Journalism students not spooked about testing interview skills

Journalism students at the University of Derby have been honing their interview skills at a Halloween-themed attraction.

Students from the university’s BA Journalism and Specialist Sports Journalism course were recently treated to a unique opportunity to test out their interviewing skills at Screamfest, which is based at the National Forest Adventure Farm, near Burton.

The students found out more about how farmers Tom and Ivor Robinson created each of the scream-inducing immersive scares, what goes into preparing over 130 live actors for the night and how they create each of the film-style sets.

The 18 second-year BA Journalism students also had the chance to find out more about ‘Hellcatraz’, billed as the scream park’s most intense scare yet.

Joanne Hine, senior lecturer in Journalism at the University of Derby, said the students got real-life experience in interviewing and feature writing from their visit.

She said: “Interviewing actors, event organisers and the founder of Screamfest really enabled our students to get a taste of journalistic life as an exciting future career.

“Developing close relationships with major local businesses in this way also means our students build great contacts to use once they graduate and go on to work within the media across the UK.

“We would like to thank the Screamfest team for their time and hospitality for making this happen for our students.”

As part of their feature writing module at the University of Derby, students went behind the scenes of attraction Insomnia to see how the scares are created before talking to Ivor Robinson and his team to get all the details on how they bring each attraction to life.

Ivor, who regularly travels to America’s largest scream park convention Transworld for ideas, said: “As a family-run farm attraction, we have always been very passionate about helping to support students and young people to develop their skills.

“Screamfest is an experience like no other, so it is great to be able to share our knowledge and let future generations of journalists get a glimpse into what goes in to creating Halloween fright nights full of fun and shocks each year.

“We are fortunate to have a very knowledgeable and talented team who are very passionate about delivering the very best experience, so it was great to give students the opportunity to test their skills and find out more about what we do.”