Getting a foot in the door

Flash back to the NBA in 2004: The Los Angeles Lakers have just won the Western Conference Finals. Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the rest of the team have disappeared from the crowds and returned to the locker room to congratulate each other.

And as millions of fans watch the behind-the-scenes excitement glued to their televisions, UCLA third-year student and Fox Sports intern Justin Jones stands in the middle of the action.

Like many other UCLA students past and present, Jones used his internship at Fox Sports as a stepping stone into the film and television industry.

“Finding an internship is a big process, but you get to have a lot of cool experiences,” he said.

Jones, who studied communication studies and political science at UCLA and graduated in 2005, scored his internship by first e-mailing Fox persistently, acing a written test, and impressing his interviewer with self-assurance and honesty.

“With a huge network like Fox, you need to fight through the list of people who know people,” Jones said. “Try not to be nervous. You need to be confident and let them (the network) know that you are a hard worker.” During his time at Fox, Jones also took on another internship at G4 TV, a small network devoted to video games. Unlike Fox, which had several students working at once, Jones was G4’s only intern for the show he worked on.

Both jobs had their perks: Working at a smaller company allowed him to have more hands-on experience, and the larger company allowed him to meet more people and make more connections.

“(Don’t) worry about the name of the company. Both of my internships helped me narrow down what I wanted to do (as a career),” Jones said.

Corey Wish, an alumnus who majored in film and television, found his niche at Evolution Film & Tape by first interning at four different companies. He interned at UPP Entertainment during the summer after his first year, and then went on to work at International Creative Management (a popular talent agency), the television production company Stone and Company Entertainment, and the WB.

Wish, who feels that his many internships were a good way for him to learn the industry and make connections, believes that smaller companies often provide more valuable hands-on experiences than larger companies.

“(At UPP) I wasn’t just filing and getting people lunch,” Wish said. “I could ask to do certain tasks that I wanted to do.”

Wish believes that making connections, any connection, is beneficial toward building a career in the industry.

“Even if you have a really loose connection, it is important to bring it up so you are not put at the bottom of the pile,” Wish said.

Within UCLA, Wish noted, the communications and film, television and digital media departments can help students find connections within a company.

Denise Mann, an associate professor for the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, as well as the head of the UCLA Producers Program, began the UCLA Film and Television Internship Program in coordination with the Office of Instructional Development around 15 years ago.

“I would argue that the Hollywood system has always believed in mentoring the next generation on the job,” Mann said. “Hence, it is not surprising that so many companies want to hire UCLA students to work at their companies.”

Since the time that Mann began the program, she has accumulated a list of approximately 1,000 entertainment industry companies seeking interns, advised hundreds of students seeking internships in the film and television industries, and has created and taught Film and Television 194, a seminar discussing professional film and television internships.

A great number of her students have gone on to have successful careers in the entertainment industry.

“The list is long and impressive,” Mann said. “It is very gratifying to see students benefit from the program I started at UCLA so long ago.”

Jeno Hodi, a filmmaker from Summit Entertainment (“Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” “Resident Evil”), recently hired an intern of eight months to coproduce one of his films.

“Interns should be willing to learn and bring something extra to the table,” Hodi said. “I like when (interns) are able to come up with their own ideas and don’t just wait to be told what to do.”

Summit has frequently hired UCLA interns in the past and is currently looking to hire more students.

Though Los Angeles undoubtedly is the center of the American film and television industries, UCLA students can find internships elsewhere as well.

Lauren Garber, a fourth-year political science and anthropology student, found her current position at ABC News through the UC-wide UCDC program. The program allows UC students to intern and take classes in Washington, D.C.

“I grew up in California and I was ready for a change of scenery,” Garber said. “I was ready to experience life on the East Coast.”

Garber believes that patience and research are the keys to scoring a great internship. She spent a long time coming up with original answers for her application and asked many of her peers to read it over before she submitted it to ABC News.

“Before I went in for the interview, I spent a while researching the company and learning about the people who work there,” she said.

Both the UCLA Career Center and the Center for Community Learning can help UCLA students grab competitive internships in the field of film and television.

With connections to employers, application-building tutorials and in-person consultations, UCLA is an excellent resource for beginning a career in the industry.

“You can’t just sit around and wait for it to happen,” Jones said. “You have to make it happen.”

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