Jake Nations
Class of 2017
07/11/2015
12 Hours
07/25/2015
11 Hours
08/08/2015
9 hours
08/14/2015
10 hours
Internship Logs:
07/11/2015:
Today was my first day, and I don't have the vocabulary to explain what I experienced. My internship was granted to me because my neighbor is now my boss. He is a small director that edits and creates commercials for local businesses (and a lot of car dealerships) and he asked me if I wanted a job… right after I asked him to pick up my new $2,000 computer and keep it safe while I was in L.A, he texted me what I would be using this monster of a computer for, I told him that I did editing and programming. When I came back from Los Angeles, he came out from his home, handed me my computer along with a uniform and a work permit. I was really shocked for him to tell me I would be his new producer’s assistant. The first lesson I was told is to be attentive of every second of every hour. When you are making a commercial or even on a movie set, there is a lot of waiting. This can strain your attentiveness to your limit, and make you tireless. I love it.
07/25/2015:
I have gone to my second commercial set at a local optomologist in silicon valley. I paid a lot of attention to businesses detail, the connection between small business owners and comcast to help advertise their businesses is really interesting. It seems everything is done in contracts, but at the same time. It feels as if all three parties, (Small business, Castaway, Comcast) are all really vague with each other. Clock in, clock out type of scenario. My boss however, has a really creative mind. He puts in a lot more work for local people, and single chain restaurants. Rather than the million of car dealerships that he had to work on. So, as a small part of marketing/entertainment business. Everything is vague, except the long contract that you sign. Oh, and I also learned about personal finance and what invoices were. They decided to take me off training on my first day and give me a paycheck.
08/08/2015
The next shoot wasn't any business, but a theater. I spent an entire day and evening running up and down a theater recording a live play in berkeley. It was pretty intense, because it was only me and my boss with 8 different cameras. I was moving non-stop to each one carrying SD-cards and batteries. Switching them out and moving on to the next one, and it was unfortunate for me because the cameras were far away from each other in the theater. Overall it was a fun experience, never had to manage 8 cameras at once before. Next time i'll bring my nike's.
08/15/2015
Unfortunately, today is my last day. These commercial shoots don’t come too often, but when they do. It's longer than a full day job, and I come home with almost $150 in my account. Today was also really interesting as well, we had to record for a local engineering college in silicon valley, and it took a long time going to different departments and their many workshops. Instead of tweaking with the cameras and moving equipment. I had to be a “college student” in their cloth uniforms for a really long time. I was in the background for almost half of the commercial banging wrenches to AC units pretending to be “working”. I thought it was hilarious that I could pass for a 22 year old college student. I had an amazing time working for this small 3rd party advertising company, and I learned so much in a small amount of time. I will never forget the work I have done here or the amazing personality of my boss.
In July, around the time of my birthday, I started working at Castaway LLC. A establishment that's sole purpose was to be the middleman between Comcast and small business owners in terms of advertising on television networks. Before I joined, it was a small team of 4 that had each of their own offices inside a studio. I got to meet every single one of them and know about their profession. It was all really interesting how people got into this specific type of work, to drive around bay area making commercials.
My job was to be a Producer’s Assistant. To help the man directing the commercial and to move and operate cameras, lights, microphones, and sometimes food. I learned a lot about cinema while working there and when I left. I now look at every piece of video differently, and their is a gut feeling that the lighting is on the wrong side, or the camera is focused on where it should be. I also became very interested on how cameras work, how they capture images at a rapid pace and tie it all together. The skills that I had to use where my knowledge of camera technology and having a strict attentiveness to directions. I had to do tasks quickly and get them done in a timely fashion, then move on to the next task. Other then that, I also had to be really good at communication skills as well. A lot can go on during a commercial, there are actors, reorganization of the room, lights (lots of them), and the maintenance of cameras. Attentiveness and observance is one of the most pior skills you need to have before having a job like this.
A problem that I faced once at this internship is that my boss and I went to a theater to record an entire play during their dress rehearsal. We had to have multiple shots, and when I mean multiple, I mean 8. Eight distinguished angles throughout the entire theater, and their was only my boss and I (reason being, the other camera operators just did not show up). I came up with a plan to organize all of these cameras with ease. Their is a special tool that can transmit the view of each camera to the director. So he sat in the back of the theater with that and a radio. I had to jog back and forth between each camera tweaking them and switching out batteries. This was the biggest problem I had to face, and that was my only solution. My boss was really proud of me that day and gave me a really nice bonus because of it.
In all honesty, I did not know what to expect from taking this job. I never knew their was a position called “Producer’s Assistant”. I had a lot of fun, and I really did learn a lot about that type of work and the business aspect of it. I would have kept working with this company, but school was about to start and they “let me go”. The internship was something very different, and I enjoyed the hard work that was given to me.
Logs
Closing Statement
