Ben Lewin was seventeen when he started interning with us last fall. He’s mostly focused on the production side of things, so we tossed him more camera operation and project management tasks. He recently won CDAT’s male senior All-Star Student award (as well as the superlative “Most likely to THINK they’ll rule the world). He’s driven and has an entrepreneurial spirit, so we know he’ll be at the helm of his own company before long.

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My name is Ben Lewin and I am a senior at Lanier High School in Buford, GA. It is because of the school I attend that I got so lucky as to work as an intern at Biscardi Creative Media. Lanier has a technical program called the Center for Design And Technology (CDAT), which I have participated in since my sophomore year. When I heard what Lanier was doing, I was so compelled to participate because I have been looking to start my professional career as soon as possible and begin building an impressive portfolio early. I currently live in Lilburn and am a permissive transfer, so I have to drive 44 miles round trip to get to school every day, and have been doing that for 3 years.

Ever since I was young I have loved the art of storytelling. Not only do I have a passion for writing, but the process of film production has always appealed to me the most. I used to frequently make little short films with my friends and put them together in iMovie. Consequently, when I heard that I could use my passion of film to create projects and learn trade skills in my desired profession in school, I was more than motivated to participate. CDAT had a lot to offer and I was really able to strengthen my technical skills by learning and becoming proficient with NLE’s like the Premiere Pro and the Adobe suite.

During my high school career at Lanier, some film-related awards that I have won are the NATAS Southeast Student Production Award for outstanding excellence in the long-form fiction category; another award was a 1st place prize of $1,500 for the North Georgia Metropolitan Water District High School Video Contest. Since I am graduating in about a week, this fall I am attending Kennesaw State University where I plan on studying business. I want to own my own film production company and because of that I think that it would be astute to learn how to properly run a business. Stating film as my primary focus, my sights are not solely set on the former; versatile entrepreneurship is my blanket ambition in which I wish to aspire as a large-time investor and business owner.

My mentor and teacher, Mike Reilly, was connected to Walter Biscardi, Jr. and was looking for seniors, like myself, to reach out and attain an internship in their desired field of work. Because of my passion for the film industry, I jumped at the opportunity to acquire work experience at Biscardi Creative Media. Walter came over to Lanier one day and sat several students down, including me, for an interview and later hired a peer of mine, Mariah Campbell, and I.

I wasn’t unfamiliar with working for a production company. I had done some freelance work for BCM as a PA over the previous summer, but had never worked on the back-end as an editor or post-producer, much less produced an entire project from beginning to end. The first project we worked on was the latter; the Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services needed a promo for its community service program called the Gwinnett Great Days of Service.

Walter had put Mariah and I in charge of the entire production from beginning to end. We contacted the client, wrote the interview questions, conducted the interviews, filmed on site, edited, and colored graded. Since the video was unscripted, I found it difficult to piece together a story that was both compelling and entertaining and, at the same time, maintained the integrity of the story itself. I really loved the way Walter handled us in regards to the project; we weren’t just these lowly, ignorant interns that we there to shut up and take notes. He, metaphorically, gave us the keys to the car and said “drive”. Of course, he would be there to catch us if we fell, but he wouldn’t hold our hands. This was a very conducive learning environment for me because, personally, I thrive under heavy responsibility and learn way more from experience than from hearing about it in a lecture.

The studio itself is extremely aesthetically pleasing. The floor plan enables a productive work environment and keeps in mind the needs of the various roles in production. One thing of value, in particular, that I have taken away from my experience is that organization is key. One ends up making it more difficult for themselves and wasting more time than necessary if they are reluctant to keep a tidy and organized project. Having every single resource and scratch disk in its exact location, all labeled and in order, makes working on the project faster and with clarity. That is just one out of many, seemingly small, but extremely important lessons that are not only applicable to the film industry, but to life in general.

I believe that it is essential that the youth start their work experience at a young age. It teaches them a trade skill and how to behave in a professional environment as well as giving them an idea of what they want to do with their life and, more importantly, what they don’t want to do. I was very privileged to have a real-world experience like this, especially in an environment like BCM, and I would recommend it to everyone.

 — Ben

The post Meet the BCM Interns: Ben Lewin appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.

Mariah Campbell was seventeen when she started as an intern with us. She’s mostly focused on post-production for her career path right now, so we threw a few more editorial tasks her way, like assisting on broadcast work hands-on and crafting her own story from a pile of raw (multicam) material. She recently won CDAT’s female senior All-Star Student award and will graduate with honors. She’s quick to learn and a natural storyteller, so keep your eye on her: she’ll be an editorial force of nature.

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I’m absolutely terrible at introductions so I’m just gonna get right into it and give a little context as to who’s writing. My name is Mariah Campbell and I’m 18 years old. I was born in Ohio and moved to Georgia in the first grade. My main interests include writing, drawing, watching TV (strictly for research purposes) and cuddling little puppies. My favorite foods include tofu pad thai, dark chocolate (aka the chocolate for the sophisticated), and really good pizza. I have six sisters, one brother, and seven grandparents. Last but not least, I’m really bad at transitioning from introduction to body. So, uh, yeah.

Mariah winning all-star CDAT student!

My sophomore year I moved from my old district and changed schools (as I did often). I told myself right then and there that I needed to decide what it was I would work toward becoming for the next four years. At the time I was in love with HGTV and thought architecture might be something I’d enjoy. I visited Lanier High School’s website and found a program called CDAT, The Center for Design and Technology. I thought this was perfect and requested to be in the program when I signed up for classes. What I didn’t do was request was just what I wanted to be studying in CDAT. On the first day of school I followed my schedule to the video broadcast room. My first thought was “NO! I can’t become an architect with video broadcast on my transcript! I need 3D design or something!” So when a teacher came in and told the class that some of the kids in the room needed to follow him to the 3D animation class, I bit my lip and crossed my fingers— but to no avail. I was stuck.

If I was going to waste my time there, I certainly wasn’t going to allow myself to enjoy it. I was going to be an architect and architects don’t run around with cameras. So I moped around with my arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed for a couple weeks.  After a while I met some kids who eventually became my best friends, and the projects we worked on together were actually fun: scripting, shooting and especially editing.  Video Broadcast had become my favorite class of the day. In the following years I assisted in the editing of the class’s YouTube channel and submitted a few videos into contests. This year I was given the opportunity to intern with Biscardi Creative Media.

I’ve been interning with my classmate, Ben Lewin, at Biscardi Creative Media since the beginning of my senior school year. What was my first thought when I began interning with BCM?

“OMG A BASKET OF CHOCOLATE!”

Candy bowl before and AFTER interns.

Actually, my first thought upon starting my internship was how awesomely designed the place was. (Nothing like the set of The Office, as I might have imagined.) Bright colors, a conference room with corkboard and clear dry-erase paint, a 50s diner in the kitchen, themed editing suites, a theater for viewing work, and decorative references to just about every movie and television show in existence. This had to be video production paradise. I mean just look at it!

As our first project we were given the opportunity to produce and edit a video for The Gwinnett Great Days of Service, a local volunteer group. This meant setting up and filming interviews, capturing b-roll and natural sounds, bringing the media into Adobe Premiere Pro, editing and exporting by a certain date. Of course the task seemed completely daunting at first, as it would to any 17 year old, but with the help of the Biscardi Creative Team we were led onto the right track and got it done.

Presenting at the CDAT awards.

We were given the opportunity for each of us to direct at two sites. Ben was to Direct the shooting of volunteers working on the garden of a rehabilitation center, and I was to direct at a co-op. We were given guidelines on what we should capture: people working, smiling, and cooperating. Seemed easy enough. Until we actually started. At first I wasn’t quite sure how to go about getting certain shots, and had a hard time walking up to the volunteers and asking them to “smile at the camera” or “hand the shovel to him” without both of us feeling awkward. Eventually I learned that If you at least pretend to be comfortable behind the camera, the subjects will follow suit.

We then interviewed some of the people involved with the Gwinnett Great Days of Service. We emailed the interviewees, set up interview dates and times and created questions to ask them. During the interviews we wrote down timecodes of important parts for the video. Then we began to edit. Two people editing with conflicting points of view can get frustrating, but none the less, we created a great video.

Through the process I began to realize that editing really is something to be done one step at a time. Instead of letting the thought of “a whole project? That soon!?” seep into my brain.  I now think along the lines of “first I’ll do this…. Good.  Now on to the next thing.”

Another major project I got to work on was the demo video for “Our Story Media”, a documentary-style video wedding album that clients can get made, highlighting the details of their story of love and marriage. Working on this project has provided me with a good chunk of my learning experience at BCM. Especially in the area of understanding the background, telling a story and pleasing the client.

Mariah’s multicam timeline!

When I started working on the project I was given a background interview of the couple and videos to log. My first run around I had a 15 minute long rough. After showing it to another editor, I was given tips on what to fix. Tell more of the story, trim clips, don’t edit to the music, don’t show a shot of him when he’s talking about her and so on. After several more pass throughs, I began to see just what a big impact the little changes had made. The story made sense, the audio fit the visual, and the overall impact was much stronger. I am currently down to color correcting and stylizing a 6 minute final. The hands on approach of the work allowed me to see what exactly it was I could do and I’m happy to say that it’s a lot more than I thought.

Walter made sure that we learned the entire process of production. We assisted with the shooting of some of his WalterBiscardi.com videos, in which we were given lessons on shooting, lighting and capturing audio. We got to edit some of the videos learning story telling, timing and the difference between 1080i and 1080p. We learned how to convert a video from digital to tape (which I had no idea was necessary, but apparently very much is). We spent a lot of time shadowing team members as they went about editing and explained to us the editing process. We were introduced to a Good Eats actress (Yes, I met an actress. Now bow before me~), Widdi Turner, who was more than happy to explain her experiences and advice in acting and being on set. I can’t think of a single production subject we didn’t touch on.

Shooting WalterBiscardi.com videos with Molly.

The BCM team are some of the nicest people I’ve met. It really is refreshing to go from negative teachers and students just wreaking havoc on my mood, to an entire building full of people who say hello and ask me how my day was (and a dog who wags her tail and licks me in excitement). They are the type of people I can ask to help with my i’m-an-intern-why-isn’t-this-working? oh-it-was-just-turned-off… problems 20 times a day, and don’t stomp off in frustration. They are always willing to show me how to do something and over-explain the subject as needed. I don’t think you could find a friendlier group of people anywhere else.

On May 22nd, I will be graduating and my time with Biscardi Creative Media will be coming to an end. When I reflect on my time spent here I am reminded of the amazing opportunities that Walter Biscardi and his team have given me. Because of my work here, I am now confident and comfortable enough with the video production process that if asked to produce or edit a video, I no longer shrink under my desk and have a panic attack. (Which is entertaining for some but horrifying for me.)

CDAT awards – CDAT student Bethany, Mariah, and Kylee.

I want to use my little soapbox here and let everyone here at BCM and my teachers over at CDAT know how thankful I am for the opportunity to have worked with you guys. I never knew that so many people could have this much confidence in me and what I can do. But it’s what drives me everyday to wake up, do my best and crush my own expectations. I truly appreciate each and every one of you and everything you’ve done to help me realize and advance towards my goals.

– Mariah

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Mariah and Ben featured in the BCM 2014 Christmas Card!

Good luck Mariah! Leave some advice for college and her career in post-production in the comments below!

The post Meet the BCM Interns: Mariah Campbell appeared first on WalterBiscardi.com.