One Day, One Job » movies

Sony Pictures

Willy Franzen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:00:22 +0000

I’ve never really understood the idea of the “Summer Blockbuster.” Why would you want to sit inside and watch a movie when it’s nice and hot outside? I guess sometimes it gets too hot, and sometimes it rains, but I’d rather be outside. If you disagree with me, then you’re probably a big fan of Culver City, CA’s Sony Pictures. They’re in the business of producing, marketing, and distributing entertainment, and you’re probably familiar with some of their recent an upcoming releases like: Julie and Julia, Angels & Demons, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. They’re also responsible for Seinfeld. Since I’m not much of a movie buff, I don’t know if anyone actually cares what production house puts out a movie, but I do know that Sony Pictures’ end products seem to pretty darn good—they even made my favorite movie (about the outdoors, obviously), A River Runs Through It.

Picture Yourself at Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures is obviously part of Sony, but there are also a number of distinct businesses within Sony Pictures. There is the Motion Picture Group, which has multiple labels including Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, and Sony Pictures Classics. Then there’s Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which brings feature films along with tv episodes right into your home. You also have Sony Pictures Television, which is actually responsible for those tv episodes and other tv programming, and Sony Pictures Digital Productions, which does visual effects and animation. If you’d like to work in any of these businesses or the Corporate arm of Sony Pictures, then you’ll need to head over to SonyPictures.com. It’s not a particularly great Careers site, but it gets the job done. From there you can check out all of their posted jobs, where you’ll see entry level opportunities like Financial Analyst, Global Ad Sales & Digital Media Coordinator, Marketing Assistant, Fitness Assistant, and Data Security Administrator. You can apply for any of the jobs with Sony Pictures online, and although nothing appears to be directly related to movie production, I’d bet that those jobs don’t just pop up on their job board all of the time (read: try networking).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite movie to come out of Sony Pictures?

Blue Sky Studios

Willy Franzen — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:43:33 +0000

This weekend my Dad e-mailed me about a company that had just moved to Connecticut (where I’m originally from). Connecticut has been working hard to attract the movie industry to the state – they even have what is called a “Hollywood East Task Force” in Hartford – so it’s big news when a company like Blue Sky Studios makes a move to Connecticut because they’ve been bribed by tax credits. It certainly brings a lot of jobs to Connecticut (even though New York loses just as many.) As interesting as it is that Connecticut is trying to become “Hollywood East,” it’s not nearly as interesting as what Blue Sky Studios does. They “pioneer creatively superior photo-realistic, high-resolution, computer-generated character animation for the feature film, television and entertainment industries.” Put more simply, they’re behind feature films like Ice Age, Horton Hears a Who, and Robots, and some pretty cool shorts too.

Live in Blue Sky Country

If you want to work in Animation or Production, there are few, if any, better place to start than Blue Sky Studios. In fact, Blue Sky Country has a comprehensive FAQ on how to break into the industry. Whether you’re interested in a job with Blue Sky or at another animation house, this will tell you everything that you need to do (from high school all the way through college and beyond) to groom yourself to get a job in the Animation industry. That’s a great place to start, but if you’ve already checked off a few things on the list, it might be time to take a look at Blue Sky Studios’ Jobs (or to subscribe to their Jobs RSS feed). We browsed over the listings and tried to find the jobs that might be most suitable for new grads. We came across jobs like Production Assistant, Administrative Assistant (Production), Temporary Animator, Modeler, Character Software Developer, Cloth TD, Materials TD, Character TD, Character Designer, and Designer. It’s hard to say how many of these jobs can be considered entry level, because many of specific knowledge requirements that use jargon that we’re not familiar with, but you’ll have a good idea whether you qualify or not. To apply for a job with Blue Sky Studios, check out the individual job descriptions for specific instructions. Also, if you’d like to know more about what it’s like to work at Blue Sky Studios, you can check out their pages on their Environment and their Process.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which of Blue Sky’s movies is your favorite?

Pixar

Willy Franzen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:45:50 +0000

In case you couldn’t tell by our post about Apple’s entry-level jobs, we’re really big Steve Jobs fans. That’s why we’re going to look at another one of the Steve’s projects (one that you probably didn’t even know was his) for exciting career opportunities for new grads. Steve Jobs started Apple, but left in 1985 after some disagreement with the board of directors. That left him with a lot of money and a lot of free time, so he did what any creative genius would do and purchased Lucasfilms’ computer graphics division from George Lucas for $10 million in 1986. It eventually turned into Pixar, which has put out computer generated classics such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. Pixar was bought by Disney in 2006, which made Steve Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder. Now that you know that Steve is even more of a genius than you previously thought he was, let’s look at what kind of entry-level opportunities Pixar offers.

Mike Wants You to Work for Pixar

This icon has to be one of our favorite ways a company has influenced visitors to it’s home page to check out the Careers section of their site. If you do end up clicking through, you’ll be given two options – Career Opportunities and University Programs. This is where Pixar stumbles a bit, the University Programs section looks like it’s just for internships, but it actually is for new grad too (although they don’t have any jobs listed for the new grads in this section). If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that they offer information on their Technical Director Residency Program, which is somewhere between an internship and an entry-level hiring program (the jobs aren’t guaranteed to be permanent). Here’s more:

We have a new program titled Technical Director Resident. This position is similar to a Technical Director position, but specifically designed for recent graduates. To be eligible for a Technical Director Residency at Pixar, you must be a new graduate from a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD Program at the start of the residency. The goals of the program are to provide new graduates the opportunity to apply their academic training and knowledge to a real job at Pixar. Residents will work on Pixar’s films and will have the opportunity to build their skills and learn from our creative and talented workforce. All technical “Residents” will receive ongoing mentorship and training throughout their time at Pixar. The residency is a twelve-month program. Residents will be evaluated during their term and may be considered for ongoing employment, dependent on overall performance and Studio needs. Recent graduates interested in being a Technical Director are also welcome to apply for a regular full time position with Pixar. The Technical Director Resident position is just a great way to start off your career.

Here are some profiles of new grads who are now working at Pixar as well as some of Pixar’s Interns (this includes some pictures of the Pixar office). Positions that these new grads are currently working in besides the Technical Director Resident job include Animator, Software Engineer, Lighting Technical Director, and Layout. Since it appears that Technical Director Resident jobs aren’t available right now, we took a look at Pixar’s general job listings and found some recent listings that require little or no prior work experience. These include Story Production Assistant, Animator, and Creative Services Assistant. All jobs at Pixar are located in Emeryville, CA, and to apply, make sure that you follow their submission guidelines since a demo reel or portfolio is necessary for almost all of the jobs.

Also, if you want to learn more about working at Pixar, you can check out this interview with a Pixar Animator, or you can look at Pixar’s profile on Yelp (don’t forget to check out Yelp’s entry-level jobs too).

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite Pixar movie? Leave a comment.

PostWorks

Willy Franzen — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:26:07 +0000

Finally, we’re talking about entry-level jobs in show business. Bright lights. Movie and television stars. Glitz and glamour. Not so fast! PostWorks (and Orbit Digital, their sister company) may be in the entertainment industry, but everything that they do is behind the scenes. Since they specialize in post production work, they’re not even on the wrong end of the camera, they’re nowhere near it (until the film needs to be unloaded and processed, that is). In the end, though, it’s all worth it, right? You get to be that guy or girl who sits in the movie theater until the bitter end, just to see your name in the credits.

We Have No Idea What We’re Talking About

First of all, we’re totally out of depth when it comes to what PostWorks does. We’re going to do our best to get the point across, but we’re not movie people, so feel free to correct anything that needs to be corrected by leaving a comment. PostWorks is a full service post production company, so once the film has been shot, they are fully equipped to take a project all the way through to final delivery. They offer a full range of services, the most impressive of which has to be 24/7/365 Technical Support and Engineering. Apparently, PostWorks never stops working, but don’t let that scare you off.

At One Day, One Job we’re not really movie buffs or tv junkies, we’re just job searching couch potatoes. That means we’re not very good judges of what makes an impressive post production company. We’ll leave that determination up to you; however, we have found a few things that you should look at when evaluating PostWorks as a potential employer. There’s their reels and credits on their own website. There’s also PostWorks’ credits on IMDB and Orbit Digital’s credits on IMDB

How Entry-Level Do You Want to Get?

At the very least PostWorks has a cool office, so we think it’s definitely worth taking a look at their job listings. Since we’re not familiar with industry terminology or hiring patterns, we had some trouble determining which jobs were best suited to new college grads. We picked out the ones with the most entry-level descriptions, but we might have missed something that is perfect for you, so be sure to look at all of the listings. We’re going to work our way up through the ranks, so if you have no relevant education or experience and are just trying to get your foot in the door, you might want to consider a position as a Runner / Shipping Assistant or a Scheduler. Both of these listings state no need for industry knowledge, but might give you the exposure that you need to move towards a role in post production.

For Those Who Have Seen a Movie Before

There are then Production Assistant / Client Services jobs, which are perfect for someone who is aiming for a job as an assistant editor, digital media coordinator, coordinating producers, or AVID Tech. Finally, there are jobs as a Junior Producer / Coordinator. We can’t really tell if these are actually entry-level, but the job listing talks about how this position allows for significant growth, while failing to mention any need for previous work experience. All of the jobs that we’ve mentioned are in the New York, NY office; however, PostWorks does have a Los Angeles, CA office that also hires occasionally.

What e-mail address you should apply to changes depending on the position, so take note of which e-mail address goes with which job if you’re looking at multiple listings. PostWorks also offers the opportunity to send in a resume for general consideration so send a resume and cover letter to job@postworks.com for jobs in their New York facilities and jobs@postworksla.com for jobs in their Los Angeles facilities if none of the listed positions speak to you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Looking for an internship in post production? PostWorks has those too!

Netflix

Willy Franzen — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:00:48 +0000

Whether you hit the multiplex with your friends, had them over to watch a rental, or sat alone and watched in your room as you languished through your awkward stage (everyone has one), Friday nights in Middle School always seemed to revolve around movies. To get a rental, you’d have to beg your Mom to take you to Blockbuster. Then you’d have to lobby her on why you were mature enough to rent an R-rated movie, despite the fact that you just made it to legal age for a PG-13. Those days are long gone, and not just because you’re an adult now. Now, you either wait a couple days for the mailman to deliver your movie or you sit for 10 minutes while you download it. Netflix has ruined those cherished moments of arguing with your mother about movie rentals and late fees, but I think we can all agree to forgive them.

If your love of movies has persisted beyond your Middle School years, Netflix is the perfect place to begin your career. Not only do they look like a fun place to work, but they also have done a fantastic job of marketing their employment brand online. In fact, their list of 8 great reasons to work for Netflix made it to the top page of reddit. If you don’t know what reddit is, Wikipedia says it’s “a social news website where users can post links to content on the web. Other users may then vote the posted links up or down, causing them to appear more or less prominently on the Reddit home page.” Reddit users aren’t the easiest crowd to please, so it’s actually quite an impressive feat for a corporate careers page to get so much attention from them.

We sifted through Netflix’s 4 pages of job openings to find you the positions that we think are most suitable for a new college grad. There were 4 jobs that really stood out: Indie Films Content Buyer (this sounds so cool!), Replications Manager, Operations Coordinator, Site Content Coordinator – Electronic Delivery – all of these positions are located in Beverly Hills, CA. There is a lot of depth in Netflix’s job descriptions, but they could stand to be written in a livelier style. Netflix brags about being a “flat” organization in which people at all levels of the organization work on both high and low level tasks. That could be good or bad depending on your point of view. Typically a flat organization means opportunities to advance quickly for someone who is coming in at the entry-level.

Netflix also has a General Application for people who don’t see a position that suits their interests. Give that a try if you don’t see anything you like in their job listings. Or you could just sit at home and try to win $1 million from Netflix by building them a better movie recommendation algorithm.

Note: On April 24th we revisited entry-level jobs at Netflix.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you think Netflix’s business model can continue? Or will movie rental by download completely take over in the next few years?