WEEK 1

(Day 7) Maybe it’s good that I’m not getting paid

8/10/2022

The fact that I was doing an unpaid internship came with a lot of concern from friends and family. I didn’t mind it much – I was happy to be given the opportunity, and I was living at home so my monthly expenses are quite low. And I didn’t think that I was being overworked while given nothing in return – the catering at these different studios are pretty awesome. All snacks, drinks, and meals were covered by the company, and I took complete advantage of this.

It had been interesting visiting different studios that specialized in different aspects of a project. This was the third studio I had visited for the same project, specializing in video editing.

It was almost comforting to know that the first draft was never the best, but only the starting point. The rough cut of the commercial felt off, especially with the pacing. I watched as everyone gave different pointers to different versions of the commercial (to which there were many, customized for different devices and platforms) to improve the film before showing them to the client. The director took these notes and sat with the editor to make adjustments. It was the same long waiting period again, waiting to be called back in to review, make comments, repeat. Things felt rather slow until one of the clients dropped a bomb: they needed at least the main film done and ready to be sent for review before midnight, as their boss was boarding a flight.

Chaos ensued. Everyone suddenly had far too many things to do. The art directors who had been editing graphics to be superimposed in the film were rushing, and I was suddenly given a task:

Can you make subtitles on Adobe Illustrator?

…Could I make subtitles for a film on Adobe Illustrator?

I was stunned by this question for far longer than I should’ve. A very quick new thing I learned at that moment: the editing team only put in elements that were sent to them. They don’t make any of the elements by themself, including subtitles, which they needed as an Adobe Illustrator file.

The number of times I had ever opened the Adobe Illustrator software on my laptop amounted to a single digit number, and a great percentage of that was me opening it on accident. I was given the briefest tutorial by a very distracted art director constituting of art boards, what font to use, and shortcuts.

I stumbled through this process panickedly and cluelessly, not knowing if I was doing it right or what it was supposed to look like as everyone was busy. In the end, there wasn’t enough time to add the subtitles. Nevertheless, I appreciate the simulation. And I definitely needed to watch a few Youtube videos at home.

At my question of when we would finish up today, the account executive laughed. Things were too unpredictable for that. When I was told that I could go home early again, I expressed that I felt slightly guilty for not staying for the entire work day and receiving the full experience, and perhaps that would make me a bad intern. My boss quickly dismissed this, saying that I shouldn’t burden myself and take whatever I needed from this experience, for all I needed was something to show for it, which I didn’t need to go home at midnight in order to get them.

I was also told that I was lucky to be assigned to this team who did let me experience every stage of the production process and give me tasks that would help develop useful skills. “Your intern experience shouldn’t be sitting in a cold office pushing a pen and going home at 4pm.”

I was touched by how accommodating the team was, and though I left work that day at 11pm, I was starting to believe that maybe it was really good that I wasn’t getting paid. I imagined that having a salary, even just a small one, would add more pressure to everything I did. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable working on anything I was given knowing that there was an expectation to live up to and that I owed them a certain level of expertise which I didn’t have, and I definitely wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving early when the day was far from over.

The unlimited free drinks and snacks are enough.