MEDIA students from Craven College joined forces with Airedale hospital in a project that has seen benefits for both.

Teams of students have been working alongside staff on different filming projects to create videos for patients, the website and social media. The project has given the students vital experience of working for a client and has helped build their portfolios, while the trust has benefitted with high quality videos at no cost to the NHS.

One group of students worked with patients and staff to create a celebration video for the tenth anniversary of the Goldline service - a service that provides end of life care to patients and families. The video will be shown at a celebratory event in November.

A second group worked on reel-style videos that will be used on social media for the maternity team, giving tips to new parents on safe bathing and bottle feeding advice.

Others worked with the Airedale Hospital and community charity to produce a promotional video for its website.

Student, Flynn Scott, from Skipton said: “I’ve always liked making content for people and seeing how they react and entertaining them. I have always had a creative side. I chose media studies because it plays into my hobbies and I thought if I can do this as an actual job one day that will be amazing.

"To do a real project like this gives me experience in the field and I'm really enjoying it because it helps me visualise how my future is going to be and how to plan projects out.”

Fellow student, Teddy Cook from Arncliffe added: "“I’ve always enjoyed the editing aspect of things and making Youtube videos but also when you're going around daily life, I always noticed that I saw things that would look great in films, in a cinematic way. The filmmaking and editing part of the course is really good and being able to do it for college is perfect for people like me.

“We've made adverts for businesses around Skipton but never to this sort of scale. This year at college we are already making videos for a few different types of customers, for local businesses and we're also working on making a promotional video for an elderly people's walking football group, so we are getting a massive range.

"I think this is definitely the biggest and this is definitely going to be the one that will be talked about in future when you go for jobs, this is definitely one that you can mention because the scale of it and it’s for the NHS. It’s the first time we've ever done something for an organisation to this level.”

Fiona Page, communications manager at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust said: “We’re delighted to offer these talented students the opportunity to work on real projects for the NHS – on films that are really important to us too. Their level of professionalism is fantastic and a credit to the college, and we hope these films will make a great addition to their portfolios, to showcase what they can do as they start their careers in media.”

Creative Digital Media course tutor at Craven College Colin Maunder said he was very proud of the students.

"They have realised the importance and scale of these project briefs and approached them in a wholly professional manner. Work experience is a key part of the course and the experience it offers the students will be invaluable as they look to progress into our thriving creative industries.”