Fin

I still have roughly a week or two left at my internship, but this will be my last post.

This internship has been helpful to me in a lot of ways, not least of which is financially. Although I was only being paid minimum wage, the money made it possible for me to actually take part. Internships are too often unpaid, making them inaccessible to anyone that does not already have the financial security to work for free. It is a classist system that disproportionately affects the poor and disenfranchised and thus, like legacy admissions, ensures domination in each field by well off white males. I am eternally grateful to Songbird for their decision to pay their interns and am heartened to know that there are companies out there willing to make their internships available to those that could not afford to perform one otherwise.

I have also been grateful to work on the Chevrolet Indiana Prep Zone, a program that has gone out of its way, despite being made with very little money, to showcase the talents of high school students that overcome disabilities and come from lower class backgrounds. Although colleges are already scouting many of these students, the fact they now have the backing of a program on Fox Sports can only help them.

Finally, I am of course grateful for the skills I have acquired and the amount of time I have been allowed on sets of varying sizes. It is an unfortunate reality these days that many companies are not offering entry-level positions, instead expecting the worker to develop skills on their own time either through unpaid internships or on their own. Being able to take part in this paid internship has allowed me to expand my knowledge and skills with cameras, lighting, editing, and producing.

Photo taken during the filming of my interview.

Most importantly, it has also provided me some additional stories from my conversational arsenal.

The Producer

One of the final requirements of my internship is that I produce my own segment for the Chevrolet Indiana Prep Zone. The process involves finding a subject, creating a schedule, performing the interview, and then editing together and color correcting the footage. Today I will be heading to the library at Ball State to perform my editing since it’s a lot more convenient than driving all the way to Indy.

I found my subject through an article in the Muncie Star Press. The article covered a high school gymnast that maintained a 4.0 GPA while also practicing gymnastics each day and feeding the animals on her family’s farm each morning at 5am and again before bed.

However, it turned out that the “each morning” part appears to have been exaggerated. During the interview I was informed that she has a sister that she takes turns with performing the chores.

The interview was performed in her school’s gym, a structure that turned out to be roughly the same size as the space that held the classrooms. It was a charter school that serves grades K-12, located roughly half a mile down the road from the area’s public high school. Both schools are located roughly two hours outside of Indianapolis in an area so remote that we could only pick up roughly five FM radio stations.

Google Street View of the school.

The gym was dimly lit and rather bleak looking, but the coach and girls would light up whenever the camera turned on them. The only issue they had was they felt uncomfortable having to stare at me and not the cameras. I don’t blame them.

Now all that is left is the editing. Normally I would edit at their building, but because it is so far and because no one is ever really there to supervise they suggested I take the footage with me. But, because I don’t have Premier CC on my computer I will be taking off to the library in the next couple of hours.

Shake it off

An aspect of film production that might not be regularly considered by outsiders is the amount of travel involved. Unless you’re working at a studio down the street from you, there is going to be a lot of travel.

On an average shoot there is generally more for me than others at Songbird. Since this is their job and they are able to live their lives more or less the way they wish, they all live relatively nearby. For me it is more than an hour commute each way just to get to the office. When I was first offered the internship one of the owners made the joke that he could do the drive from Ball State to their office “in my sleep, in reverse.”

I laughed at the time, but I understand what he means now. This is one of the simplest routes you can take in the needlessly complex Circle City. It’s a straight shot down McGalliard, a left onto I-69 North, and then you just follow that, continuing straight all the way up to the first left you can legally make off Fall Creek road, and then follow that until you make a slight left at the fork. It almost drives itself.

Just don’t rely on Google Maps. When you make that left from Fall Creek it will tell you to, “Use the right lane to make a left turn.”

On my drives I usually plug my phone into my car’s auxiliary input and listen to podcasts. Once I get there I have to jump into one of the big white vans where I am then subjected to Top 40 radio for between ten minutes to two hours.

Before my internship I could not pick out a single pop artist by voice. I still barely can, but if I hear a new Taylor Swift song I can likely pick it out by form alone. It helps that every verse of her new one sounds like it’s about to launch into the chorus of Shake it Off before launching into the sonic equivalent of Foghorn Leghorn attempting to flex his arm.

Basically, I’ve probably spent more time on the road and have learned more about pop music than anything else.

Scene it

One of the most exciting and sometimes strangest parts of freelance film work is the wide array of places you need to shoot in. My current internship has taken me to several high schools, the Indianapolis International Airport, a locker room in Bankers Life Fieldhouse, and professional athletes homes.

Without offering too much information, it is interesting to see how young people that are suddenly given millions of dollars settle down with their family. It should hardly come as a surprise that with so little life experience before being thrust into that position that one would simply move into a ticky-tacky housing development and fill it with however many display room replicas. Of course there also has to be little touches of unique indulgence, though these are primarily marked by nostalgia. Seeing these items it’s impossible not to imagine them as a child exclaiming, “When I grow up I am going to have my own soda fountain!”

Yeah, mom!

Jokes aside, everyone I have met has been lovely.

That said, one of the interesting things about working at the airport, sports venues, and high schools is the access to places you normally would not be allowed to go. In the airport we were ushered through hallways that had multiple doors requiring keycards and at another point waved through security. At Bankers Life Fieldhouse we entered through the area the venders use and then walked through the entrance way to the court and then back into a small locker room area. At the high schools we essentially roam free, being sent through hallways, classrooms, gyms, locker rooms, and etc.

Shooting in a locker room at Bankers Life Fieldhouse

However, I am still being paid a whole lot less than any of those professional athletes and various executives. So, while it is nice to get access to areas generally barred from the public, I imagine it is preferable in some ways to be one of the people working in those areas.

Another day, another long overdue post

One of the most interesting elements of working freelance is the variety of people you meet. This is likely the reason why Ricky Gervais, hot off the Office, shifted focus to the work and lives of background actors. In each episode would land him on a new set where he would encounter various celebrities and a whole new cast of characters with wildly different backgrounds.

During lunch on a recent shoot another crewmember told me he is the relative of a disgraced politician, specifically one I had taken a great interest in. It was fascinating to watch as the crewmember rationalized his relative’s actions as anything but corruption, though still describing a textbook definition of corruption.

As an intern it can also be interesting to see how much weight that word holds with different people. One person may not trust me to focus a camera or even hit the record button, but another will ask my opinion on framing.

Although this could serve as a reflection of my actions and proven abilities under different directors, but it also perfectly reflects their personalities. One is generally more conscious of his presentation—meticulously well dressed, has clearly thought out each story he tells, and it seems obvious that he knows exactly how his end product will look after editing. The other dresses down a little more, is generally more intense, has a darker edge to his jokes, and asks everyone around him for opinions.

Also of interest is how, like in most situations, acting with confidence will cause people to listen to you. At one point I noticed the boom mic and one of our lights were peaking into frame. I told the director and then I immediately walked out from behind the monitor and called out, “This light needs to move back and the mic needs to come up.” I was rushing to take on another issue, but it seemed as though people did it without question.

I’m considering focusing on settings for my next post. Settings like this insane looking high school in Bloomington, IN.

I’m not doing great at this blogging thing…

However, I will finish!

I have not had the opportunity to work many days during these past couple of weeks, but I did get another chance to assist taping the Indiana Prep Zone host segments.

I wrote at length about the experience on the Songbird Media blog a couple of months back, but I did not touch on the content of the host segments.

The point of the host segments is to whittle down each segment to a one to two minute sound bite. These sound bites usually take a few different forms—they will reference how inspiring the team or player is, they will use a pun involving the subject, or they will just reference how great the subject is.

One pun that has stuck with me was in reference to a player named Jimmy King. The joke was, “It’s good to be king. Jimmy King, that is.” Because the host’s reading is limited to traditional news speak, it was impossible to decipher whether the line was referencing the Tom Petty song or whether it was incorrectly quoting Mel Brooks in the History of the World Part 1.

Although these segments are essentially a formality meant to offer an identifiable face for the program, they occupy an interesting narrative space. The sound bite offers just enough info to whet the audience’s appetite for the story, but it is curious why the audience would need their appetites whet since they have already decided to watch. Also, the lead in sound bite offers no additional information. So, are these host segments really necessary from a narrative perspective? In all honesty, they are probably not.

However, they do become necessary from a standpoint of audience engagement when considering the interview format on the show. The interviewer is never seen nor heard and the subject is always looking off camera when speaking. On occasion the host of the show will speak to the audience, offering further narration if enough material was not collected in the interviews, but the interviews generally offer an extremely impersonal view of their subjects. The audience is encouraged to cheer or sympathize with the subject but not necessarily identify with them. In this case, the host fills the narrative function of an audience surrogate.

It’s been a while

For this post I interviewed Charlotte, one of the co-executive producers on Indiana Prep Zone. We had some downtime after we finished setting up and while Earl was still shooting b-roll of the girls practicing, so it seemed like as good a time as any.

I will also be using this interview as a reference for a series of profiles I will be writing on the Songbird Media blog. Zach, one of the main guys at Songbird, had found this blog after my first or second post and suggested I provide them with material for their own blog as a part of my internship. I started with an introductory post and then wrote one about the process of shooting the host segments for Indiana Prep Zone, but after those I was out of ideas.

Well, except for the hockey hair post. But I’m not sure that took long enough to warrant payment.

The blog isn’t an integral part of my internship—it’s mostly an afterthought, something for when I have time—but it could prove to be a valuable addition to my resume. Looking through job ads one is expected to wear many hats, and having a background in blogging about the happenings and environment of a company I’m working for could offer a needed boost.

Recently I have begun to experience the downside of freelance work—downtime. The only job I have been invited onto in the past two weeks coincided with me waking up violently ill. So, I have not actually worked on a set since March 10^th.

However, I have continued my other duties. During this time I have continued my research into potential stories for Indiana Prep Zone. One story idea features the baseball team at the Indiana School for the Deaf (or, “Deaf Hoosiers”). Their baseball and softball teams compete each year in the “Annual Hoy Tournament.” The tournament is named after the mostly forgotten major league player, “Dummy” Hoy. Hoy was deaf and thus had to teach his teammates American Sign Language. He is also widely credited for introducing the hand signals that umpires still use today.

The other story would feature a high school gymnast in Muncie. She wakes up each morning at 5am to work on her parents’ farm, goes to school, practices, does more work on the farm, and maintains a 4.0 GPA.

POST #3

I originally wrote this post after my third or fourth day on the job. I’ve been extremely busy since then and have been forgetting to post it.

My most recent day on the job involved meeting the crew at PBS studios to shoot the host segments for a few episodes of Indiana Prep Zone. The set materials were evidently collected during one trip to Home Depot and only cost $150. There were four large, wood panels painted black, a number of metal beams, and then two wire screens hung from the ceiling. After each of these is set up the main light guy at Songbird, Keith moved around the various lights at different heights and locations so they’d bounce off each object just right. A blue light is shone behind the black boards, a gold light on one of the screens and an unfiltered bulb on the other, and then a kicker light on the floor to simply illuminate the other metal bars.

These segments are shot on a Blackmagic—a small, DSLR-like 4K camera, which is set upon a mini, automatic dolly, which pans the camera slowly from side to side. After they finish shooting they downgrade the footage to 720p for broadcast and add some lens flares in After Effects to make the final product look more modern.

Prior to this internship I had never heard of this show, but if I had stumbled upon it when flipping through channels I would have never guessed how pragmatic the making of it is. In addition to the low cost of the materials used, the entire process still seems to be primarily run by two people. Earl and Charlotte. They find most of the subjects, draft their own questions, perform and set up their own interviews, edit their interviews, and then direct the host segments and edit together the final episode.

Because this post was written nearly a month ago I have updated the video below to reflect more recent experiences.

Arrival in the environment

Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo of my arrival during my first day on the job. I was a little out of it after all of my car issues and my confusion about what we were shooting and where.

Originally I had been informed that I was to meet the crew, Earl and Charlotte, at Songbird’s headquarters on Monday at 1:45 p.m. There had been a change of plans due to the ice storm the previous night. I received a text from Earl at 10:30 a.m. informing me that he and Charlotte were now meeting at 12:30 pm at an Indianapolis area high school. Despite my trepidation at losing an preparation, I agreed.

Fortunately the school was only about 50 minutes from Muncie and one or two turns off I-69. Additionally, the school had labeled each set of doors with a number. I parked just outside door seven as Earl and Charlotte stood in front, unloading equipment from Songbird’s official white, windowless, and rather ominous, van.

We waited in the vast and empty lobby of the various gymnasiums and peaked inside windows, hoping to find the right one and get a head start on setting up. Once the coach arrived he lead us to the proper court and we built our little interview area in the corner of the gym:

-Two chairs facing each other

-Two point lighting, using lowing energy compact fluorescent lights. The panels each featured three tungsten bulbs and one daylight.

-Two camcorders (similar to the NX5, though I forget the specific model) at slightly different angles—one framed as a mid shot and the other as a close up.

-One wired lavaliere mic plugged directly into Camera One (mid shot) and the mic itself affixed to the interviewee’s shirt.

The sport was women’s basketball. We interviewed two of the players and their male coach. The angle of this segment was that two of the best players on the team also excel academically. We learned that one of the girls plans to be a pharmacist and the other had originally hoped to be a neurosurgeon but has recently decided to pursue more general surgery and to eventually move to Mexico. The coach spoke only about how much he respects each of his players and how he hopes to, and has been, there for them on and off the court as well as after they’ve graduated.

Introduction/Explanation of Environment

This week I will begin my paid internship with the Songbird Media Group (SMG) in Indianapolis, IN. SMG offers a description of their work and environment on their blog,

In 2003, Jason Rich and Keith Toombs formed Songbird Entertainment out of a mutual passion for professional production work, mixed with a lighthearted approach that results in a quality endproduct (sic).

They also state,

SMG is a full-scale, state of the art media production company, that can take the client’s vision from idea, offering creative consulting to storyboards & scripting in pre-production, to shooting on-location, and finally, to editing a finished product delivery in multiple formats.

Before meeting the crew at Songbird I expected a fairly rigid, exhausted group of white guys chain smoking cigarettes and lugging around enormous cameras to film professional athletes at practice meets. Although the three men that created the group appear to all be white, the other employees I have met have been more diverse. Furthermore, the owners actually were incredibly relaxed and lighthearted. They also appear to have chosen me as their intern due to my alleged “creative thinking.” Also, none of them smoke cigarettes.

As someone who has never been involved in any school sports and has very little experience with sports in general, it also interested me that I will be spending the majority of my time working on interviews with high school athletes. By the end of my internship it is expected of me to have produced my own segment—including setting up the interview, hiring a crew, doing research for and then performing the interview, and then editing together all of the footage. The end result will then be shown as part of a program on Fox Sports Midwest.

The coming months should prove to be an enlightening experience. I look forward to learning how best to translate the lives and stories of high school athletes to film, the mechanics of corporate commercials, and how to navigate through a professional, production based environment.