MY INTERNSHIP IN TELEVISION
I interned for an Emmy award winning casting producer in Los Angeles who needed help developing a brand new kid's show.
I was lucky enough to work both from her office at her home office/studio and her office at Relativity TV in Hollywood Studios where they cast the popular TV show "Catfish" and record the number one podcast, "The Nerdest."
I was given more responsibility than most interns. I was essentially her partner in developing the show. This allowed me to experience both the creative and executive side of television production. Not only was I building sets and helping her shoot the pilot, I was helping write the script and starring in the pilot as well.
Spending almost a month in Los Angeles without my parents to support me directly was a life changing experience that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life. Junior internship gave me my first real taste of what life is going to be like after high school and helped me get a feel for the field I might want to pursue.
MY INTERNSHIP PROJECT
The project I worked on that directly benefited my employer was, as I mentioned before, helping develop a new television show. The show is essentially "The Soup" for kids. My mentor was very excited to have a yonger person help her with the show because she wanted to have someone who was farmiliar with what her target audience found intriguing. We were a perfect fit!
My first week was spent watching every kind of clip show, talk show, and kid's show I could get my hands on, and writing down segment ideas, possible content, and anything else we could borrow for our own show. This was all part of pre-production. By the end of the week, we had a good idea of what our show's structure would be and some of the content we wanted.
My second week was spent finding the content. This meant downloading tons and tons of viral videos, getting my hands on bloopers from the most popular kid's shows, and collecting any other funny clips, music, etc. that we might need in post production. I also spent quite a bit of time at Hollywood Studios in the Relativity TV office during my second week of internship, so I was also helping out with miscellaneous office tasks. Being at the studios was really interesting. I got to talk to the casting producers of "Catfish"," I got to see the stages where legendary television shows like "I Love Lucy" were shot, and I even bumped into Tom Cruise in the hallway on the day he was in our office recording "The Nerdest" with Chris Hardwick.
The third week was spent actually scripting the show, refining all of our content, and finally shooting the pilot! It's funny how much work you have to put in for just one day of shooting. Our two weeks of pre-production work did not go to waste! The day of the shoot was hectic, but so much fun. Since it was only a pilot, my mentor decided not to rent out an actual stage but to just shoot it in her home studio. We built the set and I hosted the show, giving me a chance to see what it was like on the other side of the camera after spending three weeks behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, our pilot won't be edited before internship is over. However, I do plan to head on up to LA this summer so that I can help her pitch the show to Disney and a few other smaller networks. If all goes well this could turn into a huge career opportunity for both my mentor and myself. This project could be truly life changing!