CCD: Tell us about your experience. What were your responsibilities?
AS: Entertainment to Affect Change (E2AC) is a nonprofit organization focused on finding creating, and sharing stories with a social impact. They do so by developing social impact podcasts, impact producing short films, and now by hosting a virtual film festival, where filmmakers from across the country can share their films and spread various kinds of social awareness. In short, their mission is to bridge the gap between social justice and visual storytelling. The topics include human rights, environmental anxiety, rare diseases, sickle cell, and so much more. The fall semester revolved around actually creating a film festival from scratch. Given my interests and prior experience with E2AC, my primary responsibilities were developing a list of contacts at every film college in the U.S., reaching out to them to spread the word about our festival, determining what the festival would look like and which platforms to use for film submissions and film screenings, and ensuring that the other interns were aware of what was going on and what needed to be done at any given time.
CCD: What inspired you to get this internship?
AS: I chose to intern with E2AC again because I greatly enjoyed my summer working with Nick and the interns virtually. But more importantly, I started to find that I do not want to just do film for the rest of my life. I realized that social justice work and spreading awareness on various social issues is something I am very passionate about and would like to continue doing. That said, E2AC is the kind of place where I can pursue my passion for film while still having a positive impact on my community and the world.
CCD: What was the best thing about the experience? What was the most challenging?
AS: What was most rewarding about the experience was the underlying mission behind every aspect of the internship. No matter how direct or indirect the work was that I was doing, I always knew that it was for a greater cause, one that was guided toward helping others and spreading awareness about social topics that mean a lot to me. That said, there were countless obstacles to achieving our goals and pushing forward the mission. With eleven other interns, the workload is less, but only when everyone is engaged and on the same page. Due to time zone constraints and college schedules that did not line up very well, there were a lot of interns who were not committing as much as some of us committed, not because they were lazy, but because we often were not all aware of what work needed to be done unless we made it to the weekly meetings, which very few people really showed up to those meetings. It is a very noticeable challenge that will hopefully be cleared up.
CCD: What was the most memorable moment of your experience?
AS: My supervisor Nick Hudson was very committed to both E2AC’s mission and to make the internship experience fun and valuable for the interns. He offered to meet with us one-on-one outside of the regular weekly meetings if we had questions about our weekly tasks, E2AC as a whole, or just about getting connected and learning more about the film and nonprofit industries.
CCD: What is the biggest takeaway from your internship position?
AS: Before this internship, I was already starting to lose interest in film production as a potential career path for me. What I learned from interning with E2AC was that the social impact side of my internship meant so much more to me than the film side. Because of this, I am now considering a career either in healthcare or something in the nonprofit sector. These are both ways for me to more directly impact the lives of others, and to commit my life to causes that truly resonate with me.
BU + Beyond 