CareerPlanit - Internship Journal

Internship Journal

A Summer on Sunset Beach

Mason Rabinowitz wasn't quite sure what to expect when he walked through the gates of NBC Studios on the first day of his summer internship.

Rabinowitz, a political science major at Boston University, had come to Burbank, California, in search of behind-the-scenes experience on a television show. He found what he was looking for in an unlikely location—the set of Sunset Beach, a daily daytime soap opera.

"I had watched like three hours of daytime television before I took the internship," Rabinowitz says with a laugh.

Rabinowitz had, however, spent three years writing, directing, and producing on the set of Shadows, a student-produced show at Boston University. His experience at the station had convinced him to learn more about television production and to seriously consider it as a career.

After interviewing with producers and production coordinators at NBC and ABC—meetings that were set up by Boston University graduates who had landed television jobs of their own—Rabinowitz was offered the unpaid, for-credit post at NBC.

"I didn't like daytime television, but I did like the pace of daytime television," he says, explaining that because the shows are aired daily, he was assured of a variety of experience in a short time.

Rabinowitz says his duties included plenty of "gopher" work—getting lunch from the commissary for actors and others on the set; delivering mail; photocopying, binding, and delivering scripts; and delivering daily videotapes of the show to various areas of the studio. He also opened fan mail not specifically addressed to anyone on the set and recorded specific facts about the mail.

"People would send the craziest things," he says. "Little girls would send full scripts written in pink ink."

Rabinowitz also worked in the casting office answering phones, opening and sorting mail containing resumes and photos, and greeting actors who came for auditions and sending them to the casting director at the appropriate time.

Most important, Rabinowitz says, was the hands-on experience he got doing actual production work—he was able to shadow the floor manager for a day and sit in the control room with several producers.

"They would lean over and say, 'what do you think we should do about this? What do you think we should do about that?'" he says.

Rabinowitz says he and several other interns also worked as unofficial production assistants for a location shooting at the beach.

"We helped set up tents for the producers and we got to drive the golf carts around," he says, adding that he and the other interns were able to participate in just about everything but acting and writing.

"I was surprised by how similar it was to college TV," he says. "It was bigger and they had a lot more money but the cameras were similar and the attitudes on set were similar. It was not a soap opera behind the scences. No one yelled or screamed or threw anything. The actors all showed up on time and did their jobs and went home. Although the result is magical, the job isn't. It's very nonthreatening."

Rabinowitz says that the internship convinced him to pursue his interest in television but to continue his major in political science, allowing him the option of going to law school later on. He adds that in addition to the experience he picked up interning, he now knows producers and directors who can help him in his career.

"I realized I could actually do this," he says. "It's just people going in every day and doing their jobs."

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