I was watching “Dance Moms” the other day – and if you don’t watch it, don’t start. This show is both amazing and terrifying at the same time and you will never be able to look away- and I had my usual panic about these kids being phenomenal at 10 years old and I am twice their age and not doing anything particularly phenomenally right now. But then I thought about how I am at the beginning stages of doing exactly what they are doing. At the risk of sounding cliché and stupid I am going to say that I am working confidently toward the direction of my dreams and aspirations as they did when they were three years old. Although I have started much later in life than them I am still moving in the same direction. I have taken my beginner tap/ballet (Film) classes and I have performed badly in my first recital (Final project) and I have moved on to (slightly) bigger and (slightly) better things.
There is a certain hopelessness in wanting to be a part of the entertainment industry in any regard but there are things along the path that give you a little flicker of hope and that spark your creative mind and push you forward just far enough to inspire you and keep you moving. This summer I did an internship at Galileo Media Arts and it was my flicker of hope. I got to learn so much from people who had so much to teach. They had an absurd amount of trust in me -and the other two thirds of the intern trio- and our abilities to accomplish the tasks they gave us. They gave us no room for error and I learned so much. We got to make our own narrative and documentaries from start to finish and we got to see what really goes into making these things come alive. We also got to see every aspect of what the company does on a daily basis. I stood in a hot parking lot for five hours dressed in business casual attire on a shoot for a car commercial. I got to spend extensive blocks of time logging footage. I got to put together a mock commercial, from writing the script to recording the voice over to sending it to the “client” and having John, our supervisor, send it back multiple times for multiple different reasons. I got to see and be a part of every step of the process.
At the end we got to watch and celebrate our work and I got to sit with the people that I am going to seriously miss -all the awesomely talented people that work at Galileo and the other two interns who almost made me cry when I left- and enjoy the best part of making movies and television, watching it, enjoying it, and sharing with people the ups and downs of how it came to be. As an intern at Galileo I got to experience everything that the company lives and breathes. The cool thing about all the emotions I felt during my six weeks in the entertainment business was that they made it feel real. This wasn’t just an internship where you watch other people do what they love, it was an internship that throws you into what you think you love and lets you decide for yourself if it is the career for you. I can honestly say this internship was one of the best experiences I have had in my life so far and it gave me the hope and push I needed to make sure that I am involved in this business one way or another for the rest of my life.
