Pete Sims

Five years on, Pete runs his own successful video production company. His advice? “Know your industry and …….believe in yourself, thinking hard about what it is that sets you apart from everyone else.”

While studying Media Production at Lincoln University I was lucky enough to get some work experience in America at Rocky Mountain PBS. Here I was a production assistant and learnt a lot about television and documentary production.

For my final year project I worked really hard over the summer and travelled to South Africa. There I filmed the Great White Shark cage diving and interviewed people who where involved. With that my group and I produced a documentary about how the media portray Great Whites as man eating machines and how that isn’t actually true.

During my last year of University I also joined the Lincolnshire Police force as a Special Constable. This was a fantastic experience and one which taught me a lot about life and enhanced my people skills.

After leaving University I worked freelance for a time and then got a job at an Academy in West Bromwich. Here I was the Production Manager and was put in charge of producing all the video content for the Academy’s online curriculum and website. It was a great job and I got to work with lots of different people.

Due to the distance this job was from where I lived I had to leave. I found a company in Shropshire who produced small budget corporate videos and they hired me as their production manager. I worked with the Creative Director and produced corporate videos for companies in the public and private sectors.

Unfortunately due to personality clashes, I chose to leave this company. But this was not before I had already had the idea of starting my own video production company. I was lucky that the guy I was working with at the time was also looking to do the same thing and so we made it happen! 7video Ltd was founded in December 2007 and we’ve never looked back.

7video produced videos for all manner of companies for use at events, but mostly for online.

As well as the two directors, we employ freelance staff to help with productions and hope to start taking staff on full time. Check out our web site to find out more and if you’d like to see a copy of our showreel just ask!

On location

If I were to give any advice to someone at University looking for work in the media, I’d say it comes down to knowledge and belief. Know your industry and the equipment you’re going to be using. Believe in yourself, thinking hard about what it is that sets you apart from everyone else. Everyone has a quality and yours might be what the employer is looking for. I’ve sent out hundreds of CVs and letters and the majority didn’t work but some did and they got me to where I am today.

In the studio

If you need anymore advice or just fancy a chat my email is peter@7video.co.uk