The first thing that surprised them was the level of generosity they encountered in a town with a reputation for being insular and snobbish. They arrived in Los Angeles at the beginning of summer, half-expecting to get screamed at, dispatched for coffee and errands at all hours and saddled with photocopying and filing chores.
But there was none of that for Jeff Goldberg, Jason Lansing, Gwen Miller or Dave O'Brien, members of Hollywood's Intern Class of 2005. They spent the summer honing their chosen crafts along with 30 other U.S. college students who completed the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's eight-week internship program.
The entertainment industry boasts myriad educational, apprentice and outreach programs designed to create opportunities for those seeking a foot in the door, but the ATAS Foundation's long-running program is coveted because it offers a rare chance to gain real-world work experience while making a little money. A $4,000 stipend helps keep participants in Top Ramen and toothpaste as they dive into assignments at major studios, networks and other firms ranging from talent agencies to postproduction houses -- where, more often than not, they are taken under wing by dedicated mentors.
"USC is freakin' expensive," says O'Brien, who is on the verge of earning a master of fine arts degree in film production at the USC School of Cinema-Television. "Even with financial aid, it's not like I could take two months off in the summer to go do an internship."
O'Brien, 28, grew up on a dairy farm outside Madison, Wis., and completed an ATAS Foundation internship this summer in single-camera television directing. It was quite an education, he says, to shadow veteran Michael Lange for two months as the director moved from helming an episode of Fox's "The O.C." to the startup mania of the ABC Family comedy pilot "Breadwinners."
"I found it all surprisingly accessible," O'Brien says. "Michael really imparted to me that my job was to be there and soak up as much as I can, and people have been so amazingly respectful of that. The first time I asked (Lange) if I could get him some coffee, he said, 'That's really not what you're here for,' and I said: 'Oh, thanks, but really, I'm heading over to the craft-services table right now. You want anything?'"
The hardest part, according to O'Brien and the other interns, is deciphering unwritten rules of conduct. During an era when inside-showbiz gossip is spread far and wide in everything from blogs to the New Yorker magazine to the syndicated TV program "Access Hollywood," and when the inanity of the industry's inner workings is skewered artfully by its top creative talent -- see the 1990s HBO hit "The Larry Sanders Show" and HBO's current offerings "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "The Comeback" -- those who live far outside the 310 area code might think they know how Hollywood works. In truth, though, the industry entails a lot more hard work (and a lot less craziness) than is often depicted in pop culture.
"The most difficult part has been to figure out where I fit in, literally," O'Brien says. "Where should I sit? When should I say something, and when should I keep my mouth shut? I needed to stay close enough to Michael to hear what he was saying, but I couldn't stand it if I felt like I was in his or anyone else's way. It took time to navigate it all."
"It's subtle politics," agrees Lansing, 20, a Palm Springs native who attends the Chapman University School of Film and Television in Orange, Calif. Lansing has lived in the shadow of Hollywood since he was a preteen and began pursuing an acting career, but his interest now lies in what goes on behind the curtain in film and TV. He completed an ATAS internship in TV editing this summer under the wing of veteran postproduction supervisor Wes Irwin at Fox Television Studios.
Lansing was no neophyte -- he coincidentally got to work with Irwin on Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle," on which Lansing appeared a few seasons ago -- but he was most fascinated by "how important communication is on every level" during the production process, especially on the fast-moving train that is episodic TV.
"You can just see how it's so critical that everyone be on the same page -- looking at dailies, getting feedback, dealing with the network -- because if anyone in the process is not hitting their cue effectively, it'll slow down the whole production and make it more difficult for everyone," Lansing says. "It's also been interesting to see that on shows that have these big budgets, where you'd think you'd have a little more time and leeway on production, it's actually just the opposite. Just for something like color-timing, you've got people saying, 'We need at least three days for color-timing,' and other people saying, 'No, no, no, you have to do it in two.' It's all about communication."
Goldberg, 22, a New Hampshire native who graduated this year from the University of Miami, believes that the fact that ATAS interns actually earn some coin makes a difference in how they are perceived at their job assignments. Goldberg, who easily could blend into any crowd scene on HBO's "Entourage," interned in the literary department of the Agency for the Performing Arts. At the end of his eight weeks, he accepted an offer from his mentor, Beth Bohn, to join APA's payroll as her full-time assistant.
"It's the difference between having a specific mentor and being shown around by somebody else's assistant who's trying to help you out in between doing their regular work," Goldberg says. "Most interns at agencies are treated like mailroom slaves; I was working on Beth's desk after a week in the mailroom."
Goldberg found his calling in the agency arena because of an interest in budgets, contracts and negotiations that he developed at his father's furniture store in his home state.
"I was always attracted to business, but I needed something more exciting than furniture," Goldberg says. He found it in working for Bohn, whose boundless energy and enthusiasm are "amazing," Goldberg adds. "It's hard to keep up with her efficiency and her speed."
Indeed, in the view of Price Hicks, the ATAS Foundation's director of educational programs and services, the success of the internship program -- which dates back to the late 1970s in its current incarnation -- stems from recruiting the most outreach-friendly hosts and mentors from ATAS' membership ranks. A rigorous selection process, which includes giving finalists a week to complete a 10-minute "video statement" about themselves, also helps weed out wannabes who are not really willing to put in the long hours and hard work required to make it in showbiz. During recent years, the ATAS Foundation, which oversees the TV academy's philanthropic and educational initiatives, has received about 800-900 submissions that are winnowed to 35 finalists for an array of 29 job categories.
"It's not for the faint-hearted," says Hicks, a former producer who has spearheaded the program since 1985.
Once selected finalists receive nods from the academy, they must find places to live in the Los Angeles area and begin their internships within a few weeks. By the time they arrive at ATAS headquarters in North Hollywood for their preparatory session, they have (or should have) made serious progress on their learning curves, according to Hicks.
"The whole process of getting yourself to Los Angeles, finding a place to live, finding your way around town, dealing with traffic and making sure you get to the right places on time -- that's a huge part of this internship," she says. "All of that helps teach you whether you really want to be in this business or not. It teaches you whether you like L.A. or hate it, and that's important."
The stipend grants opportunities to students who cannot afford not to earn money during the summer months. In the bigger picture, though, the program's greatest benefit is the access it affords, past and present interns say.
"It was one of the best things that happened to me in my life," says Kevin Wehrenberg, a producer on NBC's "Fear Factor" who was an ATAS Foundation intern in 1993, fresh out of college from his native Wisconsin. He had planned to enroll in the American Film Institute's graduate program later that year, but after tasting real work experience, Wehrenberg knew he could not return to a classroom setting.
"I was sold after one week," he says. "The experience I got as an intern made it easy to get one (production assistant) job after another, and I haven't stopped working since."
Wehrenberg and "Fear Factor" have hosted several ATAS Foundation interns during the past few years, including Miller this summer. Wehrenberg liked the spark he saw in Miller's videotaped submission, but he could not have known then that she is that rare breed of person born for the life of a production manager.
"I'm a strange person: I love forms; I love doing the kind of paperwork that most people hate," says Miller, 21, who is enrolled in the film program at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. "One of the great things about my internship was that they let me do call sheets. Production management is like my dream job: It's perfect for me because I get to help work on the creative side of the project by organizing it into little pieces."
Miller was home-schooled in Boise, Idaho, and by choice, her family did not even own a TV set until she was "8 or 9" years old -- and even then, about all her parents would let her watch was "Mister Rogers." Before her internship this summer, Miller had not spent much time outside of the Gem State, and she is quick to note that Los Angeles County has "10 times the (population) of my entire state."
Miller clicked with the "Fear Factor" team instantly and became an asset to the staff -- so much so that the show kept her on a week past the original end date of her internship, Wehrenberg says. Miller admits that she had to spend time "corralling cockroaches" into Tupperware containers and performing other unsavory duties particular to the gross-out nature of the reality series, but in the main, she often reminded herself that she was getting paid to dig through toy stores for weird props and to hit up local pet stores in search of bulk quantities of insects. Miller headed back to school when her stay on "Fear Factor" concluded last month, but she intends to return to her newly adopted home by January.
"This has been life-changing for me," Miller says. "I expected to come down here and get yelled at all the time, (but) people here were all really nice to me. They were basically enhancing my career for free by teaching me all kinds of stuff and letting me use them to make connections. You could really tell that people like the feeling of passing on what they know."