s going on in the industry and film news. It was called the Mad Bat Podcast which was a mix of our two favourite films: Mad Max and Batman. 

Is there anything you were involved in before joining Radio Course that you would like to share? 

After I finished college, I took a gap year before University and went back to Pakistan for a year and did a couple of months of work with an independent film-maker who mainly made adverts. 

I think he was shooting an advert where my dad worked at the time. My dad had spoken to him and said something along the lines of ‘my son is really interested in this, could you potentially take him on as a volunteer?’. It was pretty cool and he got me really involved in it.

When and how did you realise that that is the thing you wanted to do? 

I used to have one of those old TVs that had a built-in VCR player, my mum got me loads of VHS tapes so a lot of my childhood was spent in my room watching movies. Seeing what you could do in those worlds, the possibilities and the lack of restrictions really excited me. I never imagined that I would be doing radio or podcasting but I’m glad I have some experience in these things now. 

I remember getting into podcasts during my gap year when the app showed up on my phone after an update and I was like ‘what’s this?’. My go-to podcasts are The NoSleep Podcast which is an anthology series of horror stories, and ‘The Last Podcast on The Left’ which is a dark comedy, true crime podcast. 

Let’s throw it back to your first day at Reform versus now, tell me a bit about your first impressions/feelings/emotions in comparison to how you feel now. What has changed?

Before I walked through the door, it was a very tense and nervous experience. I’m usually not the type of person that does well in social situations, especially after the last couple of years of Covid and lockdown. Essentially, the moment I walked in there was a very calm, inviting and supportive environment which easily set those fears aside. 

Anxiety popped up here and there, mainly from doing creative writing exercises. I would worry in my own head ‘I don’t know if I can do this’, but I largely managed to overcome these feelings thanks to Alex and Naomi who were really supportive and patient. They got involved and offered help. It was a very cohesive environment. 

What is one thing you have learnt from the course that you will take home with you?  

I learnt a lot of technical stuff such as operating the equipment, recording and monitoring mic levels on the drops. I feel like I will carry these skills on with me even if I don’t get into film. They are great skills to know for editing Youtube videos, which I have some experience with. 

What are your goals after the project? 

One goal is to work on areas that I have personally struggled with over the past two weeks. For example, the anxiety that I talked about. I have a habit of second-guessing myself and stopping myself from doing stuff. 

Something that caught me off guard was that when doing creative work, it often requires you to be vulnerable to some degree. That’s something I’ve had in mind and thought maybe I should let myself be vulnerable and not be so closed off. 

When Covid started I was living on my own. A few years of living by myself and then lockdown made me really closed off and I didn’t have much opportunity to go out and interact with people. Being on this course has taught me I really do need to start opening up again, especially in this line of work it’s really beneficial. 

To listen to the full show that the group worked on together, please click down below.

If you would like to get involved or find out more about any of our projects, please drop us an email at projects@reformradio.co.uk.