4thWall

Hey guys,

It’s my first time posting on this wall so I thought I’d begin with this category. The journey to my internship (production internship at Discovery Studios in LA) began literally the first second I stepped inside SU’s doors – I tried to take every opportunity that came my way, from volunteering at the Make a Wish shoot during our first summer session, working on a few shows at OTN in my “spare” time, or doing side video projects on the weekends for local non-profit organizations.  I knew going into this program that I had little to no experience in production, so my attitude was to do whatever it would take to make up for lost time. I was determined, while at Newhouse, to try as many different things as possible and to get advice from as many different people as possible, so that I’d know exactly what direction I wanted to go in when I began “real life” (my first “real” job).

Skipping ahead a few months—on the January trip to LA, I felt frustrated to hear all of the speakers say that they got where they were because of “luck.” I remember thinking that if luck is what it takes to make it in the entertainment industry, I’m screwed — I’m definitely not a lucky person, and everything I’ve ever achieved in my life has come about simply through hard work and persistence. It was on the LA trip that I realized I wasn’t going to wait for the perfect internship to come to me—I was going to go out and get it for myself.  I ignored the advice I received from a lot of professors (Schoony included), which was to only apply for a few internships and trust that I’d get one (and possibly even more than one).  Instead, I applied to 30.  No joke…30.  And I got 1 out of those 30. The one internship I got happened to be the one I wanted the most, which I am very grateful for; but I wasn’t willing to risk not getting an internship at all if the chips fell in another direction.

It was definitely a struggle trying to convince myself that I wanted to move out to LA for good.  Schoony can testify to this—I was in and out of his office numerous times in the last few months of the year, trying to figure out what to do with my life.  I didn’t really see myself as an “LA person”—whatever that means—so it was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that this is where I was supposed to go and begin my life. But, now that I’ve been out here a little over two months I guess I’ve learned that there’s no such thing as an “LA person”—I have yet to meet one person out here who was born and raised in LA.  Instead, LA is a city of dreamers—there’s a hell of a lot of people out here, and almost all of them want the same things we all do…to “make it” in this business in one way or another. Once I realized that, I knew I had to do everything I could to stand out at my internship and prove, for lack of a better way to say it, that I “wanted it more.”

Here’s where I began following, and still continue to follow, Schoony’s advice:  I worked my ass off at my internship.  A normal intern day is 10am-5:30pm, but I always arrived early for work, always stayed late, and often worked on the weekends. There was even a stretch, two weeks ago, when I went into the office for the day shift and then joined a different crew on set to film a pilot at night. I worked 18+ hour days that week, but I truly loved every second of it.  People at my job tell me on a regular basis that I’m crazy—but I don’t feel crazy, because I love going to work every day. Last week, the company offered me my first job, and you would think that might make me lay off the hours a bit—but I’m still keeping it up. If there’s one thing I learned out here in my first few months, it’s that you can never get comfortable, and you can never stop proving yourself.  Ask yourself, how bad do you want it?  I don’t pretend to know all the answers, but if we keep proving ourselves and working our asses off in the process, I think we’ll all be just fine. 🙂