Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

7 Film Students and 1 Business Student

Sounds almost like the beginning of a really bad joke, except that I was the business student who was completely outside of my comfort zone. Whenever I tell someone that I’m spending my summer working at a non-profit film production company on the West Side, their response is always, “oh, so you’re studying film at school?” I quickly tell them no, and that in fact I’m studying business, with a focus in social entrepreneurship and accounting.

I don’t take this quick judgement personal, I even asked myself what I was doing at a film company before I started this internship two weeks ago. For the longest time I always associated business with numbers, and that to be a successful businesswoman you had to work in finance or accounting. But, through my experience at Birds Nest Foundation, the company I’m currently working for, I’ve really learned that there are many more sides to the field than I thought.

To start off, Birds Nest Foundation, which is a 501( c )3 non-profit, provides grants to other non-profits/charities/NGO’s in the form of high quality digital media content. I am working alongside seven other interns, all of who are studying some form of film in school. And then there is me, who before last week had never edited an entire film before, let alone shot an interview.

Looking back there were two reasons I applied for this position. The first one is that I’m a hobbyist photographer, and how different can filming a video be from taking a picture? The second was that I have a lot of experience working with and for non-profits, and thought that that experience could come in handy.

My first task at Birds Nest was to shoot and edit an interview. My fellow interns and I set up at interview space, organizing lights, sound equipment, and set up cameras from two different angles. Then, one of the interns sat down and was asked about how they ended up at Birds Nest. Personally, shooting the interview was the easiest part, but when it came to editing I was at a complete loss. After two days I finally managed to cut together some footage, and to my surprise it wasn’t half bad !

One thing that separates Birds Nest from other internships is that the program is designed for you to grow exponentially in whatever field of film production you are interested in. Every week Birds Nest brings in guest speakers, all of who are from different background and walks of life, but all of one thing in common, their interest in film. This past week I had the pleasure of meeting Producer Scott Kluge, whose most recent film involves Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore. To my surprise, Scott majored in business as well, and quickly built his way up to being an independent producer working alongside very talented actors and actresses.

That being said, I have finally found the relevance of my business background in the content of my internship in film. Even though I doubt I’ll be shooting or lighting films for my profession, the skills that I have acquired at Babson within my first year are the building blocks for much more than just working in an office from 9-5 every day, and who knows, maybe I’ll even end up as a film producer.