Panna Warren ’23

A last minute change of plans landed junior Creative Producing major Panna Warren the opportunity to spend her summer working as a Creative Studios Intern at VICE.

Despite initially having plans to spend her summer in Prague doing an international internship through the Chapman Center for Global Education, the program was cancelled due to travel challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. With limited time to find new plans for the summer, she began looking for opportunities online, where she came across the opening at VICE on Linkedin.

“It was a scramble to see what happened. They were the only people that got back to me, and they were the only people I interviewed for,” said Warren. “A lot rested on it.”

The initial interview for the Creative Studios role focused mainly on creative based tasks such as script coverage. During the second interview, however, after she expressed interest in budgeting and project management as well, the company realized she could provide additional help with business-oriented tasks and she was offered the position.

“Don’t shy away from the things you’re into,” said Warren. “You never know what the next opportunity can hold, or what you’ll be offered to do.”

Warren enjoyed her experience interning for bosses Katie Peck and Kamalii Kaina, who both work as Vice Presidents of development of VICE’s studio department. Throughout the summer she spent her time creating budgets and assumptions for VICE executives, while also having the opportunity to attend production meetings, help the team meet with casting, and develop research.

Warren’s advice to fellow Dodge students looking for internships would be to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way.

“I had internships before that were at smaller companies that definitely helped me build knowledge to help me get to a point where VICE even looked at my resume,” said Warren.

“Take the job even if it is not what you were exactly looking for because you never know, you might love it.”

One of Warren’s biggest takeaways from her time at VICE were the skills she gained from working within the development side of the company.

“In Dodge you learn a lot about script development. While you’re in fiction film production, that’s all you know. You don’t hear about reality and nonfiction, which are also a side of the entertainment industry,” said Warren. 

“I never knew that in development there was a considerable period where so much was done even before everything is pitched to executives. They don’t touch on that a lot in Dodge, which I think could be worked on,” said Warren.

She also reflected on how her experience this summer will help her further down the line in her career.

“VICE is going to help me with a lot of my goals,” said Warren, who aspires to work on more production based projects in the future, and get further involved in different parts of the industry. 

“They’re definitely the type of people that I’m going to stay in contact with,” she said.