How you dress for your interview is also extremely important. No one at the time really told me how to dress, so I played it safe and went to the interview wearing a coat and tie. The owner of the place told me, "Don't ever wear that again. It makes us look bad." I still got the job, but it was apparent to me that a coat and tie wasn't how people dressed in post-production houses. When I interned at the television station, everyone was wearing a coat and tie, so I naively figured that is what people wear everywhere in the film business. Over-dressing can't really hurt you, unless you’re wearing a tux, but under-dressing is never good. Never show up in jeans and a T-shirt for an interview. Once you are actually working for the company then you can adjust to what everyone else is wearing. The key is to not under-dress for an interview.

Resumés are also extremely important for your interview. Take a course at your career-counseling center for the correct way to do a resumé or get advice from your professors. Keep the resumé to one page, no one likes a two page resumés especially for a student applying for an internship. You are not supposed to have amassed and enormous work history at this time. Even if you have had a lot of work experience, bring it down to one page by keeping only the most revalent information.

Along with your resumé you want to have a nice cover letter. Make it short and to the point. Describe why you think that you are a good fit for the internship and let them know what you have to offer and what you hope to learn from working for them. The clichés of being a hard worker and being a quick learner are good if you can write them in a way that they don't seem like being clichés.

My second internship was at one of the biggest post-production houses in Boston, which was good experience to see how they functioned. Since it was a big post-house, my jobs were pretty remedial. I reported to the receptionist and my main job was to stock the kitchen with snacks and drinks, make sure that each editing bay had its muffins for the clients, make coffee, clean up, and anything else that they needed my to do. One of the least enjoyable parts of the job was climbing up a precarious ladder to get snacks from a storage area way up high above the offices. Fear of heights aside, once I finished all of those duties I was allowed to spend time in the bays with the editors (When clients were not around) so that I could see the editors work. After hours, I even got to use the Avids to cut together some of my own projects. It was a great experience to see how a big post house worked.

Another way that one can get an internship is through recommendations by a friend or a peer. Ask around to see if anyone is working an internship. If they are, they might be able to recommend you to their work. One thing I will suggest though, is that when you do go for that interview after a friend recommended you, make sure that you are prepared and don't blow the interview. One of the surest ways to burn bridges in the film business is to make your friend look bad by recommending someone who isn't prepared for the job.

While at Boston University, I interned at over 4 places, and the experience was invaluable. Not only did I see the many different work environments but also I now had many items in my resumé for when I did start searching for work. Internships allow one to try out many different fields to see what one wants to do for a job. I had one friend while at school that found out as an intern that the last thing that he'd ever want to do would be to work at a post-production house. So try interning at many different types of places in the film business, from production to post, or anything else that you might be interested in. Internships are a great experience, and I cannot preach their value enough.