What I Learned In LA

So I didn't write a blog last week since I was writing a paper to finish up my semester in LA.  Since I usually write about what I've learned in this industry, and the paper was about the same thing, why not kill two birds with one stone and check out the paper I wrote?

An entire college semester in Los Angeles can reveal a lot of things.  Students can learn where all the celebrities like to party.  Maybe they can figure out how to get free tickets to tapings of their favorite TV shows.  Or maybe they can learn about all the sights Los Angeles has to offer.  But to a film student looking to break into the movie industry, a semester in Los Angeles provides the opportunity to intern at various companies and learn valuable lessons on the business of entertainment.  Working in Los Angeles for a few months quickly reveals the importance of making connections in Hollywood to get a job, as well as the age-old adage of working harder then anyone else to get a promotion in said job, and how what they teach in film school actually does apply to the real world!

It sounds like a cliché, but Hollywood definitely works on a system of connections.  Applications alone don’t get people jobs; they have to know someone in the business already to get referred to a job.  Elissa Malek, who works as a senior vice president’s assistant at Scott Free in the unscripted television department, got her job this way.  She interned for Mary Lisio at a now dead production company while she attended UTLA in 2008.  Mary Lisio moved to Scott Free, and when Elissa moved back out to Los Angeles in 2010 she called up Mary, whom she had kept in contact with, and got a job as her assistant at Scott Free.  With the availability of news on Deadline and Hollywood Reporter, anyone can find an excuse to email an old superior to congratulate them on a new studio deal and remind them of their work as an intern back in the day.  That habit keeps you in their mind when they see a job open up.  Rachel, the tour guide at Modern Family, has the cliché benefit of knowing family in the entertainment industry.  Her uncle had worked at 20^th Century Fox for 25 years.  When Rachel graduated college in 2010, she called up her uncle for help in working on her favorite show, Modern Family.  Sure enough, he was able to pull some strings on the Fox lot and get her a job there as a production assistant.  Rachel has since created a new position for herself, which her superiors promoted her to.  Getting this kind of information requires a consistent habit of chatting it up with new acquaintances.  It doesn’t require a lot of difficulty to get people to start giving out good job advice.  Usually asking them about themselves or how they got the job they have now will reveal their own job application procedure and some useful advice they ran into on their own journey.  Even strangers in line at a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson will spill the beans when using this strategy!  So shyness only gets in the way.  That forms the initial connection, but making it into a strong one requires some additional work.  After a few weeks the superiors at production companies start to notice their interns, starting with the ones they enjoy hanging out with.  John Fischer, an executive at Heyday, likes to chat about scripts he and the interns have read.  Usually, these conversations extend beyond just commenting on the script’s faults or strengths to fun conversations about cool movies in general.  An intern that can make him laugh instantly makes himself favored in his eyes.  Of course, the traditional routine of hard work can make any employee stand out in their superior’s eyes in Hollywood.

            Many people in Hollywood share stories of how they notice talented, hard working employees and bump them up into a better job.  Paul Leonard, the postproduction supervisor for Battlestar Galactica and teacher at UTLA, has one such story.  In working on the show, as well as a couple others, he noticed how the editor didn’t know how to do their job.  In one situation, he wouldn’t take notes well.  In another, he didn’t know how to cut a scene together so that emotion would play fluidly.  In both situations Paul noticed a persistent assistant editor who knew how the scene should flow and fired the incompetent editor so the talented assistant could take his place.  Becoming this preferred employee at an internship definitely has its perks.  Jeffrey Clifford, the president of Heyday Films in Burbank, hand picks interns for his personal errands.  Earning his pick for important runs, like driving his brand new car to get its windows tinted, definitely means an intern has stood out in his eyes.  Going the extra mile on menial tasks works the same way.  Scott Free has its TV interns update an excel file, the cable grid, with updates in TV shows cast and crew lists every week.  While the work seems boring, the assistant in charge of the grid, Saagit Scher, likes close attention to detail.  Putting in that attention and turning in a flawless cable grid or detailed research document earns a lot of points in her eyes.  Superiors like to reward interns who consistently stand out to them with important runs like picking up David Heyman’s personal notebook from Alan Horn’s office at Disney.

            Finally, part of experiencing Los Angeles revealed that education through film school and college activities really does apply in the real world.  Modern Family, one of the best shows on television, has won numerous awards for its clever writing, and some of its actors have won individual awards as well.  A visit to their set in studio 5 on the 20^th Century Fox lot reveals that they work the same way as a good student film crew, just with more people and on a bigger stage.  They use the same jobs that student films do.  Both have gaffers and grips that adjust lighting between shots.  Both have the same rules for navigating a hot set too.  And even though the actors there earn thousands of dollars per episode, they work just like good actors back at Texas Student Television do.  They hit their marks and have the same problems remembering lines.  In between takes, they make the same jokes that college level actors do.  Working with them looks like working with good actors from film school!  Overall, seeing these similarities to film and TV work from college helps to demystify the entire process!  It reinforces the idea that film school prepares its students for the real world.  And it makes it ok to put faith in education.

            The fact that film schools actually have the right idea of what to teach definitely comes as a sigh of relief to graduating seniors.  But it takes more then just education to get a job.  A couple months interning in Los Angeles show that it usually takes knowing someone already in the business to help refer or hire a graduate for a job.  While this does seem biased to lucky people with friends in the industry, making those friends and contacts in the business comes as easy as striking up a conversation and asking them to talk about their job history, and people love talking about how they made it to where they work today!  After that point, it takes hard work and dedication to move up the job ladder.  Standing out and displaying talent shows employers exactly who deserves the promotion from assistant to editor, or who gets to make the special errand to one of the most important offices at Disney.  If only living in four months in Los Angeles can reveal all this, who knows how much more living here permanently will?

Looking Back on my Internships

Wow, it’s been awhile.  Sorry about the lack of updates over the last couple weeks, but I was enjoying my Thanksgiving.  I got to spend some time back home in Texas, and I even got to swing by Texas Student TV for a few hours.  I tried my hand at the new tricaster they’ve got and worked with some virtual sets on Videogame Hour Live.  They’ve got some pretty cool new stuff!

Anyways, everyone knows Thanksgiving break is just a tease for winter break, just a few short weeks after that.  And for me that means my semester of internships in Los Angeles must come to a close.  I’ve already wrapped up at one location, and I’m finishing up my other internship at the end of the week.  So this blog will be about looking back on my internship experiences.

Believe it or not, this semester was my first time interning anywhere.  I used to not like the idea of interning, specifically some of the stereotypes that get passed around.  I thought, “why would I just want to get someone coffee all day?”  Well I quickly found out that’s not what an internship is.

While I did make and deliver coffee to supervisors, which I actually ended up enjoying, I learned that I was actually contributing to the company’s operation, not being a mindless coffee boy.  I quickly learned how busy executives in Hollywood are.  They’re always taking phone calls and having meetings, and their assistants are just as busy.  If either of them went to get coffee, work would stop.  Calls would go to voicemail.  Clients would get frustrated while waiting for a meeting.

I was helping the operation run smoothly.  When everyone did their job, business kept flowing.  I was glad to be a part of it!  And since I’m fortunate enough to have had two great internships in two great settings, the walks or drives to pick up coffee were actually quite scenic and enjoyable.  And doing good jobs on those runs quickly led to more important errands.  So I’ve said goodbye to that misconception.

But in all honesty, I rarely went on such runs.  I usually had much more important work given to me.  Now that my internships are ending, I ironically want to keep up with that work.  One project I worked on had me reading the trades every day.  Not only did I find that this work kept me in the know, but it motivated to break into the job market.  I’ll keep reading the trades.

Reading script after script and book after book for coverage sharpened my mind too.  As I mentioned before, I’ve rediscovered how much I enjoy reading!  All of that literature sped up my reading pace and tightened my concept of story structure.  It’s also motivated me to get back into writing longer scripts for myself, as I now have 3 ideas for feature length scripts with a fourth one bubbling in the back of my mind.  And it’s just fun!  Gotta keep finding stuff to read, so I’ll find some script websites and get a library card out here.

And the networking!  While I made great contacts and friends with supervisors, interns, and others, I became more aware of how interconnected everyone in Hollywood is.  A couple of my projects entailed me browsing through names and connections on company accounts for IMDBPro.  I definitely have to get myself a subscription to that.  And it’s important to keep up with the contacts you make.

That’s a broad overview of what I learned, but there’s obviously too much more to fit into a blog post.  I’m super glad to have had such great internships, and I’m looking forward to the next step as I move into the job market.

Every Camera Has a Story

One of a filmmaker’s greatest tools to telling a story is the camera.  Film or digital, the camera has the magical ability to capture action so someone can manipulate that action into a story.  So ironically enough I found out my camera of choice, my Canon XHA1, has a story of its own to tell me.

I bought my XHA1 almost three years ago.  It’s an HD, tape based camera.  Imagine that: a high definition image on MiniDV tape!  Who would’ve thought that exists?  Anyways, I saw it on EBay and realized I had enough money saved up for it.  So I bought it used from a graduated film student from USC.

It was delivered to my home address, so I was ecstatic to see it in the living room when I came home for Christmas break in 2009.  I dove right in and started learning all the features of the camera.  While it’s a little outdated by today’s standards, it’s hard to imagine me using something newer when it offers so many more features that today’s DSLRs just don’t have:

Servo and programmable zoom functions, backwards compatibility with NTSC video on MiniDV tape (an essential need from my TSTV days), programmable buttons for user functions (I always have zebra bars a thumb click away), distinct and easily accessible image controls, and most importantly, built in XLR audio ports!

If you can’t tell, I really love my camera.  I’ve used it on multiple shows at TSTV and I’m still using it now for Hyperdrive Pictures.  I’m sure everyone develops memories with their favorite film gear as they bring them out on project after project.  But here’s where I get to that story I said the camera has for me, because up to now I’ve just been telling you my story with the camera.

Remember how I said it was a used camera?  Well one feature I don’t use too much is that it captures still images to an SD card, among other settings (I wish it could also record video to that card to keep it competitive with today’s workflows, but oh well).  I use that feature about once or twice a year.  While waiting to start a shot on a project a few weeks ago I decided to browse through the pictures I’ve taken on the card, the card that came used with the camera.

Coincidentally most, if not all, of my pictures on that card were taken at various conventions at the Austin Convention Center over the years.  All in all, that’s maybe 7 photos total.  But as I scrolled down I started seeing people I didn’t recognize in an apartment that wasn’t mine.  Oh my gosh, this was from the former owner!

It hit me again that the man who sold me this camera was a film school graduate, which I pretty much am right now!  When I think about all the projects I’ve used my camera on, I wonder how many he used it on.  What kinds of projects were they?  I wonder if I could see them anywhere.  I wonder if the previous owner felt as attached to this camera as I do now.

Then I thought up something else interesting: this camera’s been places.  As far as I can tell, it began its ‘life’ of use in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, a place I attended briefly for a summer program.  That film student with this camera very well might have been at USC at the same time as me that summer.  Small world, huh?

But then it traveled in a box to me all the way over in Texas.  It filmed some fun and cool projects and got lots of exposure on television (thanks TSTV!) in my film education.  And now I’ve moved to Los Angeles, and my camera came with me.  It went on a full circle journey back to where it began.  I know it’s just a camera, but it’s kind of cool.

Most of the pictures on that SD card are from the previous user, and he took pictures of a lot of famous locations across Los Angeles, locations that I’ve been to since moving here.  It’s like the camera and its pictures are a clue to a former life, and I’m the one to take the camera back home to it.  After all, who says you can’t go home?

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself; I had to throw that reference in there once I thought about it.  Well, now that I’ve lost all credibility, I’ll wrap this thing up with a side comment like I seem to always do.  A couple of pictures on the card are of the owner or one of his friends smoking…something in a living room.  Seems like something you might want to take off of the card.  But it makes for a good laugh.