A few words from a (former) intern…

I am bequeathing my blogging day to Sealii King, our beloved intern whose last day was this Thursday. She’s been a champ the whole way through so I’ll leave you with her final words and see you all next Friday!

Let me preface this by saying that snagging my internship was no easy feat. In fact, it wasn’t until I offered to clean the office toilets that my boss, Production Manager Ryan Glidden, even responded to one of my many, many emails (this remains a fact of contention). I remember the awe and anticipation I felt visiting the studios for my interview. It’s one of those places that the second you walk through the doors, you know you want to work there. Kind of like Disney World. This may not make sense if you hate the Mouse House, but hopefully you catch my drift. Anyways, after grilling me in the conference room about my experience and plans for the future (I’m making this sound for more dramatic than it was), Ryan took me on a tour of the place. Seeing the cameras that shoot such breathtaking footage from around the world, and the edit suites that polish it, took my breath away. At the end of my interview and tour, I was told that I would start my internship in January. I walked out the door and emitted an “eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!”-type noise, a sound of elation that I believe only dogs could hear. I walk/skipped to my mom’s car parked across the street, clearly forgetting that I was but a mere mortal despite my future intern status, and nearly got hit by a car in the process. In case you’re wondering, I had my mom drive me because I was far too nervous to drive myself. I’m sure you’re getting a clear picture of the reign I have on my emotions right now.

During my internship I was assigned regular tasks such as time coding, writing video for transcripts, and recording music cues. Most of my assignments involved “Into the Wild” in one shape or another, which blew my mind because I grew up watching Jungle Jack Hanna. Let it be known that I never met Jack Hanna, and this fact has left me devastated.

I went on two shoots during my internship. My first shoot, a media day for Sesame Street Safari of Fun at Busch Gardens which consisted of two very long days (crew calls at 5 and 7 A.M.). I worked both days as a PA, assisting Ryan and other crew members with various tasks like standing in, delivering papers, and other fun things. My second shoot (this past weekend, as a matter of fact) was at Sea World for National Geographic’s new channel, NatGeoWILD. I assisted Horse, Spectrum’s supercool (not a real word but a real description) cameraman, with shooting crowd reactions following a presentation by two hosts from the network, along with animal interactions. I learned far more than I ever expected at both shoots, which surprised me due to my PA position.

Yesterday, I worked my last day as an intern, and I invited my family to take a tour of the place I spent 20 hours a week at since January. I took them upstairs to the conference room where I had my interview, through the edit suites, and finally to the camera closet. They saw the cameras that shot the scenes watched around the world. They saw why I was so excited to go there every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, despite my car getting 12 miles to the gallon. They see why now, on my first free Friday since January, I’m completely crushed as I watch cartoons at home instead of writing in music cues on spreadsheets.

On a closing note, I’d like to offer a few tips to any intern-hopefuls:

1) Do NOT wear heels. You will be out of place and Ryan will make you take the garbage to the city dump…by yourself.
2) Jump on any opportunity to go on a shoot. You will have a blast and make more connections there than anyplace else.
3) Don’t take offense if Ryan or Beti are so busy on projects they don’t have the time to throw one your way. Instead, start a project of your own. I put together my own little bottle-cap recycling campaign, where I decorated a cardboard box next to the recycle bin to catch un-recyclable plastic caps before they’re tossed out. The trick is to create a project that must be tended to regularly: now that my bottle-cap box is in place, I have no choice but to go back to Spectrum on a regular basis to retrieve my petite Polypropylene jewels.

…and weasel my way into whatever project is next up on the calendar.

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