Consider these lessons learned.

So the last couple weeks have kind of been  a blur. To be honest, it’s hard to really differentiate which projects I’ve worked on because they seem to always pop back up somehow. I’ll try my best to summarize what I’ve been up to during the last weeks of my internship.

April 26th-30th

KITES – Worked on the final mechanical for kites, along with creating the Billing Block for the poster.

RECREATION MEDIA Logo -Was a logo project that we worked on for a client.

THE LOSS OF A TEARDROP DIAMOND – The original poster was made by Indika, but now the company wanted us to create a new design for the DVD Release. This project was quite conflicting considering the requests of the client to help grab the younger teen demographic. Therefore, it was pretty much taking a period piece, and trying to play up the contemporary aspects.

May 3rd – 7th

GREAT DIRECTORS - Assisted in making some revisions on the Great Directors Poster, which is a documentary based on some of the best directors in the industry who have not “sold out”. This final poster is probably one of my favorites that they’ve created while I was here.

FRANCINE LECOULTRE BOOK – One of Vivek’s good friends is a costume textile designer, and is working on a book that we are designing for her. So I’ve been doing some preliminary spread designs for her book.

May 10th – 14th

My last week here, I worked on silhouetting images for HBO’s True Blood images, for some of their promotional. It was a pretty easy week, and it allowed me to really practice my silhouetting skills on Photoshop. To celebrate my last day at Indika, we had some chips and salsa amongst other snack foods and socialized. They made me a mini poster that spoofed one of the projects I worked on. It was really nice of them to do, and what a great keepsake item, haha.

Overall, looking back I thought this was a great experience. At times it was really stressful, but I really felt like I learned a lot about the industry along with being a member of their team and not just “an intern”. I met some really great people, and learned as much as I could from them. I can see these skills and relations helping me in the long run, and where the company is rather unique in itself it definitely allowed me to put myself into a different working environment that I’ve never experienced before.

This past week, one of my supervisors has been out because he had to do business in Ecuador. This made things complicated, when I was working on their presentation about Indika to be used during his business trip. There were many complications with sending files and transferring things. Not to mention a many revisions, which got slightly frustrating. Just a lesson in time management, and I slightly got frustrated with the lack of notice they gave me but what can you do. I did manage to get their presentation done, and I guess it’s just something to remember for the next time.

This week has been kind of hectic because we are cramped on deadlines, and James was also out this Friday. We’re working on a movie Happy Thank You More Please, which is a romantic comedy that takes place in the East Village. So it’s pretty close to home for these guys, and after watching the screener it was pretty neat to see references in the film that I actually could understand.

Besides some failed attempts at reaching deadlines without guidance, you realize how important it is to have the Creative Directors there because they really do have a lot of input and control over the designs. This was definitely a challenging week for all of us, and hopefully it gets less hectic. I’m starting to learn that this industry or at least company is always bustling with deadlines… and I’m not sure if it’s the norm for companies of this caliber, but I’m definitely getting a better idea of how to profile them.

On an entirely different note, I’ve actually seen the posters I’ve helped work on being used on website, etc. It’s really weird but cool at the same time to see our work being used. It’s just interesting to know the process and background behind the final result. Here are some examples of our work being used.

Vincere Trailer

The Greatest Trailer

This week has been rather stressful in various aspects of my life, but hopefully on the internship front it will work out for the best. I’ve recently been asked about a summer work opportunity with Indika, which I greatly showed my interest in. Of course, I mentioned that I would need to get some sort of compensation for the fact that I’ve been unpaid for the past and next couple of months. They knowingly said that they would work something out, and we’d discuss it sometime soon. That soon, became more of a prompt need as I further my plans for after graduation and summer. I’m the type who likes to have some sort of plan set for the not so near future, and if that doesn’t work out… a back up plan.

Before I was offered the opportunity to work past my internship, I applied to another said company that I worked at last summer. Where their offer was not quite livable for the future fresh-out-of-college gal, I really had to start thinking more realistically. So when the timing became more prominent and other offers arose it came the time where I really had to make a move to figure things out.

I think it’s wonderful that Indika wants to keep me longer, but not having any experience in negotiating and what the rights and wrongs were in the process has kept me slightly paranoid with my actions. To get past this though, I used the resources that I had around me and I was able to get some advice in order to get the ball moving. It also helped to talk to the HR/Office Manager type person that works in the studio about what I should do. The result was sending them a breakdown of what my living expenses would be along with a rough estimated offer based off of that. I know that I didn’t have to give them how I would budget things down, but I felt that the more backing I had the more comfortable I would be with making the offer.

As of now, they mentioned that they were thinking about creating a full-time position with the jobs and responsibilities I have now, and they want to do more research on the pay, etc. This being said, at some point today or by Friday I should find out what their negotiation will be. My plans in the fall are still unclear seeing that I have also applied to various Graduate Schools for this fall as well. There might be some tough decisions that have to be made in my near future so we will see how that goes. Because if they decide to make a full-time position out of my job… that might mean choosing between Grad School or a job offer.

I think as an intern it’s really important to use the resources you have around you and to ask the questions that will help you in the future. I don’t know how I would have been able to really get the confidence to make an offer without the advice of others in the field, etc. I know for myself I felt really awkward about moving forward with negotiations and such, but in the end it never hurts to try. You also don’t want a company taking advantage of your services, so to be able to communicate with each other openly is always a good idea. Sometimes it’s not the easiest, but I guess that’s part of learning what is necessary in the field to move forward.

This past week was a relatively calm week. It started off pretty hectic with deadlines for Cairo Time that Monday, and the final finish of The Greatest to be delivered out.

Besides that, Vivek got into a conversation about making the work atmosphere more exciting, and add a sense of “urgency”. Brainstorming through some ideas though, I suggested adding a calendar with upcoming projects and deadlines because not only will it add a sense of urgency but it adds a good sense of communication in order to make sure everyone is on the same page. I’m surprised they didn’t really have one to begin with. Over time though, I realized how Indika is rather really small privately owned company that has a permanent staff of about 3 currently…. maybe plus a couple more for their office in LA. Not that this is a bad thing in any means because obviously they’re still doing successful work with the people they do have.

Vivek, James and I discussed the path they would like to see me go in the future with my role at Indika. I had two options at hand, one is to continue to assist James with the creative, and also help out with the overall business marketing that the company needs. The other path is becoming more proficient at Photoshop, in order to start helping out the  one Photoshop guy we have currently, which is Leo. I told them I didn’t have a preference, so for now they decided to start teaching me more advanced techniques in Photoshop so I can take a step up and really start producing work for clients. It’s really intimidating since it takes a lot of practice to really get to the level of their current photoshop-er. I’m up for the challenge, but I know it’s going to be a lot of work. I’m happy that they’re such forward thinkers and really are supportive of my advancement and learning, which is cool. So I’ve also been practicing and learning some new things on photoshop while using the Wacom Tablet, which I feel like will take a while for me to get used to.

Besides that, the rest of the week I’ve been assisting Vivek with the Ecuador project for GTD, and doing some research on logos. Along with that I’ve done the usual deliveries to various other companies in the entertainment industry. It’s a good way to really explore the city, and its interesting to see what other companies exist out there for future reference.

This weekend I got to watch the next project we will be starting on Monday, which is “Let it Rain”. It’s a french film being released in the US, and it wasn’t that bad. I’m interested to see the direction we will take the creative in. I haven’t really thought about the many different type of clients and films that they work on. Once I think about it though, it really makes sense that in the end this company has to know how to advertise towards an American audience with the work they are producing. (Since most of these movies are for U.S. release in general)

Having been here for a while, I’ve learned the process of approval from the producers and actors in the film. I never realized how picky actors/ actresses can be about how they look. Lets just say, you get the inside scoop on which actors/actresses are really picky about photoshoping out specific flaws and looking glamorous more so then anything else.

Since I didn’t really get a chance to update my doings last week, I’ll try to condense this week and last week into one. Both weeks I’ve been doing similar work. We finished up things for Severe Clear and Handsome Harry, which had its final comps picked and went through the second round of editing. I got to fiddle around with the type for the Handsome Harry Poster, which was fun to do. We are starting up a new project for the indie movie Cairo Time, which is roughly about a lady who has an affair while in Cairo. We’re in the process of working on the copy and the black and white comps.

Besides the usual design work, Vivek and James want me to start getting the whole organization process done with their Archiving, etc that I talked to them about earlier last month. So the other intern and I started typing up a plan of what processes have to be done in order to improve their organization process and other such matters. So that is pretty much all I’ve been working on the last couple days. Nothing too exciting, but I feel like I’m really starting to understand how the whole movie poster making process works.