The Television Academy Internship

This week has been different at my internship because my mentor, Mark Raudonis has been on vacation. So! I've been on my own at work finding things to do and people to talk to awhile he is away. Also, he gave me a homework assignment while he is gone. He wants to emphasis how critical networking is in the industry. He told me that while he is gone he wants me to network with other people from different companies that work in this industry and bring him back 2 business cards. I was curious how I would achieve this knowing I am at work from 9:30-6:30pm each day, but he said I am allowed to skip my internship for a few hours while networking. I first aimed high and wanted to bring back Mark a really impressive business card. I emailed Sue Neagle, President of HBO (a fellow Indiana University alumni). Surprisingly she emailed me back right away and said she was out of town for the 2 weeks. Bummer. Oh well, I tried. So, I went to Andrea's internship with her one morning at Radical Media. They are a global transmedia company that develops, produces, and distributes award winning documentaries, television, features, commercials, etc. I got to sit down and talk to Tita Poe, Producer of their post house. Surprisingly, I got to also sit down with a freelance producer that Andrea was currently with on a Verizon commercial, Tyler Boylan. Both of them were incredibly nice and took their time to talk to me and answer my questions.

On Thursday, we had our second workshop at The Academy about networking and the industry in general. One of the speakers was a previous intern in the Editing category. He has done amazing things since being an intern through the Academy. He got me motivated to network more and talk to everyone I can at Bunim/Murray. After the workshop I had arranged a network meeting with some employees at Funny or Die. I emailed another IU Alumni, Mike Farrah to arrange some employees to talk to me for a few minutes. This office is very chill and all the people are funny and cool. I was in a small room with 5 people. Michelle Fox gave me her business card with her Executive Assistant title on it. She was Mike Farrah's personal assistant, but recently changed to a Coordinator. I also met the 4 other guys working in the room with Michelle. All of them were great, they were interested in me as much as I were in them. So! I have 3 business cards to give Mark when he returns to work on Tuesday.

While at the workshop this week I was presented with the news at my internship through The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation has been ranked one of the top 10 internships in the country. I had no idea! So I did a little digging and DUDE! Look what I found:
 http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/topteninternship
http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/blogs/entry-detail?blog_id=1461&entry_id=11540
http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/27/pf/internships.fortune/index.htm

After talking to the Post Producer of Project Runway, Glenn Morgan for the past 2 weeks I finally discovered what amazing work he has done! DUDE!!!! He is the music video editor of Madonna's music videos "Material Girl," "Borderline," AND "Like a Virgin." Since MTV was still very new at this time, people were still figuring out the new medium of music videos. No editor had established himself/herself as a music video editor. Glenn Morgan worked with director Mary Lambert on "Borderline" which launched Madonna's career. Teens around the country began dressing like her. Next, Glenn edited her music video for "Like a Virgin" and the INCREDIBLY famous music video for "Material Girl." Glenn was explaining how he had gotten the job for Borderline and eventually onto "Like a Virgin." Both of these music videos came out before I was even born, so I was not familiar with them. So I chimmed in the one earlier music video I had seen. I said, "I do know Madonna's music video for "Material Girl." Glenn responded so nonchalant, "Oh I did that one too." DUDE!!! WHAT?!?! I was so amazed. I had watched this video in my Music Video class at IU, and discussed the production and story elements. How cool is that to have your work studied in a classroom!? For those of you have not seen it here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CQHIP-38jA Keep in mind, this is MTV in 1985.