An Interns Work is Lucky to Get

A Week In The Life of An Intern

You would think with a degree in my hands, my career life would be sorted. Unlike those who start work as junior assistants, to start a career in the creative media industry I have to start as an intern; unpaid, social life on hold to be as flexible as possible to be of use to prospective tutors and employers, and full days of work. From an honest student’s perspective, the idea of full days is the hardest element to grasp. But why should I be so down trodden? I have no excuse to. I have been given an opportunity to make a name for myself. As soon as I began work at university with classmates, that was the seeds of my name being sewn and hopefully with enough enthusiasm, hard-work and likeable personality, my name will grow into something like a giant oak to be seen by all.

But let’s not get in over my head. My first day of my internship here at Capture Media, involved fetching lunch. To be honest I expected to be something similar of a hunter-gatherer of lunches for the whole week. Luckily, I only had to do this once. So for future interns, gathering lunches and coffees is not a necessary skill to include on your resume and not expected of you. But whilst you’re out planting your name seed, it is always nice to ask.

On the same day the good stuff came about; working with the cameras. Giving a media graduate a camera after a year of not using one is like giving an incarcerated artist a paintbrush for the first time after a twenty year sentence. Luckily it was like riding a bike. As soon as I was familiar with the camera we were filming with the mindset of pull focuses and angled shots. Granted it was of fish on ice in a restaurant, but I felt I was back in my heyday. Not a bad end of a day considering I was working in a high street shop at seven that morning.

From the grandest of feelings to the grandest of locations, I had been assigned to assist on a shoot at anEdinburghfive star hotel. Time to show off, as me and the senior capturer began contemplating framing and movement as we moved from the luxurious of bedrooms to the most regal of drawing rooms.

When on an internship, let alone any shoot, I always try to find ways to contribute and impress, as its moments like this that employers will remember. At one point of the shoot, a discussion with the manager led to a scenario where we needed a small sequence of two guests dining during afternoon tea. However, real guests of a five star hotel were not preferred.

“This is it”, I thought. “Time for Super-Intern to be the hero this company needs.”

As soon as I had said “I know some people”, I had already been assigned my next task; cast two twenty-to-thirty something’s to model in this room. Next thing I knew my head was pre-occupied with the thought of finding the perfect people for the shoot. The added pressure felt as if this could mean the beginning of something great or the end of something that could have been. Before I knew it I was thumbing through my Facebook friends pairing people up for the best combination.

Next day of shooting: The first of ten videos to be placed on a corporate website. Off to a flying start, before we had even filmed anything, a bulb from our lighting smashed when the lamp fell. Luckily it was a customer and not me that broke it. As we rigged up the HD DVR, and sound equipment. I felt like a true professional. Hopefully from the client’s staff’s perspective I looked it as well. After over three hours of filming with the friendly staff, we had gathered about thirty minutes of footage and it was back to the office to edit.

As of now the rough edit is looking good. Cannot wait till next week though when I can see the finished product and add that piece of good work to my CV.  Hopefully, this week will not be the finished product of my life as an intern. Hopefully, there will be more weeks like this and then the real work can begin.