Assignment #2: Internship that I have done in the past (Writ 340)

Beats Academy Creator (Content Track) 

Do you have a song or musical artist that you have listened to since you were a child or young adolescent? If you do, how would you feel if their company selected you to work for them? Probably pretty excited right? Well, that is exactly what happened to me last semester. Beats by Dre selected me to participate in a special program that teaches students how to make commercials. I worked as a Beats Academy Creator within the Content track of the program. The commercial featured collegiate athlete and UCLA Women's Basketball star Kiki Rice with a goal of reaching more awareness of her professionally. 

A Content Creator Intern produces and shares information or media content for specific audiences, particularly in digital contexts. However, many individuals throw this term around and believe influencers are the same as creative artists. This is simply incorrect. One can compare creative content creator to three positions: 

- Copywriter

- Filmmaker

- Digital Analyst

Copywriter: 

Through my experience at Beats by Dre, I can say that conceptualization and pitching is the most important part of the process as a whole. This is the job of a copywriter. To conceptualize or ideate the story of the commercial and working with an art director to pitch it to the client. 

In this process, there is a constant pull between creatives and executives to find a best outcome for the story. If one believes that their idea would fit the needs of the company best, it is that individuals job to assure to write, pitch, and persuade very well. I am proud to say that executives at Beats by Dre and Translation selected my idea for the production.

Filmmaker: 

This portion of the role is probably the most fun and well known part of the process. As a Content Creator Intern, I went through the three stages of production: pre production, production, and post production. These stages can also break down into three different roles.

- Planner

- Executor 

- Assembler

Pre production works as a planning stage to secure locations, cast, crew, shoot dates, and post deadlines. Second to conceptualization, this is the most important portion of the commercial making process as it gives the project a map to follow until completion. 

Production works similar to a builder in an assembly line. It is a team of professionals that each specify in a portion of the filmmaking process to create the building blocks of the commercial (individual clips). There is a director, cinematographer, line producer, boom operator, and more positions. I specifically worked as an assistant to the professional cinematographer on set. Learning how to set up lighting, shot angle, and focal length to build out the story. 

Post production works as the assembler at the end of a conveyor belt. Editing works as the final piece of the project where you take all of the building blocks made by the production team and put it together to make the final product. Editing decides the pacing and the overall feeling of the story. I worked as an edit and visual effects mentee and created my own edits to express how to tell the story in my opinion. 

Digital Analyst: 

A typical individual wouldn't think that a creative position would need to be analytical. However, the job requires creators to analyze statistics and metrics of the media created to measure its effectiveness. After posting of the commercial, my team analyzed the metrics and saw that it received 950k views across all platforms within the span of a week. This accomplished the goal of reaching more exposure for the client. 

Conclusion: 

After creating the commercial, we celebrated the ending of the program in December. We networked with executives at Apple and Translation and showcased the final products. Beats by Dre also gifted me a pair of Beats Studio Pros and an Apple MacBook M2 Air. 

This job opened my eyes to the possibilities for future positions. It has lit an even bigger fire under me to pursue filmmaking as a full time career path and I hope to work on projects more tailored to my interests in the near future. 

If watching this interests you, I shared the link below:

 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C01zJDhLuT1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link.