Since starting my project my biggest takeaway has been that I need to be flexible and have the ability to adapt quickly. The nature of the industry is that everything is very quickly paced, and there isn’t much room to make mistakes. I learned to type up notes while on the phone, because I often need to reference them later, and to pay close attention and pick up every minor detail  because it could be valuable. I also have struggled a bit with finding the balance between asking too many questions, and not clarifying things that I should have. Or assuming that Vivian is never going to make a mistake, and if I’m confused, I must be doing something wrong. An example of this is earlier this week I was working on a new cooking show that is being developed. The pilot episode has already been filmed and edited. My job was to watch the pilot and identify each moment or ‘beat’. This will be used to help structure the following episodes that have not yet been filmed. In each episode there will be around 20 beats. I identified each one, and then called Vivian back. We went over my work and she told me that I was being too vague and missing key essential moments such as a cutting and knife skills class and crepe class. I was confused because I knew I didn’t see that in the show. I rewatched the episode to make sure and I checked in with Vivian. It turned out she had sent me the wrong thing to watch. So I spent 3 hours altogether working on the incorrect thing. It took me another 6 hours to redo it. She had sent me the rough cut of the pilot, not the most recent copy, so it was just a misunderstanding, but it was frustrating to have to redo my work again. My goal for the project has always been to develop a deeper understanding and knowledge of the production side of the entertainment industry, and I feel like I am. There has been a lot I haven’t expected, but I have already learned so much. Even things I never thought about, such as slang and abbreviations I’ve picked up on. I am working really hard and most of what I’m doing has been very challenging, in part because the stakes are higher and I’m working directly on real projects with professionals. So there is a lot more pressure to be at my best, but that has definitely pushed me to work harder and I’m getting more out of the experience. 

I have also been working on the independent aspect of my project. I now have an outline for an entire season of a show, general ideas of what will happen in each episode, as well as one completed episode. This is more fun for me a lot of the time to work on because I really enjoy the creative writing aspect. It’s been very valuable to have both this project and my internship because they compliment each other very well. I have started to be able to incorporate things I’ve learned into my writing, and the practice is helpful for specific assignments for Vivian that are more creative.