Editor’s note: Front Row’s Intern Chronicles series returns. For more information on ESPN Internships, visit ESPN Careers by clicking here.
Fetching coffee, sealing envelopes and making copies as an intern are all horrors some aspiring young professionals cringe about.
Not here.
At the World Wide Leader, internships involve things like working at the X Games and seeing your edited footage on the mega screen at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
ESPN summer interns Jade Hanson and Derik Anderson lived out that dream, and each claims it’s the best working experience either has had.
Hanson, 20, a senior at the University of Michigan and Anderson, 22, a senior at the University of Alabama, spent this summer as Event Production interns at ESPN’s national headquarters in Bristol, Conn.
Part of their duties involved working at the X Games in June.
In Los Angeles, Anderson worked in the “Pretures” department, a group that produces features. He dealt with editing, pulling clips, and creating story lines. Hanson worked with All Access and developed show ideas, shot behind the scenes footage, and interviewed X athletes.
“A typical day in Event Production starts with finding footage or getting whatever your producer needs,” Hanson said.
“There’s a lot of logging tape, sending video elsewhere and also some editing in Q-Cut or Avid.”
After returning from L.A., Hanson and Anderson put together review shows for the X Games. This is where the real work came into play.
Editing for 3 to 4 hours to produce finished products lasting 30 seconds is what these interns consider the most rewarding minutes of their production summer. Seeing their work air on television is more than the production duo could have asked for.
Anderson said the best moment of his internship lasted less than a minute while at the X Games.
“The coolest thing that happened is when we were at the Moto X Best Trick Competition. I looked up at the jumbo-tron in the Staples Center and saw my piece was actually playing while I was sitting there,” he said.
“I was like ‘I edited that!’ Nobody knew what I was talking about, but that was the coolest part of the summer.”
