YEAR ONE: OF MICE AND MINIONS
AUGUST 2022
“Hi Jesus! I hope you’re doing well! My name is [redacted], and I am a Disney Professional Internship Recruiter. I came across your resume in the HSF Media & Entertainment Summit 2021 Resume Book and based on your experience; I thought you might be interested in an internship that recently opened up with the FX Original Programming Team for this Fall 2022.”
YES.
FUCK YES.
No more butter. No more families ordering the entire menu 10 minutes before closing. No more Minions.
This was my one chance. It wasn’t a full time job offer but it was the internship opportunity I had waited 4 years to arrive. I knew there was a limited time window for post-grad internship opportunities and I sure as hell wasn’t going to squander this. It was my opportunity to catch up.
I prepared intensely for that first telephone interview. And by some miracle in heaven or diversity quota, I made it to the second round: a zoom meeting with the development team.
I crammed as much FX programming as I could in one week, meeting with the genuinely lovely development team at FX. For the first time in a long time, I was nervous. Because I cared. By God did I care.
And just a few days later, I got the call. I GOT IT.
This was it. The actual start of my career. The promises fulfilled. A foot in the door.
Not even getting into USC made me this excited.
Those short 3 months that followed were truly some of the best experiences I ever had. Everyday, I was devouring scripts submitted by hopeful creatives like myself. Studying not only what worked stylistically on the page but most importantly, what executives talked about behind closed doors. What sold. What didn’t. What worked and what flopped.
In my best effort to relay my experience without unintentionally break any 4 year old NDA’s, I can say that the details I heard from executives and assistants were FASCINATING. Every day, hearing whispers about studio notes on content and mysterious studio directives about what type of content they wanted to produce.
“They are pushing for less mini-series; they want more ongoing.”
“They want broader comedies.”
“They don’t know why “Little Demon” flopped.”
These mysterious top executives were also seemingly aware that the TV bubble was about to burst. Even Mayor of TV and my close personal friend John Landgraf (he once nodded towards my general direction while walking past the reception desk) even declared the death of “Peak TV” in 2024, 2 years after predicting its impending demise. All really reassuring news to as an aspiring creative hoping to break into TV and Film.
Finding myself in the most business end of “show business”, I thought that there was something highly alluring about seeing the ins and out of this development role. This 9-5 career path seemed (at the time) the most stable role in an increasingly shaky industry. But just a few weeks in, I knew that this was in no way my end goal.
Perhaps due to my delusional ambitions, I knew that a role of this nature could only keep my creative mind satisfied for one year at most. In my heart of hearts, a few weeks in the office confirmed that truly only aspired to be a writer. A director.
In meeting with my internship coordinators and the development managers, they made it clear to me that writers don’t necessarily thrive in these office environments. Learning of my true aspirations, these mentors wisely advised that I should only seek development assistant or coordinator roles as networking opportunities with potential managers or assistants wanting to venture into executive roles.
With these connections in place, the door should be open to enter a writer’s room as an assistant.
After all, with so many TV shows in production, a writer’s room opportunity would SURELY come around.
An so, I finally had a clear career trajectory and starting point.
- Get into agency mailrooms.
- Move up to floating assistant.
- Land on an agency desk.
- Hate your life for a year while working said agency desk.
- Build connections.
- Get into a writer’s room.
Easy.
Come December, my internship with the mouse came to a end. Though I wished it could have lasted longer, the sudden return of Bob Iger as CEO of the company was swiftly followed by a company wide hiring freeze. Meaning that for the time being, my time with the mouse was truly over.
Something about the holiday season brought about a melancholic yet hopeful sense of finality to the entire experience. On that last day, a fellow intern and I toured the offices for final goodbyes and connected with all the assistants and managers we had met along the way. Secretly hoping they remember me when I need my latest script read or passed along.
That Christmas, I happily returned to El Paso. Though unemployed and without a plan for the 2nd time in my post-grad life, I felt oddly relaxed and optimistic. Even the hiring freeze at Disney did little to deter my enthusiasm. After all, with the WALT DISNEY name proudly plastered across my resume, surely I would ring in the new year with a flood of job opportunities.
And with some money finally saved up from my time at FX, I finally took some time to add a few TV specs to my writing portfolio.
Things finally felt like they would work out. And though I still felt a little behind on my career plans, I finally had a major internship under my belt and a clear plan. Surely that would mean something. Right?
RIGHT?!
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