Working with Entertainment Lab: My experience and heightened passion for the Entertainment Industry.

Deciding on a career path in college is scary for most, with the unlimited amounts of opportunities that are available within all fields of study and work. It’s hard to know where to begin, and how to decide what you’re interested in pursuing post-graduation. Something that I am grateful to have learned, is that internships are the best way to get the real-life experience of what working in different fields is truly like. My name is Kylie Shelon and I am a rising Junior Communication Studies major with a minor in visual journalism. With this major/minor combination, I know that there is an infinite number of opportunities and careers available to me, but I want to make sure that I find a niche that suits my interests best. After completing an internship during the spring semester of 2021, I learned that the entertainment industry may be a good place for me to begin looking for realistic job opportunities.

When I decided I was interested in a new internship, I felt lost and didn’t know where I could find opportunities that fitted my desired career interests. I knew I was interested in talent management and felt it would be a good opportunity to try something new, because whether I enjoyed the concepts and knowledge I would acquire, or not, I would have learned one more aspect of my own personal interests within this field. I turned to the Career and Professional Development Center which helped me learn the different resources I could use in terms of finding internships across the board. I found numerous internships that fitted my wants and needs, so I began applying to various talent management companies that I knew were reliable and would give me a great experience.

In April of 2021, I was accepted to work as an intern for Entertainment Lab, a talent and literary management company located in both New York and Los Angeles. Upon beginning my internship, I was excited and nervous at the same time, because I knew this field was something I had never participated in. On a day-to-day basis, I got to learn about the entertainment industry from an insider’s point of view. I helped develop emails to our talent and helped them identify different acting opportunities they could audition for. A big part of my role in this internship was communication with our clients and other individuals within the industry. This part was nerve wracking at first. I had to learn how to format and articulate emails and messages to casting directors, producers, and even big-name companies such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, in a professional manner so that the management company and the actors were viewed as reliable and knowledgeable.

I believe the coolest part of my internship was learning about myself. Despite the internship being remote, I was able to learn about not only the entertainment industry but also my own personal work ethic. I learned that I really enjoy research. One of my obligations as an intern was to research actors who did not have managers, so that the managers at Entertainment Lab could potentially reach out and acquire new clients. I got to use platforms such as IMDb Pro, to help search for different shows that some of our clients had been on and find their castmates who were not managed. This was a great way to familiarize myself with our current clients, but also how future clients could come into the picture.

Some of my favorite aspects of interning at a talent management company is that the company has a division for literary management. Another one of my roles in this internship was to do a “literary pitch”, or submit our writers work to big name production companies to help their film, show, or books get published or develop into a film for others to see on the big screen. I learned how to pitch these literary pieces by working with my sponsor who taught me how to address the individuals we were pitching to, by using persuasion tactic and professionalism to help ensure that these companies felt confident in our clients, just as we do. Literary pitching taught me a tremendous amount about how the entertainment industry works, and how to communicate professionally, as well as how communicating with different individuals within the industry must differ, whether it’s based on their status or their job.

Given the fact that my internship was primarily communication based, once I got a hang of things, I felt a big impact on my own personal ability to communicate with others. I feel as though I am much more educated about professionalism within communication I have been able to apply it to smaller aspects of my life. One communication class I took that I feel directly correlates to my internship is a course I took on group communication. In this class I learned how to apply small group communication concepts to a wide variety of group contexts. Because of this class, I feel confident communicating with different individuals who worked at the company, as well as our clients and other industry members. Without this course, I would have been unaware of how communication shifts when professionalism is a big key player in a job. I also know that teamwork and leadership within communication is a big part of my company’s dynamic, which has helped me reduce some stressors.

Working with Entertainment Lab has allowed me to dive deep into the entertainment industry. Without this internship, I would never have learned that I have a strong passion for management, and helping others locate job opportunities, as well as my interests within the realm of literary management. I would highly recommend anyone who is interested in talent management or literary management to participate in this internship, because it gave me insights into the industry that I otherwise would not have learned.