It has taken me a little under a month to finish this post - I started writing on July 22nd, and it's already August 16th. My oh my how time flies! This post was originally going to solely be about Comic Con, but a LOT has happenened since then so I'll probably just ramble...
If you didn't know, I was lucky enough to be asked to work Comic Con this year. Even though I've spent the entirety of my internship working on things FOR Comic Con, I never thought I would actually get to go myself. Since I had been coordinating travel and making itineraries and calling hotels and stuff, I knew there were no extra badges and no extra hotel rooms. I had just grown accustomed to telling people "nope, unfortunately I don't get to go to Comic Con - I'm just the intern!" But by some stroke of luck or genius or something, my boss stopped by my cubicle the Thursday before Comic Con week and asked if I still had family living in San Diego. I told her that my mom still lived down there and yes, I would be able to stay with her. When the words came out of her mouth, "would you have any interest in helping out at Comic Con?" I practicaly screamed for joy! Although I'm not a huge comic book fan, I'm a pretty big pop culture nerd and I've always wanted to check it out. Free tickets to the Con? Count me in!
After I agreed to help out on site, I got to sit in on a few meetings and to be honest, I quite nearly pulled my hair out from the sudden amount of stress and last minute plan changes. The day I was supposed to leave for San Diego I stayed working until 7:30pm (don't tell my boss!) just prepping stuff for the week to come. I had an exhausting day at work finishing up everything and I still had to drive three hours in traffic to my mom's house. It's safe to say I was a bit grumpy upon arrival.
I met up with our talent relations team at the hotel on Wednesday afternoon for some onsite prep. We put together the badges & put the final touches on the gift bags for the panelists. Vincent Martella, the voice of Phineas in Phineas and Ferb, was our first arrival. After we gave him everything he needed, we headed over to the convention center to scout the rooms for our panels. Everything and everyone down there was pretty unorganized as the place was swarming with people picking up their badges, and after about twenty minutes of pushing our way through mobs, we decided to part ways.
On Thursday we had a few more talent arrivals but we didn't need to worry too much about them because we had prepped everything the day before. We headed back over to the convention center to really start mapping out our routes. Since one of our jobs was to move talent from place to place without trouble, we needed to figure out the quickest routes from the holding rooms to the panel locations to the autograph areas etc. It was a little crazy at first, but once we got our bearings we figured everything out. Afterward we all went to lunch downtown and talked more about the days to come. When lunch ended, a few of us decided to go back to the convention to wander around the exhibit hall. I had never seen ANYTHING like it - my boss made me take pictures with some of the people dressed in costume and I had a blast doing it. They then released me for the day so I decided to hang around and go to some panels. I was really excited about the Divergent panel, so I waited about an hour for that. Afterward I went to Entertainment Weekly's Bravest Heroes panel (with Tyler Posey and Kit Harrington :* ) and then stayed for the Teen Wolf panel afterward. They announced they would be doing an autograph signing at the MTV2 after party, so I attempted to make my way over there. Basically I walked about two miles more than I needed to only to stumble upon a line into the party that took 30 minutes to get through. Luckily as I was almost to the front, I saw one of my coworkers from The Voice & I cut with him in line. We grabbed some (free) food and drink and then realized people were already lining up for the TW signing so we popped in there as soon as we could. Of course the signing only lasted about 45 minutes so we didn't get in, but I drooled longily over the entire cast. I left pretty soon after that because it was already 9pm and I was EXHAUSTED and I knew I had to be at work pretty early the next day.
Friday was our first real day at the Con - we had our Phineas and Ferb panel and autograph session. We got everything together and waited for the cast to meet up in the hotel lobby. There wasn't enough room in the van for everyone, so I went first in a cab and prepped everything in the holding room. I met the van when they arrived and led them to the room where they would wait until the panel started. There was a bit of a fiasco involving the actual panel room, but I won't elaborate too much on it except that I was right the whole time and no one would listen to me... oh the perks of being an intern! But of course we figured everything out and the panel went really well! We escorted them to the autograph session and just hung out until they finished. It was honestly a lot more lowkey than I expected. Once again at the end of the day we parted ways, but I was too drained to do anything but go home and pass out.
Saturday was even cooler than Friday because the panel was a few hours earlier, so although I had to be there earlier we finished up sooner. We had our Gravity Falls panel and autograph session as well as our Wander Over Yonder autograph session (a new show on Disney!) so I expected it to be insane, but I was 75% less stressed out than I planned to be. The turnout for Gravity Falls was absurd - apparently we asked for a bigger room than last year and they didn't give it to us, so they turned away almost 1000 people. EVERYONE was dressed up in costumes from the show and the cast and crew really had an awesome set planned - they made a light up sweater and a show puppet and had Dipper hats and giant faces of the cast to pass out - it was so cool. And because we had "A-List Talent" in that group (Kristen Schaal and Jason Ritter) they got the backstage treatment, AKA we rode on golfcarts behind the scenes to the autograph session. It was pretty exciting. The autograph session went really well and afterward I rode in the van with Jason and the creator of the show, Alex, to make sure they got to the hotel okay. When I went back to the convention center my boss told me that they didn't really need me to stick around for the Wander autographs, so I was free for the rest of the day. Fortunately for me, I was able to see the panel for The Vampire Diaries and have some more time to walk around the exhibit hall. I'm glad I got to work AND play while I was down there.
Overall it was a really successful trip - I saw my mom, my friends, CC panels AND I got experience working an event with talent. I would go again in a heartbeat.
WHAT ELSE has happened since the Con?
-Well, both Skylar Astin and Tyler Posey came in for auditions and I was allowed to sit in on both of them :)
-I had a great time at "Disney Intern Disneyland Day" and got a free ticket to both parks and got PAID to have a great day with some new friends.
-I'm on a first name basis with Jack McBrayer.
-I've had so much free sushi this summer I lost count
-I suggested actors for roles and some of them got callbacks! It's always exciting when your ideas turn out to be GOOD
-One of the artists on Phineas and Ferb made me an intern name plate!!!
-I took a class on Presentation Skills, Personal Branding and Professionalism
-Got free In N Out and winning prizes at the End of Summer intern party
-Got nicknamed "The Intern"
-Gave my talent scouting presentation and got a lot of praise for it
-Saw an early screening of Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel with the Phineas crew
-Literally a ton of stuff but it's been so long I can't remember specifics
-Got offered an internship for the fall......
What!?!? I know. Yeah. On Friday I was offered another casting internship. It was a really weird thing because for the past three weeks every day I've been going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth about whether or not I want a fall internship. I have room in my schedule but I also have like 9 straight hours of class on Wednesdays. I wanted to try to stay at my current internship, and then I wanted to try something new, and then I wanted to stay, and then I wanted to just say SCREW INTERNING and focus on school this semester, and then I wanted an internship, etc etc etc etc times infinity. I applied to Viacom because I wanted to work at MTV and I emailed the woman I interviewed with in the spring at NBC. A few days after I sent in my resume to Viacom, I got a phone call asking to set up an interview. But of course it wasn't with MTV - nope - it was with Nickelodeon. After I decided that one of the main reasons I didn't want to stay at my internship was to explore the world of non-animated, non children's programs. The other children's station wanted me. It didn't help that I accidentally scheduled my interview during our art gallery opening/wine & cheese party - something that I have been looking forward to this whole summer. I mean, I didn't even want the internship anyway! Boo kids TV! It had been almost two weeks since I emailed NBC, so I figured that wasn't working out. I asked to change my Nickelodeon interview and then AGAIN accidentally scheduled it at a bad time - during when my favorite attractive young male actor was supposed to come in for an audition (spoiler alert - he canceled last minute). I was so reluctant to the interview I was really considering just canceling it all together - I figured hey, might as well just check out the on campus jobs for work study and just work two jobs instead of one job and one internship. Of course I found myself maybe accidentally applying for a casting internship at Paramount along the way... but about 20 minutes after I submitted my resume, I got an email. No, not from Paramount or MTV or wherever you may be thinking that isn't the right answer, the woman from NBC emailed me. The way the email started out I was sure it was a denial letter - yet upon opening it I discovered that no, it wasn't a denial. Nope. It was a job offer. She told me I didn't need to interview again (I had asked to) and that she was offering me the internship. I was baffled. Less than a half hour before I was scrapping the idea of interning this fall and suddenly I had a really easy opportunity. Could all my anxiety realy have been for naught?
If you've read my other posts you may know that I really wanted the NBC casting internship for the summer - I was really confident about my interview and it seemed like they basically almost offered me the internship before I left the interview. Yet when I followed up three weeks later the woman apologized and said her boss decided to rehire their current intern, but to stay in touch for future opportunities. I was crushed and, moreover, I was hopeless. What on EARTH was I going to do? I hadn't heard back from anywhere else I applied and I had already started to plan out my summer with this internship in mind. Losing the position left me with a blank summer and I didn't know what to do about it. Plus, my fall schedule disallowed for an internship - what good would "future opportunities" do for me if I didn't have the time? So, of course, I made the time. I wanted this position so badly that I changed around my entire schedule to fit the internship. Just in case. I like to be busy. As for the summer, I tried to figure out alternatives and although they weren't ideal, they were paid. I had three jobs lined up and I was coming to terms with the fact that I wouldn't have a fun and exciting internship this year. Of course, as you know, I ended up spending my summer at Disney. The interview was out of the blue and then they offered it to me and suddenly I had a summer internship, arguably one that was better than I expected. It was a pretty unexpected opportunity that shook my whole world right-side-up. Disney?? Really?!?
So fast-forward to now. I'm finishing up my last week at Disney and I have such mixed feelings about it. I am so unbelivably sad to be leaving everyone here - I work under an amazing team and I really feel like I became part of the family here. I'm sure this all sounds cliche to you but I almost cried in my last casting meeting today when everyone said they were going to miss me. They're having a farewell lunch for me on my last day and I assure you a tear will be shed. It's bittersweet because I'm very sad to be leaving but I'm also looking forward to not only starting my junior year at USC but starting a new chapter of my career life. I've learned so much here at TVA but I have this feeling that staying here in the fall wouldn't be the best career move for me - I want to explore the world of live action television casting and I'm hopeful that NBC will give me that opportunity. But hey, who really knows what the future has in store?
