Demon TV helps produce videos for Houses of Parliament in anniversary celebrations

This year marks 750 years since Simon De Montfort called the first Parliament as well as 800 years since the Magna Carta was first agreed, and as part of Parliament’s celebrations, DMU students have made several videos highlighting some of the key events during the last three quarters of a millennium.

Thanks to a partnership developed by Vice-Chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard and the Houses of Parliament, DMU was approached to produce a number of short videos which are to be featured on Parliament’s official website.

Demon TV, DMU’s student television station which is part of Demon Media, was responsible for producing three separate videos on three vital parliamentary acts that have fundamentally affected the society we live in today.

Hannah Gorzelak, Demon TV Station Manager, and her team of six were responsible for covering the Freedom of Speech Act, 1576; the formation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 1897; and the Sexual Offences Act, 1967.

Hannah, a third year Drama Studies student, said: “We started the project before Christmas and it was a case of researching the topics, deciding what needed to be featured, filming the necessary students or lecturers around the university, and then a very long editing process at the end to get to the final videos.

“It was a fairly daunting task because being the university’s TV station we normally just produce content for ourselves and our own personal enjoyment, but this was on a much larger scale. However, it was a project I felt that we would be able to pull off if we all came together and now we’re really looking forward to seeing them displayed.

“It was a really interesting process because we had to obviously learn about these topics and elements of our society that people throughout history have fought for that we perhaps take for granted now.”

The opportunity for the Demon TV team to work on the commemorative videos came about when they were approached by Lynette Williams, Partnership Development Officer at DMU, after Parliament invited Professor Shellard and DMU to help in their 2015 Parliament in the Making celebrations.

Lynette said: “A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the House of Commons which lasts a year, and as a result of this we have students in work placements at Parliament, we held the mock trial of Simon De Montfort, had the Royal Historical Society lecture, and now these videos as well.

“Hannah took on a lead role for Demon TV as part of this project, she was always there and readily available, she did absolutely loads of editing of the footage and was an absolute star throughout.

“The effort of the whole team was fantastic, they threw themselves into the project and they were full of enthusiasm from start to finish.”

In addition to the videos produced by Hannah and her team at Demon TV, a group of Media Production students also produced another video for Parliament in which they interviewed some of the artists who designed display banners for Parliament's anniversary celebrations.