Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Los Angeles Film Internships

Paramount PicturesImage via Wikipedia

If you have been to film school or if you are looking for experience in the industry, people will commonly tell you to get an internship. I don't think all internships are bad but the good are few and far between. I know that Fox, Sony Pictures, Time Warner and Paramount offer legit internships.
Now, I'm going to get the hundreds of scams gallivanting as internships. This is a story from my own personal experience. I once had an interview for an internship at Moviola. They wanted me to work five days a week for free in exchange for Final cut and Avid classes. It was an add on craigslist advertising for a post production intern. I would have answered phones and filed paperwork. Here's the thing, I already went to school. I need work experience not slave experience. It was like going on a blind date falling in love with the girl and finding out she's a man. Which there is totally nothing wrong with being into trannies if that's your thing but who wants to be lied to? That's the problem there are so many posts where companies aren't paying people and what they really want is free labor. Don't dress it as an internship just say you're to cheap to pay people or you have no soul and don't feel bad taking advantage of people. The economy sucks people are getting there houses taken away? What's wrong with these people.
I have heard of other peoples experiences too, I heard this girl used to have to get the producers dry cleaning. So messed up. I even heard that a guy worked for a place for 3 months free and was told they couldn't afford to hire him but the guy who told him drove a Maserati everyday to work. I bet there are so many stories like this. Small companies will hire "interns" with the promise of a possible hire and people will do it because we hope, "this is it, this is my break". They won't hire us, we'll just be replaced by another auspicious unknowing bright eyed individual.
There are good internships out there but there are a lot of illegal ones as well. Be weary, research the companies, talk to your school about internships, ask questions and remember we do not need these companies; They need us!
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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The economy Cook Book

ParmesanImage via Wikipedia

Ever since the economy has tanked I have to say, I have become an excellent cook. I read this quote yesterday while I was watching a documentary on origami. Which, by the way wasn't half bad. These guys were geniuses. Although they've probably never seen a women naked. Anyway back to the quote, it says, "Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium."- Henri Matisse.

So, I and maybe you, have found yourself with a limited "medium" also known as food and money. This is when the art comes in. How do we make a meal from limited resources. I have become very good at this. Pasta works really good for the base of a meal, so if you have pasta you're already halfway there. The other day, I had pasta and looked through my fridge filled with condiments, low and behold I had greek salad dressing and Parmesan cheese. I cooked the pasta and threw on the dressing and Parmesan. I call it pasta delight. It was actually really good, I would actually make it again and take it to a bbq and not feel ghetto.

Creativity goes a long way when you have a limited budget. Food inventions are one of my favorite challenges. Here are some creative tips to combat poor-peopleitis turn your jeans into shorts, if you have one outfit and wear the same thing everyday just tell people you're vegan, and if you can't bathe say I refuse to until the oil spill is resolved!(say it with conviction and slam your fist on something).
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Monday, July 26, 2010

The Job Market Experiment

So I have been looking for work for quite some time. Almost a year now. I look for work in the post production field. I live in L.A. It's like living in India and working on computers. There is actually work for it here. Anyway I read an article that for every job you apply for 5 other people are applying for it. I think that's b.s. So Decided to conduct my own experiment.

I posted an entry level position in the post production field. I even put "this is an entry level position". One it did not stop people that were completely over qualified for applying for this job and two I also wrote, "for people looking to get there foot in the door". That didn't stop people with five plus years in post production from applying for this job. This probably isn't news to anyone who reads anything about our economy. I agree that people who are over qualified are taking lower paying jobs just to get by in our slow economy.

As for how many people applied for the job. Well I posted it Sunday afternoon and deleted it Monday the next day at 6pm. I received thirty three emails. Every cover letter was standard. There was nothing I hadn't written before. There was nothing I could see that stood out. Most people did not have websites and most resumes were in pdf format. Which I thought was smart because you can pen pdf files on Mac or PC.

I know some people might be thinking what I did was a little unethical. I see how it might be perceived that way but my point is to try to encourage people and tell them what I have learned from this. I personally have found it hard not knowing how many people I am competing with, wondering if I'm not good enough, and really if there are things that I could do better. Honestly I don't think there is. I think it's a rough economy; It's like throwing darts blindly and hopefully one day we are all going to hit the bulls-eye.
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