ANDREW KERR will never forget the roar of the crowd as Scottish swimmers raced to winning positions on the medal podium last summer at Tollcross International Swimming Centre.

The atmosphere at the packed Commonwealth Games events last July were the culmination of weeks of work experience for the new graduate trying to find a role in the fast-paced world of television production.

As a camera assistant he had a key role working with a camera operator, making sure the equipment was in order and, more importantly, nothing landed in the pool.

"At the start of the day I would rig up the camera, check the lenses were clean, have batteries at accessible points if I needed to change one when we were live on air. That was an important job because the camera can't go off," says the 20-year-old from Giffnock who studied for an HND in creative industries television at Glasgow's Cardonald College.

"My camera operator was around the pool quite often so I had to keep an eye on him as well - if he was near water for safety.

" I was always on the move. For the winning shot of the first-placed swimmer coming in he would hang over the pool with his camera to get the shot so I had to make sure he didn't fall in."

The Host Broadcasters Training Initiative, part of Legacy 2014, gave colleges and universities across Scotland the chance to offer students work placement during the Glasgow 2014 Games.

Andrew was just one of more than 600 given the once in a lifetime opportunity. Now, six months after the start of the Games he reflects on the experience and how it has helped his career.

"The hours were long, with early starts and late finishes, often 10-hour days. I have done different TV jobs and that's the norm so it wasn't a problem," he says.

"The buzz of being there in a live environment was incredible; it was like nothing I had ever done before. The swimming was always packed and the atmosphere was amazing. It was a great event.

"I learned to always be proactive, to be aware, always on the move and alert. With it being a live competition anything could go wrong so you had to be on the ball all the time."

Sunset + Vine and Global Television were the host broadcaster of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Their initial proposal was to provide meaningful work experience to 120 students studying relevant TV and media related courses.

In the end nearly six times that amount benefited from world-class media broadcast training, with more than 200 successfully securing roles at the Games. HBTI was jointly managed and delivered by SVGTV, the host broadcaster for Glasgow 2014, and Creative Loop.

Now freelance, Andrew made contacts at the Games and has now gone on to work on BBC's Question Time and is currently working on the Britain's Got Talent judges' tour.

Fellow Cardonald College graduate Ian Henderson had a very different but equally unforgettable experience at the Games.

The 20-year-old from Mansewood had just gained an HND in television operations and as well as working behind the scenes at the summer event, took immense pleasure seeing his short film screened to the thousands of people in the audience at Celtic Park on July 23.

His three-minute film was a competition entry at the Student Media Festival in conjunction with with Creative Loop.

"The brief was what makes Glasgow great. My film was a poetry and rap collaboration where we did some spoken word poetry and a rap about the people of Glasgow and some of the local sayings, local patter capturing the real people," says Ian.

" I didn't film it with any actors, I used real people I knew from Glasgow.

"I had a ticket to the opening ceremony but the view to the screen was blocked from my seat. I went down and stood on the touchline and started recording my reaction and that of the crowd to the film.

"I recited the poetry and people round me realised it was my film. Afterwards a little girl came up and asked to shake my hand and people wanted photos with me. It was a surreal experience."

He said he was keen to get involved in the training initiative to pick up essential hands-on experience in the industry.

He did camera operating for the badminton events at the Emirates Arena and also managed to get a placement with the BBC's Sportscene.

"I got to see what happened when that show was going out live, how they dealt with different problems when they came up," he remembers."We were allowed to practice with the same footage they had live, to get an idea of the time constrains they were under and the resources available.

"It was a real highlight getting the chance to use equipment I wouldn't normally be allowed to touch - fancy cameras and editing software. It was fantastic to be able to ask the professionals how everything was done and learn from them, get an insight to what actually goes on."

Now launching himself as a freelance filmmaker, Ian has been commissioned to produce a film for his old college for the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework conference, filming all the different subjects around the campuses.

"The Games experience definitely helped me get other work," he says. "It's amazing to put on my CV that I made a film that was shown at the opening ceremony and I did specific jobs, such as editing and camera work."