Planning a gap year

The best reason to take a gap year between school and work or higher education is to improve your CV with experience overseas. This is why some school leavers in Britain now consider a year out to be essential. Many want to travel, with Sydney the favourite destination. Shooting Star is an organisation that helps school leavers by offering training followed by appropriate employment.

We at Shooting Star offer much more than a trip abroad. At Shooting Star you acquire skills that lead to interesting jobs both for your gap year and future holidays. Magazines are full of ‘Wanted’ adverts for washing up in a restaurant. Well, we don’t do that it’s not our idea of excitement. We offer school leavers the chance for outdoor adventure, to teach things like sailing and snowboarding. No choice, really! In your year out you train, travel and work; you can combine work with pleasure and reap the rewards. You could become an experienced yacht skipper or instructor and many people go on to spend their future holidays being paid to enjoy their favourite sport.

Australians and New Zealanders travel to Europe and North America in large numbers to gain overseas experience. Those who qualify with Shooting Star are very soon using their skills in jobs they could only dream about before, working outdoors and seeing more of the world. Wherever you come from, a gap year with Shooting Star means professional training and international adventure.

Top tips for a successful gap year:

• Design your gap year in outline before applying for a permanent job or a college place. Human Resources officers or Admissions tutors will be impressed by a thought-out plan.

• What’s more important to you – travel or work experience? You can be flexible with travel plans but you must research job opportunities in advance. Go to our website and click on Recruitment for ideas.

• Who do you know who has taken a gap year before? Shooting Star can put you in touch with someone who has just completed one.

• Sort out the admin in plenty of time – air tickets, visas, insurance and medical matters such as vaccinations for some destinations. These are your responsibility.

• Who is in charge of your affairs while you are away? There will be forms to fill and letters to answer.

• Allow plenty of time to settle back home on your return – and don’t be surprised if it takes some time to readjust to everyday life!

Succeeding at Interviews

A Getting invited to an interview means you have passed the first hurdle- your application must have made a good impression. Now you need to prepare yourself for the interview to make sure you make the most of this opportunity. There are a number of things you can do.

B Firstly you can do some research. Find out about the employer and the job, ask for an information pack or speak to people you know who work for the company. Try to plan for the interview by asking who will be interviewing you and whether there will be a test to take.

C Prepare for questions you might be asked. Some common ones are the reason why you want the job, whether you have done this kind of work before, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and which leisure pursuits you enjoy.

D Another important point is never to run the risk of arriving late. For example, consider making a ‘dummy run’ in advance to see how long the journey will take. Check out public transport or, if you are going by car, the nearest parking. Aim to arrive about 10 minutes before the interview is due to start.

E It is also crucial to give plenty of thought to what you are going to wear. This will depend on the job you are going for. There is no need to buy a new outfit, but aim to look neat and tidy. Remember, if you look good it will help you feel good.

F You need to make a good impression. Interviews can vary from a relatively informal ‘one-to-one’ chat to a very formal panel situation. Whatever the circumstances, you will give yourself an advantage by being friendly and polite, by making eye contact with the interviewer and by selling yourself by focusing on your strengths.

G There are also things you should avoid doing at your interview. First of all, don’t exaggerate. For example, if you don’t have the exact experience the employer is looking for, say so and explain you are willing to learn. Don’t simply give ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers, but answer questions as fully as you can. And lastly, don’t forget to ask questions as well as answering them.

H One final thing to remember: it is important to show good team spirit that you possess good people skills and that you are friendly and approachable. Finally, remember to be enthusiastic and show that you can be flexible.

The History of Cinema

The history of the cinema in its first thirty years is one of major and, to this day, unparalleled expansion and growth. Beginning as something unusual in a handful of big cities – New York, London, Paris and Berlin the new medium quickly found its way across the world, attracting larger and larger audiences wherever it was shown and replacing other forms of entertainment as it did so. As audiences grew, so did the places where films were shown, finishing up with the ‘great picture palaces’ of the 1920s, which rivalled, and occasionally superseded, theatres and opera-houses in terms of opulence and splendour. Meanwhile, films themselves developed from being short ‘attractions only a couple of minutes long. to the full-length feature that has dominated the world’s screens up to the present day.

Although French, German, American and British pioneers have all been credited with the invention of cinema, the British and the Germans played a relatively small role in its worldwide exploitation. It was above all the French, followed closely by the Americans, who were the most passionate exporters of the new invention, helping to start cinema in China, Japan, Latin America and Russia. In terms of artistic development it was again the French and the Americans who took the lead, though in the years before the First World War, Italy, Denmark and Russia also played a part.

In the end, it was the United States that was to become, and remain, the largest single market for films. By protecting their own market and pursuing a vigorous export policy, the Americans achieved a dominant position in the world market by the start of the First World War. The centre of film-making had moved westwards, to Hollywood, and it was films from these new Hollywood studios that flooded onto the world’s film markets in the years after the First World War, and have done so ever since. Faced with total Hollywood domination, few film industries proved competitive. The Italian industry, which had pioneered the feature film with spectacular films like Quo vadis (1913) and “Cabiria” (1914), almost collapsed.

In Scandinavia, the Swedish cinema had a brief period of glory, notably with powerful epic films and comedies. Even the French cinema found itself in a difficult position. In Europe, only Germany proved industrially capable, while in the new Soviet Union and in Japan, the development of the cinema took place in conditions of commercial isolation.

Hollywood took the lead artistically as well as industrially. Hollywood films appealed because they had better-constructed narratives, their special effects were more impressive, and the star system added a new dimension to the screen acting. If Hollywood did not have enough of its own resources, it had a great deal of money to buy up artists and technical innovations from Europe to ensure its continued dominance over present or future competition.

From early cinema, it was only American slapstick comedy that Successfully developed in both short and feature format. However, during this Silent Filmiera, animation, comedy, serials and dramatic features continued to thrive, along with factual films or documentaries, which acquired an increasing distinctiveness as the period progressed. It was also at this time that the avant-grade film first achieved commercial success, this time thanks almost exclusively to the French and the occasional German film.

Of the countries which developed and maintained distinctive national cinemas in the silent period, the most important were France, Germany and the Soviet Union. Of these, the French displayed the most continuity, in spite of the war and post-war economic uncertainties. The German cinema, relatively insignificant in the pre-war years, exploded onto the world scene after 1919. Yet even they were both overshadowed by the Soviets after the 1917 Revolution. They turned their back on the past, leaving the style of the pre-war Russian cinema to the emigres who fled westwards to escape the Revolution.

The other countries whose cinemas changed dramatically are: Britain, which had an interesting but undistinguished history in the silent period; Italy, which had a brief moment of international fame just before the war; the Scandinavian countries, particularly Denmark, which played a role in the development of silent cinema quite out of proportion to their small population, and Japan, where a cinema developed based primarily on traditional theatrical and, to a lesser extent, other art forms and only gradually adapted to western influence.