It’s the Brit Awards tonight and it’s set to be a scorcher. Stormzy, Foo Fighters and Justin Timberlake are all set to light up the stage amongst a whole array of contemporary talent. The awards ceremony has been around since 1977 and have been established as one of the most prestigious ceremonies in the music calendar.

The ceremony has thrown up some memorable moments in the past. They reignited the feud between Blur and Oasis in 1996 with the Gallagher brothers covering ‘Parklife’ on stage. They created an unlikely conflict between Sharon Osborne and Vic Reeves in 2007 when he appeared to forget what award he was announcing. And even more recently in 2012, cut off Adele when she was making her acceptance speech.

Here’s a few things we’re looking out for tonight:

• Dua Lipa – The 22 year old is up for 5 awards! Including Best British Female, Single, Album, Video and Breakthrough Act – all after she becomes the youngest female artist to hit 1 billion views on a music video.
• Loyle Carner – The South London rapper is up for Best British Male Solo Artist & British Breakthrough Act – a week after he pulls out of Radio One Live Lounge because his covers not being deemed “big enough hits,” despite including songs by Kanye West and The Fugees.
• The XX – The Wandsworth troop are up for Best British Group. Their incredible album ‘I See You’ has gained plaudits everywhere and led the band selling out 5 gigs in 6 days at The 02 Academy, Brixton.
• Kendrick Lamar – Labelled one of the greatest of all time, Kendrick is up for Best International Male Artist and it’s easy to see why after his critically acclaimed tour across the UK received rave reviews.  
• Laura Marling – Nominated for British Female Solo Artist, showing how far she’s come since featuring on Mystery Jets’ indie classic, ‘Young Love.’
• Arcade Fire – Win Butler, fresh from his NBA all-stars victory, is nominated with Arcade Fire for Best International Group.

We hope you have a cracking time watching it tonight!

Some people love it and others loathe it but Valentine’s Day is here. Whether it’s love for a person, a place or an idea - the idea of fighting for something is key to every narrative. We’re going to have a look at a collection of love stories that don’t make you feel nauseas or cringe at the sight of.

One film that springs to mind that looks at the early stages of love is Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, a coming-of-age love story that was produced by Warp Films and Film4 productions. It includes a fantastic soundtrack by Alex Turner and it strikes a certain emotive chord due to the fact it follows two love stories across two very different age groups.

Valentine’s Day wouldn’t go amiss without some form of Bonnie and Clyde edge to it and Tony Scott’s 1993 epic, True Romance, delivers just that. The narrative follows a newly wedded couple on a trecharious journey after accidently stumbling upon hundreds of thousands of dollars. The film’s got a stella cast too, with James Gandolfini, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper all contributing to an explosive narrative that has everything.

It’s a bit of a curve ball but one of the most prominent couples to have graced our television screens is Tom and Barbara Good from The Good Life. Their contemporary idea of living a self-sufficient life would put a strain on any relationship but they’ve remained current for 40 years, with UKTV still regulary broadcasting it during primetime slots.  

Whatever you’re up to tonight, have a cracking evening!

The Searchlight team were at the Business Design Centre yesterday for the Royal Television Society’s TV Careers Fair!

The atrium was filled to the brim with buzzing and bright undergrads looking to gain an insight into the media and entertainment industries.

Our consultants delivered invaluable feedback from our stall and within the designated CV Clinic, with some of television’s major players offering advice on how to break into the industry.

We all really enjoyed being there and meeting hundreds of budding creatives looking to further their careers in an industry that continues to thrive.

Thanks to the RTS for having us, we had a blast!

In this extremely technological age, there are more and more ways being invented to make things quicker, cheaper and more compact – blockchain is at the forefront of these advancements.

“A  blockchain   is a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger.”

We’ve attempted to try and get our head around this thing called blockchain, a seemingly safer way of transferring information in the era of bitcoin. 

Blockchains are:  

AUTHENTIC – Creates a record that everyone in the community has to verify.

COLLABORATIVE – Isn’t controlled by one single entity, and so doesn’t have a single point of failure.

INEXPENSIVE – Cuts out middlemen, reducing costs due to direct transfers.

PREDICTABLE – Trends can be found to try and establish market trends.

SAFE – They are an immutable ledger, assuring the safety of data as it’s impossible to cheat. 

FAST – The transferring of data and ownership could take days, blockchains make it almost immediate.

VISIBLE – The database isn’t kept in one place, keeping the data truly public and easily locatable.

Sooner or later, experts believe that we’ll see our taxes, medical records and even wills being encrypted in the same way – exciting (but confusing) times!