Last summer I turned down an internship at a theater company because I was afraid they would not have much for me to do. Of course my parents weren’t happy with my choice and midsummer I finally found another internship working for a production company in New York City. The day before the internship began I spent an hour planning my outfit, I brought two liter bottles of water with me to fight off the summer heat, and I made sure to leave my dad’s apartment with twice as much time as I needed to get there. I was going to be the best intern they had ever seen, and I was going to work so hard that they would promote me to director’s assistant by the end of the week. At least, that is what I thought. Once I got to the hectic office that was the production team for a film coming out in 2013, my notions disappeared.
I was a runner for the film for six weeks so wearing nice summer dresses and flats hindered me from doing my job. I refused to give up my flats for sneakers so I ran around New York in patent leather flats trying to find the different props needed for set, give the correct payroll and set forms to the Paperwork Production Assistant, and a host of other things. After the twelve to fourteen hour days, learning the film lingo, drying my tears, and the saying goodbye to the friends I had made, I knew more than ever before that being a part of film was exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated Lawrence. It was hard work and some of the things I did I can’t even talk about because I was asked to sign a privacy form. One of the weirder things I was asked to do was take a vase of flowers to an actor’s apartment. I carried this square glass vase of flowers on the subway, praying to a higher power that I wouldn’t ruin the flowers or drop them, all the way to his apartment and dropped them off with his assistant. So this was making a movie? Well when you are college runner that is basically what you do, but this experience was wonderful in that it gave me a better sense of the film industry. In the end I learned three important things: work as hard as you can, learn a lot, and stay confident even when it seems like you can’t do anything right.
Sources:
http://www.film-video-production-crews-milwaukee-wisconsin.com/