In this professional log, topics about the overall internship are discussed, such as my role as an intern within a production company, the main tasks that I completed, along with the advantages and disadvantages of the entire role, while understanding the value of these skills for my career.
Introduction to My Internship
From the months of February to May of 2020, I was an intern for a production company called Tideturner Films. Tideturner Films is created and operated by Sue Carpenter. Carpenter is a director and producer, specializing in independent documentary filmmaking. Tideturner Films, previously produced a short documentary film called There’s Something About Molly (2015), and is currently finishing production with their first feature length documentary called, I am Belmaya. Tideturner Films’ goal for their new upcoming film is to have the film entered into film festivals, locally and internationally, ultimately with the chances of gaining recognition on a local, and possibly global level.
Officially, my internship role was to be a “Media and Marketing Assistant”. My internship focus was on the film currently being produced, I am Belmaya and the Tideturner Films brand as a whole. For the film, my role as a media and marketing assistant was to coordinate with Sue Carpenter (the film’s director and producer) and establish a path for entering film festivals and raising awareness of the film’s upcoming release through social media. For the Tideturner Films brand, my role consisted of being responsible for social media accounts which including creating content to post (see portfolio) and understanding which content was efficient in created engagement with followers (see thesis). As the internship continued, these goals changed and evolved when necessary to create an important and vital experience in my career in media. The tasks of achieving these goals will be described later in more detail.
Understanding My Role as an Intern
After meeting with Sue Carpenter for an interview, I gladly excepted the role and began preparing for the first day as a media and marketing assistant. Fortunately, I have previous experience with a production company which allowed me to come prepared with an idea of what to expect when discussing film and media, but even with my prior experience, this was my first time as an assistant with tasks that involved marketing. In the following section, I will be explaining the first few days of my internship role, which involved gathering details, social media contact preferences, and establishing main goals and minor goals for the film I am Belmaya and the Tideturner Films production company.
The first meeting as an intern was a focused discussion with Sue Carpenter and gathering all vital contact information such as emails, phone numbers, and social media account information. As I was the first individual that was given an internship role during this social media campaign, I was able to have a more personal discussion with Carpenter to help get a solid understanding for the paths and goals for ourselves, the film, and production company. Together, we discussed that my role will be to create content for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, this included photos, videos, and captions for I am Belmaya. She was able to share the current content on the social media accounts and I was able to give my thoughts, thus establishing our combined preferences for the posts that would be made (such as colors, fonts, length of videos, etc.). By understanding what has already been done, it gave me a guideline as to where I could go, allowing for creativity and improvements on posts.
Due to my previous experiences in media, it was important for me to remember that goals and tasks throughout the internship would change as more information was gathered through the social media accounts. Along with these discussions, the first meeting was important to establish tasks for future meetings and hitting goals by certain deadlines. The advantage of this internship role was that there was a lot of flexibility in terms of deadlines and creativity. To end the first meeting, Carpenter suggested that I review media marketing campaigns from other documentary films. She also mentioned that she would be hiring more interns (this would be crucial in the following days for my internship) to work together on the social media campaign, with the ability to produce more content. Through this first meeting I was able to learn about the day-to-day process that was expected for the following days I will have at Tideturner Films.
Standard Routine For Tideturner Films
Everyday, my role as an intern started off with a round-table discussion with Sue Carpenter and three other interns. We began with sharing content that we have created for social media posts to be made that day, which included photos, posters, and videos (see portfolio). Being able to discuss the work I had created with three other individuals was very important. We all had the ability to share our opinions freely and receive feedback immediately. We combined and exchanged ideas to create the best content possible. This roundtable work environment allowed for both independence as well as cooperation with others. Once we shared our content and ideas with each other, we established what goals we wanted to accomplish on that particular day. Most of the goals involved completing and posting social media content on the I am Belmaya film accounts. One again we worked independently on these posts, and just before posting, feedback was given by the other interns and Sue Carpenter for approval. Almost everyday as an intern involved the process of creating content and posting on social media accounts, that was the main task.
Although the main tasks focused on creativity, the internship allowed for other daily tasks that were just as important to gain experience. This included researching film festivals and their contact information and retrieving their deadlines for film submissions. I also was tasked with researching the use of appropriate hashtags for posts, along with learning which times and days were best to post on social media. This was all important in creating an engaging and successful film campaign for I am Belmaya through Tideturner Films (the details of tasks will be discussed in the next section). The combination of daily tasks which included creativity, research, independence and cooperation allowed for an experience within the industry that encouraged the use of multiple skills from a variety of fields such as academia, personal knowledge, and media. I had to understand what made people interested in social media posts while also having to learn which techniques that would garner the most engagement on social media accounts (see thesis).
Accomplishments as an Intern
Throughout my time with Tideturner Films, I was able to accomplish many goals and tasks while learning valuable skills and experience as a media and marketing assistant. Within this section, I will discuss what I completed with Tideturner Films in more detail and how my experiences can help me in the future.
As previously stated, the main task for my internship role was to create content for social media posts, specifically posts for the documentary film I am Belmaya. These social media posts that were created consisted of photos, posters, video clips, and inspirational quote posts, all in theme with the film. Below are examples of posts that I made for social media (view portfolio for more):
As seen above, the content varied for specific purposes, such as a post for Instagram or Facebook, and Twitter, or sometimes all three (here is a link to a video post on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-hAj9kg6WT/). Included in some of the content were hashtags and inspirational quotes that encouraged interaction and engagement from followers and anyone who was able to see these posts. This allowed for better awareness of the film, I am Belmaya, and this meant having a better chance of being accepted into local and international film festivals—the ultimate goal of the film campaign.
In these social media posts, the most important goal for me was to visually capture the attention of followers or potential audience, while maintaining the thematic core (Corner 2003) of I am Belmaya. This creativity allowed for experimentation of phrases, quotes, and hashtags that could be applied to social media posts. Being a part of the social media marketing team, I was also given the task of researching which hashtags may be the most optimal into gaining interaction for the posts for each social media platform (Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter). Below is a spreadsheet of the information I was able to research and record. In the spreadsheet, the amount of search results for each hashtag are displayed for Instagram. For Facebook and Twitter, no numerical amounts are available in the platform’s search results, so hashtags results are viewed and given a “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe” if they match the content or theme of the I am Belmaya film. The category of “Maybe”meant that the results found were both positive and negative in comparison to the film’s themes and the final decision for use of the hashtag was up to Carpenter.
Displayed above is the information I gathered about which hashtags would be best to use for the social media posts being made. Along with these hashtags, more specific hashtags were used on important days during the calendar year that matched with the theme of the film. These specific hashtags included “International Women’s Day”, and “Happy Mother’s Day.” Overall the use of these hashtags were important in engaging the right followers for the social media accounts, and this engagement will be analyzed later on.
To continue to follow the thematic trend of women equality for the social media posts, research was conducted focusing on women in film. These statistics were then used within captions for certain posts that were in-theme with the film’s campaign. Statistics about women in film were found through the website, https://womenandhollywood.com, which compiles research from institutions and organizations about diversity within the filmmaking community, focusing on women. For example, a statistic presented within the website states that of the top 100 grossing films from 2019, only 12% were directed by women (Lauzen 2020) even though women make up 51% of the moviegoers population (MPAA 2018). Statistics like these are used in captions for social media posts in order to spark conversation and engagement from followers, which can hopefully lead to more followers in the future.
One of the most important tasks that I completed during my time in this internship was organizing the calendar schedule for all social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The details of scheduling a social media post included setting up the platform that would be used, along with the time, day, and how many times a week posts would be made. In addition to those main details, special days for post were scheduled, such as International Women’s Day, Earth Day, and Mother’s Day. The website used to create these schedules was Later.com. This website allowed for scheduling posts up to a month in advance, which allowed for me to discuss with the rest of the Tideturner Films team to find out when and where to make specific posts for the future. Below is a screenshot of how posts were scheduled and organized on the Later application:
One of the most fascinating and exciting tasks I was able to partake in was updating the logo for Tideturner Films, this was a subject that I had no previous experience in (logo design), but I suggested the idea to Sue Carpenter, and she agreed, asking me to bring in any ideas I could think of that were new interpretations of the previous logo (click here to view all company logo concepts). Ultimately, we decided to go with a Tideturner logo similar to the one below for the I am Belmaya film.
The advantage of being an intern in a creative industry is that I had the ability to use my artistic expression on tasks that I had no previous experience in. By having the opportunity to design a logo, I was able to learn about new techniques and skills that I can then use in the future, and use for myself, and for any other company I work for.
Overall Thoughts on Internship
In reflection, my thoughts on this internship are mostly positive. The ability to have creative freedom and expression when coming up with ideas is very valuable to me. In most fields within the media industry, there is usually a strict guideline that needs to be followed when given my superiors, but in this internship, that was not the case. In my internship, I was able to share ideas and feedback not only with other interns, but with a director/producer directly. I could immediately see the impact of my work and thoughts had on the overall tasks being completed in the workplace, this is very difficult to find in other work environments. Though, with all the independence given, the inherent negative of this role is that there is not enough official training within the internship; most of the role uses a “learn-as-you-go” method. This method is fine for an individual with prior experience, such as myself, but if I had no previous experience, I would have no idea what to do within this internship.
Even with such an advantageous scenario within this internship, there was still another negative. The other negative of this internship is the limited networking that could be done. Since Tideturner Films is an independent film company, the resources and contact that the company has with other filmmakers is sparse, and for someone looking to connect with more contacts within the industry (such as myself), this is a downside of the internship environment that is difficult to overlook.
Even with those negatives in mind, I gained more experience within this internship than I thought I would. I came into the internship believing that I would just be making social media picture posts, but I ended up making video posts, developing a social media schedule, and even creating a logo, while understanding how this content can impact follower engagement — all things I will definitely use in my career moving forward.
My personal strengths throughout the internship were definitely my involvement in creating social media posts. The experimentation of using different fonts, framing compositions and editing video clips allowed for a wide array of my creativity skills to be used. The only weakness I found in myself was during the internship was during the the phase of research involving hashtags for social media. I believe part of that may have been due to the lack of availability for proper resources and tools to correctly and accurately analyze hashtag optimization on social media, and this is especially difficult without prior experience.
In the future, based on my experience during this internship, I see myself in a creative work environment in the media industry, possibly as a media assistant that would allow me to use my strengths in editing and creating photos and videos. This skills can then be applied throughout many aspects of media, such as film, television, marketing, and social media.