Richie – Page 2 – COM Ambassador Blog

Richie: A Summer at the Cannes Film Festival

Hey everyone! I was just recently notified about my acceptance into an incredible internship program at the Cannes Film Festival and wanted to let you guys be the first to know!

How I found out about it:

Over a whole year ago I walked past the Film and Television Department in COM, probably giving a tour, and saw a flyer advertising an internship program in Cannes. It immediately grabbed my attention and I decided to “Google” it as soon as I got home. A quick search let me know I had missed the application deadline for the 2011 Festival, but I was not discouraged and decided I was definitely going to make it in for 2012.

Applying:

That following fall semester, I began preparing everything I would need for a solid application. With a trip to COM Career Services’ resume workshop, a recommendation from the amazing Katie Gallagher at COM Student Services, the completion of a few short essays, and an application video shot by a few of my friends, I was able to build a strong application in time for an early decision deadline!

What the program consists of:

Creative Minds is actually broken up into three different programs

The Network connection allows its participants to attend pitch meetings, strategic workshops, and different networking events to create relationships with industry professionals.

The Filmmaker Institute has its participants actually create a short 5-minute film within a week. A panel of industry professionals will then judge the short films, awarded prizes, and obviously, the knowledge of how to craft a good story. Students are put into groups and provided with a camera, laptop (with editing software), and a microphone.

The Internship Experience is the program I was accepted into! Interns will be placed with a supporting partnership company while in Cannes and be able to make great connections to hopefully launch their careers in the future. This program is the most competitive of the three as it includes follow-up assistance with post-festival job securing, access to exclusive parties and networking events, and a chance to work for companies such as: 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks, AMC, and Summit Entertainment, to just name a few!

Obviously the program seems amazing in terms of industry experience, but I have to say I’m also ecstatic as it will be the first time I have ever travelled to Europe or any sort of film festival! The famous beaches of southern France, the large amount of celebrities attending the festivities, the exclusive industry parties, and the opportunity to sit among the best filmmakers in the world as they premiere their work is absolutely incredible! As an aspiring Filmmaker, I don’t think I have to explain anymore how excited I am to be able to partake in such an incredible event.

The program will last from May 14th-May 28th. I’ll definitely let you all of you visiting the COM Blog know how it’s going while I’m there!

If any of you are interested in Film or Television, I’d definitely recommend you start looking into applying for next year. It’s never to early to start preparing and making your dream become a reality!

Richie: PDPs: Schedule a Bit of Time For Fun!

Now, we all know Boston University’s College of Communication is a top-notch school with the best in terms of academic classes, but we seldom hear about the other classes available to us as BU students. It’s true, while completing our general requirements, we’ll likely be exposed to a wide variety of classes in the many colleges throughout our university. We’ll probably take an incredible philosophy course or a foreign language course we’ll fall in love with. But what I’m talking about are PDPs.

“What’s a PDP?” you may be asking yourself (along with the question, “Does BU purposefully abbreviate everything to confuse new students”). I’ll be honest, don’t ask me what “PDP” exactly stands for, but I do know they’re BU’s Physical Education Credit Classes. Offering an insanely huge amount of diversity, students can sign up from anything to rock climbing, yoga, or even scuba diving with a PDP course! You can check out over a hundred different classes in categories like court sports, dance, mind and body, aquatics, and more!

Courses are usually somewhere in between 0.5 and 2.0 credits, and since our regular academic classes usually only take up 16 credits, why not fill up the remaining two credits available to you with a class like cardio-jazz funk?! Or if you have the GPA requirement for it, you could go crazy and literally overload with PDPs! (Yes, I am overloading with Hip-Hop, Tango, Springboard Diving, and Intermediate Sailing, but don’t judge me). If your still hesitant to sign up for one (not sure why you would be after you read “rock climbing”) just think about all the added benefits.

For one, it would definitely have you visit the gym more frequently. I know many of you are familiar with our state-of-the-art fitness center, but probably only familiar with it from afar. I’ll be honest, I visited the gym here in my entire freshman year probably a total of two times and know plenty of students that did the same. Perhaps a cooking class that meets for two hours a week would help you learn a little more about FitRec. It could even give you the little extra push you need to actually start visiting our gym independently!

You’re also bound to meet some great friends. Whether you’re taking a class in something you already have an interest in and find people with common interests, or find someone who is just as clueless as you are about the class; you’re bound to make some great friends!

Finally, I know things can get hectic as a college student. With a part-time job, school work, and classes; scheduling some fun can be extremely beneficial. Step out of your comfort-zone a bit and sign up for that dance class you’ve always wanted to learn. The Pass/Fail system of PDPs won’t give you the same amount of stress a regular class would (since passing is only graded on attendance) and you’ll come out of it with a new skill.

By the way, you still have time to sign up for a PDP on the student link! As for me, I can’t wait for the weather to clear up and sailing to begin!

Richie: Internships through the Emma Bowen Foundation

Hey guys! I hope everyone is super excited to come to Boston this fall! You should all be proud and psyched to have gotten into the the best school at BU: COM.

I remember a huge reason I decided on COM last year was because of the security I felt I would have in finding a job after school. I’m sure many of you can relate to the fear of not finding a good job after college and as an aspiring film maker I can say that fear was ten times greater for me. I used to not be sure if I should chase my passion or just settle for a field with more jobs and better income. Yet, as I’m sure a lot of you will agree with, both COM’s film program and BU in LA program finally had me feeling comfortable with my choice in film.

Now, for all you interested in film, television, broadcast journalism, or any other media related job (which is basically anyone in COM), I highly, highly recommend applying to the Emma Bowen Foundation. If you’re looking ahead and thinking about getting a job in whatever communication related industry, then this program is definitely for you. EBF is a program dedicated to helping minorities break into the media business by setting them up with a four year internship. Students have an 8 week commitment to work for their corporate sponsor every summer that they’re in college. Some corporate sponsors even allow their interns to work throughout the year as well.

Each summer your department is changed so you can get a taste of different jobs in the industry. The benefit of having a secure internship every summer for the next few years is incredible, anyone will tell you. Also, you’ll be building a strong relationship with your company where many students earn a job afterward or, through their connections, find a job at a different company.

Oh yeah, and if you guys are curious about what companies participate in the program you can check them out here http://www.emmabowenfoundation.com/main.html. To give you and idea though, I work for Fox Television Stations, and have friends that work for HBO, NBC Universal, the YES Network, ABC, and many many more.

Some of you might be hesitant to give up eight weeks of your summer. Maybe you want to enjoy your summer, but just to remind you all, summer vacations in college are around three months so you’ll still have plenty of time to hang with friends. Plus, we all know the wisdom of working hard early in life to enjoy a comfortable, fun job, later in life. And if that doesn’t win you over, did I mention the internship is not only paid but also a scholarship program?! Now most people will tell you how insanely difficult it is to find a paid internship (even if it is only minimum wage), yet EBF has all its partnership companies give out matching funds at the end of every summer. So that basically means, if you dedicate yourself to working those 40 hour weeks for two months, not only will you have all the money you were getting paid, but the company will match your hard work! You do the math, 40 hours a week for eight weeks (getting paid $7.25) is over two grand!

Richie: A Picnic in Boston

Hey guys!

Everyone on campus has been super excited since Spring finally decided to come to Boston. I walk around campus and see people playing frisbee, tossing a football around, or just laying out on the grass trying to catch a tan (yes there are some areas with grass on the BU Campus). Well, since my girlfriend was visiting for the week I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and plan a little picnic in the Boston Common.

We went to a Whole Foods Market and bought some “picnic” food on Saturday. I’m not to sure of the usual “picnic” food, but we did get cheese and crackers, some all-natural sodas, sandwich materials, vegetables for salad, and some raspberry licorice for dessert. Then on Sunday we prepared everything, put it in a backpack, grabbed a blanket from my dorm, and were off. I have to admit the floor was a little wet from some rain earlier in the morning, but the day was beautiful. The sun was out and we had an awesome meal. I even brought my laptop and put a chill Spring-time playlist on my iTunes to accompany the beautiful day.

The Swan Boats were open in the Boston Commons and my girlfriend and I went on a ride around the little lake. Afterwards, we packed everything back up again and walked down Newbury Street. A lot of the shops had prices that scared my wallet away, but my girlfriend managed to find a bunch of awesome sales at the new Forever 21 store.

It was also the day before the Boston Marathon so we got to walk on Boylston Street and see where the finish line would be. People from all over the world were walking around. We were in a sea of different languages.

The day was basically awesome. It took a while for Winter to end but Spring time in Boston is great. I definitely recommend the picnic idea to anyone who hasn’t tried it yet. The only thing I regret was we were missing the big red and white checkered blanket!