Dan Goodchild – Technical Media and Coding Trainee at Toasted Productions

After completing his first year of an Electrical and Electronics degree Dan knew it wasn’t for him and made the decision to drop out of his studies and pursue a career where he could harness his creative side. It was a gamble that paid off. Today, Dan is relishing his role as Technical Media and Coding Trainee for MediaCity based independent Toasted Productions.

His first break after his stint at University was on a placement programme with the Manchester International Festival (MIF) where he completed the Factor Academy course and got involved with editing and networking opportunities.

“The MIF gave me a foot in the door and made me realised that I really wanted to pursue a more creative career. I spotted the Toasted Productions Kickstart at my local job centre and out of all the internships on offer it really stood out to me.”

“Since joining Toasted I haven’t looked back. I’ve been given real hands-on training where I’ve been able to apply my general interests and passion into what I do at Toasted – in terms of organising the filming kits and equipment but also learning about coding, website creation and project management. After completing the programme, I was delighted to be offered a permanent job.”

Dan thrives on the variety of the job. “I love the fact that no two days are the same and I can be working on a number of things from looking after the digital archive to recording and editing. I also work closely with our MD Simon Marsland, so I’m always learning.”

“MediaCity is such an exciting place to work. You never know which well-known faces you’re going to spot and there’s a real sense of excitement about the place. Some really cool stuff is created here. For example, our neighbours, GAS Music, created the theme tune for this year’s Winter Olympics.”

For the future, Dan has aspirations to work in prop design as well as pursuing skills in digital creativity but for now is happy in his role at Toasted: “I’m just so happy I made the decision to leave University when I did as now I really feel I’m on the right path.”

Toasted Productions