Graduate Update: Simon Wylie
08/06/08
Class of 2001
Background: BSc Zoology; BA(Hons) Anthropology
Current Position: Media Manager, BBC Natural History Unit, Bristol, UK
Simon was a member of the inaugural 2001 PgDipNHFC course. His internship looked at the labelling of live animal exhibits at the Otago Museum and after graduating he landed a job as the Registrar of Natural Sciences, where he helped install the Southern Lands Southern People gallery. At the end of 2002 he headed off to Europe on his OE and a year later successfully applied for a position as a Media Manager in the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, where he has been ever since.
Recently he has been involved in the pan-BBC 'DMI' - Digital Media Initiative - project, which aims to establish fully digital and tapeless workflows. It also enables programmes to have a shelf-life after broadcast on various platforms such as the Internet and mobile phones. Simon has been assisting several HD 'landmark' natural history series with DMI, setting up frame rate conversion, ingest and logging processes.
During his time at the BBC, Simon has spent countless hours logging the rushes from the Planet Earth series. He regularly carries out archive research on behalf of BBC Worldwide for global producers including Discovery and NHNZ, as well as for numerous museums, advertising agencies and feature films. In his spare time he has also made a few non-natural history short films. He runs the BBC Bristol badminton club and is a leading wicket-taker in the annual NHU versus Features & Docs cricket match.
Simon found the University of Otago course very creative, challenging and enjoyable and he learnt a heap of new skills which have helped him in his career since. "My museum internship was a foot in the door which helped me get a job there straight after the course and the experience the course gave me in researching stories and editing video on Final Cut Pro has proven invaluable in my current work at the BBC".
