Why should I Intern?

I am a NY Line Producer, so my advice is best suited for people who want to move to New York and start working on movies or TV here. The other major production city is Los Angeles, and at least in the beginning of your career, I think, you should start in one of the two. Because of new Tax incentives in various states, there is now production in many states, and places like NM or NC, or FL have good opportunities to make a living in production.

If you will be in College a little longer, I would recommend that you spend next summer in New York and get some experience here. Most people start out as an intern, and if you are interested, as the summer approaches and it becomes clear which projects get green lit, I can help guide you to a suitable feature film.

Before the summer you should educate yourself as much as possible on line. The business has several unions one of which you may become a member of one day. I would suggest working on Union Pictures in the beginning as they will be the most professional, and you will learn how filmmaking is done most properly. The NY unions are SAG (actors), WGA (writers), I.A.T.S.E. (crew), Teamsters (drivers and casting directors), and DGA (directors, production managers, asst. directors, and location managers). All the studios have signed contracts with all these unions, so any Studio picture will have all the unions represented. If it is an indy feature (non-studio), the film will operate with some, all, or none of these unions. You should go to the websites of all these unions and educate yourself on how they operate. You can see how much people make according to their union rates and the budget level of the film. People usually start working in the business and then at some point join the union-or not. But I would suggest that you want to join a union as soon as you can, because we all grow old and the unions offer Pension and Health plans for their members. It's not always easy, so you need to know what it takes to get in, before you go too far down the road.

Your internship can be in the office or on the set. I say you should go for the set if you don't mind long hours. If you know you like working in an office, then the office would be good, but I have seen many Production Office Coordinators (who basically manage the production office) lose their interns to the set. If the timing is right, you may be able to intern on a film that shoots June and half of July and if you really prove yourself to the Key PA and/or the AD's you can squeeze the most out of your summer by getting a job as a Set PA for the rest of the summer. If you think the summer is for lounging around, you're thinking will need to change if you want to find success, not only in the film business, but in general.

As both an intern and a PA, you will have duties, and you will want to become responsible and proficient at as many duties as possible, thereby impressing the people who can hire you next. You are there for no other reason than to help things go smoothly on the production. You will hustle and work 17 hours a day, and generally keep your mouth shut. You will eat your lunch on your lap, watching the equipment, while everyone else goes to lunch. I say a movie production is a little like the circus meeting the army.

As a PA, aside from completing every task asked of you, you will also be educating yourself on what each person is doing on the set, watching them, asking questions, investigating, and thinking about how you would best fit in, about what you would be most driven doing. You'll ask yourself: Do I want to be a Prop Master? Do I want to be in the camera department? Do I want to direct? But you won't tell anyone what you really want; as far as they know, you are just there to help things go smoothly and do whatever is asked of you. Remember, you are a private in the army, and while the circus of production swirls around you, you are able to stand your ground and act with reason amidst the chaos. By the end of the summer you should try to have decided what position you think would be right for you. And you need to make friends with the people you meet in that, or those, departments. You will need to make contacts for the next summer, or if there is no more schooling ahead, you have started your career. Take it seriously. Recognize that you are at a turning point in your life history, and what you do next will determine the rest of your life. You are trying to become an adult.

Then you will go back to school and if there are no classes that pertain to what you want to do, you will self educate and figure out what it takes to be a successful prop master or whatever you choose. And learn more about that department. Email and stay in touch with your contacts. Send them little gifts. The next Spring you will try to line up a job in that department, even if it is a Prop PA/Driver or Camera PA or Producer's Assistant. You will want a Mentor, someone whose coat tails you can grab and hold onto. Make sure it is someone you can trust to lead you up the right hill.

If your strengths lie in people skills, that's great, because one of the most important things in production, besides completing tasks efficiently, following through, and anticipating problems before they arise, is getting along with people. And it isn't easy, because all these people get thrown together to make a movie and they all have different personalities (sometimes nutty) and they all have to work long hours, which makes people irritable, and they all have things in their personal lives, that they can't help bringing with them to set. You don't want to be the set clown, but lightening things up a bit with humor can be helpful (to a degree). At the same time, a lot of money goes down in a short period of time, so the stakes are high for the producers and director, DP and Designer, and they are usually very serious about the production. You should take the work seriously too, because, after all you are making a movie, which millions of people will go to from here to eternity and even if you are low on the totem pole, your work will show up on the screen. If you let a "Bogie" (unwanted civilian background person) into the shot, you may ruin the take in which the actor gives his knock-down best performance of his or her life.

On a $2.5 million movie, you might shoot 21 days. On a $4 million movie you might shoot 28 days. On a $20 million movie, you might shoot 40 days.