A dream internship for a future filmmaker

Eric Park from South Korea will be a senior at EF Academy New York in September. He spent two weeks of his summer vacation as an intern in Hong Kong where he gained hands-on experience with the Creative Studio’s Video Team – a valuable opportunity for someone who plans on pursuing a career in film:

At EF Academy New York, I read a poster about an EF global internship. I always enjoyed traveling abroad and wanted to experience professional studio work, so I decided to apply for the internship program. Since I am very interested in filmmaking, I had a perfect opportunity to work with EF’s Creative Studio’s Video Team. As a future film student, it was a really valuable and helpful experience that provided both experience and education.

The Creative Studio’s Video Team worked for several clients in order to advertise and introduce EF more effectively by producing original videos. Currently, they are working on educational videos for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. They had informative videos about all different types of winter sports with Korean subtitles and narrations. Since I was the only one who could understand Korean, I checked those videos and made a list of incorrect subtitles and mistranslated words with time codes. I really enjoyed reviewing nearly 20 Olympic videos because I learned a lot about winter sports that I never knew before. Also, the reviewing job was highly suitable for me due to the fact that I was the only Korean speaker in the team. This unique part of the internship made me feel more confident about myself. Honestly, I was really nervous when I first entered the office. I wasn’t sure about my ability and the impression I would make on such a huge company’s professional video team. I’m just a high school junior! I thought I would be useless in the gigantic system. However, when I realized that I can do something unique for the team, I became way more confident.

My next project was to make a reel video which includes the best videos that our team produced since last year. I watched a lot of videos created by EF Hong Kong in order to select and assemble videos for the compilation. I had to choose the funniest and the best videos among nearly 50 videos. I learned a lot about the production of commercials while I watched those videos. My teammates taught me a lot about creative programs like Photoshop, After Effect and Premiere Pro. I learned useful and cool techniques that will eventually help me becoming a better filmmaker. I had to make title cards and an intro for the video. I made an interesting storyboard for the intro, but sadly we didn’t have enough time to actually produce the intro that we originally planned to make. I guess two weeks wasn’t long enough.

Our team also shot a promotional video showing EF Hong Kong. We used a “gimbal stabilizer” to shoot an ‘entering the office’ scene. Fortunately, I had used that type of stabilizer before, so I could help set it. I held the stabilizer and shot demo videos. Later when we shot the actual video, I guided the camera operator. Our team also filmed and recorded a meeting and interviews. Helping with and watching their work was very interesting and informative. I learned about filming tools that I’ve never seen before. In order to finish the compilation reel video, I had to put pre-written subtitles on the Japanese voice over Olympic video. Using the Video Team’s server subtitle format was really impressive, since the shared format made everything more organized and easier to work with. On the last day of my internship, the Video Team presented the reel video that we assembled. It felt good to present the product video on the screen in front of other people.

The EF internship experience in Hong Kong was really helpful and enjoyable at the same time. As I wished, I traveled a lot in Hong Kong and Macau with my friends, and also experienced a professional video studio’s working process. The internship program helped me being more prepared as a future filmmaker and an open-minded coworker. I was surprised when I figured out about EF office’s flat structure. It was really interesting that everyone shares the same working environment without barriers among different working positions. Personally, the experience helped me understand professional video works and allowed me to feel more prepared as a future cinematography student. My two weeks in Hong Kong were valuable and unforgettable.