DAY 5

Today I worked on film acquisition. Because my bosses were so busy with their meetings, I was sent out to collect about 20 screeners from different companies spread throughout the festival. It was an interesting project because it tought me that how you carry yourself plays a big role in this industry, even for an intern.

The first few booths I approached played the run around game, telling me they weren't sure they remembered any conversations with my bosses, or their bosses weren't in, or they weren't releasing their screeners just yet. After about the third time of this happening, I realized that maybe it was because of how I was asking. Up until that point, I had been timidly introducing myself as the intern for the company, and that I worked for so and so and could I please have the screener for such and such movie. I realized that these people have no idea who I am or what position I have. The next booth I approached I marched over and introduced myself with all the confidence in the world, introduced myself as simply Maria Delano, and said that I worked WITH so and so and that I was FROM such and such company and that I had a screener on hold for me to bring back to LA and show my boss. This worked much better. So much better, in fact, that not only were they giving me the screeners willingly, but they were inviting me into their meeting rooms to let me preview the screeners while they pitched the film to me to report back to my boss. Very interesting...

Other than that, I did more listening in on meetings and observation of promotional materials.