Who's had an internship in the movie business?
 

I'm in the process of starting to send out resumes and such for this upcoming summer, has anyone had any internships with any studios, PR agenciesor anything of the nature movie-related? If so what was the experience like? Any advice to give about applying?

I had a couple of internships when I was in college in NYC, one at Saturday Night Live and the other Martin Scorsese's office. They were both incredible learning experiences, and stressful too, because they were a definite push into the real world. I would say be prepared for some real work with real deadlines, depending on how many responsibilities they might give you. At least in the SNL job, they expected me to be as responsible as any of the normal PAs they might have paid, and that took a bit of getting used to. But both jobs were great, and looked really nice on the resume too.

How do people make money to live on when they do these kinds of jobs?

I've done it before, years ago in a former life. The only advice I can give: brush up on doing "The Robot."

Well, when I did it, I was still in school, so I didn't really have to worry too much about making lots of money. I had a friend who interned at Roger Corman's studio for about 9 months, and I think the only way he really survived was living cheap and having a nice money buffer.

I'm lucky enough that I have a full ride to college on an academic scholarship, so my parents are happy to support me over the summer considering what it would have cost if I went to a private university.

figgil what school did you go to?

never interned, but i was a PA for about 8 months making $7.50 to $10 an hour. it was kind of easy because i was mostly driving 3/4" tapes around town to various studios and production facilities. got to know where just about everything in this god forsaken city is located. my advice: no one cares what school you went to, what degree you have, etc. they only want someone they can count on to get tasks done with minimal supervision. they want you to be "the go-to guy". project that, and you're in.

Cygnet has it down right. No one cares where you learned anything from as long as you can make correct copies of the script.

I've interned in the past in a couple of places and I can tell you that you need to be full fledged into it. You want to show them what you can do. Consider it a long interview because this will show them what you can do, who you can network with and what you can learn from it.

I would advise to network. Get along and talk to as many people possible on all sides of the production end and you will make the best use out of the internship and who knows where they might be or where they might take you in your career.

More than likely you'll be getting orders, making copies, running scripts, running tapes, and doing the dirty work. stick to it and you'll move up.

by chance where are you going to shoot for apply to in florida? used to do my thing in orlando.

what is your field of interest in "the movie business" ?

Not that this will help much, but if you want to see a very funny look at movie life at the bottom, check out <i>Hijacking Hollywood</i> on DVD.

Had an internship at Tribeca, Deniro's production company, for a semester in college.

LOTS of stories about that.

University of Florida



I'm not sure I'm going to apply anywhere in Florida, as far as internships involving film I was probably only going to apply to places in NY and LA. I'm applying for some music related internships as well, places in NY and Miami. To be honest, I'm not sure what aspect of the "movie business" I'm set on. I'm really into PR, promotions, press management, stuff like that, but then again I'm also into production, so it all kind of depends on what I can get, and use it as a trial to see what I really want to pursue.

I just sent my resumes out last week to several places. I heard back from Newmarket, and plan to meet with them on Friday.

When I was in film school in 1988, I interned with Stan Winston's Special Effects company. I was kind of crazy about monsters and fx, and even though I was more interested in directing films - the oppurtunity came about and I jumped at it. I actually got the internship through a friend of the family who was dating the cinematographer on Pumpkinhead.

I lived in LA for a summer, and lost a bunch of money being an intern, but Stan and his crew taught me how to sculpt, I got to hang around the warehouse and learn about monsters, and I even worked a robotic ear for the gnome, in a scene in the awful flick, a Gnome Named Norm.

It was awesome! Doesn't correlate to anything I do now, but it earned me the internship credit I needed for film school, and was a hell of a lot of fun.

It was TV, not movies -- but my college internship (summer 1995) was with The Jerry Springer Show

I learned to edit and cut negative the old fashioned way. :o

you earned it?

My mentor was deathly afraid of the AVID. Everything I did was on a bench and flatbed. :(

sorry, i was making a salomon smith barney joke. anyway, i learned to cut on flatbeds as well. i think i was the last generation of filmmakers to do so because everyone yonger than me never touched one. they all learned on FCP or AVID.

Jack where did you do your thing in Orlando? I'm there now.

Is there a site that lists internships in the movie industry? I only know of entertainmentcareers.net. Also, is there a site that lists movie studios, so I can look on their individual pages for any information?

http://www.craigslist.org/ has stuff like this. Usually the home pages of studios are only for advertising, not recruiting.

I worked for years with Gramercy and Paramount.

Don't forget, the talent hates when you look them in the eyes.

I worked as a Studio Page in Los Angeles back in the 1980s....mostly for live tapings of various television shows like "Designing Women", "Murphy Brown", "The Gary Shandling Show", etc.