My name is Calvin Blue and I was an intern at National Geographic Television Digital Studio. Jason Kurtis was my supervisor and his title is Operations Producer. An Operations Producer typically deals with all of the client meetings, contracting and legal work, finding cast and crew, managing the Digital Studio itself, and is a supervisor to all of the editors and producers within the department. Scott Ressler and Jennifer Quilo were the two primary editors in the department. They typically edit the video content that goes onto NatGeo websites.
Most of my time at NatGeo was helping with the legal side of things since they had just finished a kids’ show. I completed of the Music Cue Sheets (MCS), which are logs of the usage of each song/score that is used in an episode. MCS are a way to keep track of billing for the amount of the audio used. Occasionally I would get a couple of random breaks from completing the MCS to help out on an interview film in the recording studio. My task for the shoots was to set up lighting and assist the cameraman.
My overall experience at NatGeo has been much more different than I had expected it was going to be. I was hoping to be able to help out with a bit more camera work and/or editing, but I had joined them when they had just finish everything for a big project other than the legal binders. Even though the legal binders weren’t as exciting, I am glad I got a chance to see how NatGeo really works
as a society to help me make the decision of where I really want to go in my career.
