My name is Nicholas Brown. I'm 20 and currently studying Film and English at Southampton University. Between dreams of becoming the next Kevin Smith and becoming the next Ricky Gervais I enjoy wasting money and not doing much.

Thursday

Edinburgh - city of castles. And haggis. After hilariously missing my train I embarked on my epic journey up to the TVYP festival. I arrived exhausted and a tad confused but manage to stumble in the welcoming arms of a steward who managed to direct me towards my room. After receiving a bunch of free stuff (wow! A mobile phone charger) we had some group photos taken and hopped on a bus to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre to see the legendary Vernon Kay.

Vernon was as entertaining and tall as he looks on television and talked candidly about his career from his start as a model through T4 to his various light entertainment programmes. The whole audience was captivated by stories of Keith Duffy, Liam Gallagher and Owen Wilson's nose.

Afterwards we retired to a casino themed soiree where between hobnobbing (read: brownnosing) with bigwigs, I played Hunt-the-waiter-with-the-drinks. What better way to start the festival than with free drinks and Vernon "cheeky chappy" Kay.

Friday

Friday icked off the right way with a hearty breakfast (being the future of the media industry is tiring work). The main structure of the day was hour long masterclasses with industry professionals.

First off was Melanie Leach, MD of TwoFour Prodctions who talked to us about budgets and other such monetary matters. After finding out how much an executive producer makes I hastily reconsidered my career path.

After Melanie was Kevin Lygo, Director of Television for Channel 4 whose job seemed so inconceivablyinfluential and powerful I half expected it to be done by computers by now. Kevin spoke candidly about the channel's programming, the controversy of Big Brother and what we could expect in the coming year.

The special main event of the day was a session with Britain's most trusted man Sir Trevor Mc Donald. DIspensing his pearls of wisdom, Sir Trev appeared more like a benevolent mentor than a news broadcaster. Proving that old habits die hard, SIr Trev sat just to the side of a TV screen.

And yes, his voice is really like that.

In the afternoon, I met Kevin Lygo's parallel ITV chap, Simon Sachs, a very pursuasive man with media's most unenviable job.By talking about how hits are made and the development of shows like I'm a Celebrity, he had me almost not disliking ITV.

The evening was rounded up by the Prestigious McTaggart lecture where exiting ITV top man Charles Alen gave his speech. I shall sum up. "We know we're not very popular right now, but Channel 4 and BBC are craper than us." We then drank and sang into the night.

Saturday

Saturday was spent in our weekend workshops. Having chosen Scriptwriting I was delivered into the hands of Roxanne and Cameron, the writers and producers of shows such as Footballer's Wives, Bad Girls and Life on Mars. They introduced us to character development techniques, scriptwriting and editing processes as well as the Footballer's Wives universe within which we would be writing. After writing scenes for the characters we had the privelidge of having Sarah Barrand and Craig Gallivan from Footballer's Wives come in to read through and perform our work which was pretty bloody amazing.

During lunch I went to a career surgery where professionals gave me advice regarding getting into the TV industry and preparing my CV. In the eveing we attended the MGEITF awards ceremony hosted by the flambuoyant Russell Brand. The highlight of the night was Sir David Attenborough being presented with the TV Personality award and getting a standing ovation from everyone in the packed out auditorium.

The night was filled with more entertainment as we retired to the infamous (to those in the know) George Hotel to watch some of the Fringe's best comedy such as Gamarjobat and listen to the 'breakout' group Captain. Many of the delegates chatted with industry heads in a desperate bid to get some work experience or even a business card. I, however, was above all that. (By the way if there are any execs reading this, I'm the radical new writer that's going to give you the new Office or Little Britain. Get in touch.)

After the consumption of intoxicating and overpriced beverages (TVYP needs an alcohol sponsor to solve this problem) I can reveal I was in discussion with another delegate about his idea for a show involving pigs and alligators fighting on the moon. This is the future of television, I'll let you know if Kevin Lygo or Simon Sachs return my pitch emails.

Sunday

Sunday started quietly with much yawning and popping of asparin. We finished our various workshops and headed to the EICC for a live presentation of the culmination of all the group's work which included show pitches, short films, news broadcasts, script performances and a special 8 out of 10 Cats segment with Jimmy Carr. And it was all hosted my Sally Gray. No Flynn though.

The afternoon saw Kirsten O'Brien interview the Executive Producer and stars of MTV's new show Totally Boyband, a format which involves members of split up boybands forming a new boyband in the same way a granny creates a patchwork quilt from bits of old rag. The audience were certainly divided on the possibility of the band surviving in the long term.

To wrap up the weekend and let loose a bit after such a packed few days we invaded and inhabited a local pub for the night, drinking and dancing til the wee hours. No-one quite wanted it TVYP to end and contact details were eagerly exchanged to keep in contact with one another. An awesome weekend and a great intorduction to the industry. No-one left on Monday doubting that this was where they wanted their career to go.

Related post: MGEITF