Internship at Warner Bros.

Sheila Faris-Penn provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it's like in the entertainment industry

June 25, 2007

Sheila Faris-Penn, director of web communications for University Advancement, is spending seven weeks as an application developer intern at Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Marketing’s New Media Division, thanks to a Staff Development Award she received this spring. Debi Esquivel of the University Learning Center and Jeff Bechtold of Physical Plant are the other two recipients of Staff Development Awards this year. Their stories will be coming soon.

Faris-Penn had been taking .NET (pronounced "dot net") classes through University Extended Education and approached an instructor -- who works for Warner Bros. -- about the possibility of an internship. She hopes to use what she learns at the entertainment company to assist in enhancing her web programming skills and improving online marketing for University Advancement.

Inside Online has asked Faris-Penn to provide a weekly blog about the experience. This is her first submission.

Week 1

What Am I Doing Here?

As an intern at Warner Bros. I’ll be learning how to use Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and SQL Server to put a web interface on a custom database (creating web pages that talk to a database). I’ve had classes that talk about how to do this, theoretically, but no practical experience. I can already think of ways that I can make things so much better in my office at CSUF when I can do this, so I’m looking forward to getting back. Well, mostly.

I’m starting from the design phase and will be working through until deployment. The database we’re creating will track digital marketing materials (websites, streaming video, web banners, etc.) that promote various TV Shows and events. They want to be able to showcase internally what the division does, as well as show what can be done in the future. Someday they’ll add the print materials, too.

After trying unsuccessfully to come up with a title for the project, which is of course the most important part of any project, the head of the project team named it the “Digital Anthology of Marketing Materials.” This tickles me on so many levels. It’s not often that you get to work on something with “Anthology” in the title; it’s good to know that vocabulary counts. But what I really like is that I get to put “DAMM Project” on each web page.

Security is a Big Deal

On my first day I got there at 7:30 a.m. and signed in with security. My building isn’t on the Warner Bros. lot – it’s right across the street. But the security is seriously high. I presented my driver’s license, signed the log, and the really nice security guard issued me a day pass. Turns out this will be a daily occurrence – I have to show my driver’s license every day to get my daily pass. It doesn’t matter that the guard and I have shown each other pictures of our kids; he can’t print my pass until I show ID and sign in for the day.

Permanent employees have their ID scanned every time they enter the building, and permanent WB ID is required to operate the elevators. I take the stairs.

My new boss got there just after 7:30 – he’s really not a morning person so I’m grateful that he agreed to let me start that early (it’s the best schedule for the train ride). We go to my cubicle, conveniently located just outside his office, drop off my stuff and then go for some caffeine.

(Just an aside – this is the best-stocked coffee room I’ve ever seen. There are several kinds of Starbucks coffee grounds, easily 10 kinds of tea, two kinds of hot chocolate envelopes – with and without sugar – refrigerated creamer, flavored creamers, every kind of sweetener – including honey – and every plastic utensil you can think of. A girl could get seriously spoiled! But I digress.)

Before I could get a login for the computer network, I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (which is why you won’t be reading any of the good stuff about future programs from me here). Once that cleared I was allowed to log into the system so that I could start work. Whew!

When Bureaucracies Collide

I almost didn’t get to accept the Staff Development Award.

The idea was for me to work at Warner Bros. as a non-paid intern. After I was finally given the word that I received the award, I called my instructor at Warner Bros. so that he could finalize everything with WB Human Resources. But their HR wasn’t aware that I already had my bachelor’s, and they don’t grant no-credit Internships. They also wouldn’t grant an internship for someone working on her master’s or even second bachelor’s. They wanted to set me up as an independent contractor, and pay me. It was their only option.

And there was the problem.

At first I really flattered. It’s one thing to want me when I’m going to work for free. It’s something entirely different when they want to give you money, too. (Even when it turns out to be not very much money.)

Anyway, this almost killed the opportunity altogether. I can’t work for CSUF, get my salary AND an award to hire someone else to do my job, and then get paid by someone else on top of this – there are laws against this kind of double dipping.

Thanks to some heroic, last-minute, fancy footwork by some folks in Dr. [Willie] Hagan’s office and in Payroll, a plan was worked out. My regular pay would be docked by the amount Warner Bros. wanted to pay me, so I would receive no financial gain (and no additional tax burden). Whew! Burbank here I come!

Commuting to ‘Beautiful Downtown Burbank’

My commute could be brutal. The map says it’s only 35 miles from my house to Warner Bros., but it’s up the 5 Freeway, through Los Angeles, during the worst traffic. If I had to drive this, I think I’d be miserable.

As it is, I’m able to take the train. I leave the house at 5:40 a.m. so that I can get to the Fullerton train station in time for the 6:02 train. I take that train two stops to LA Union Station, get onto another train to Burbank, then take a bus the final few miles. Thankfully the bus drops me off just across the street from my building, so I don’t have to walk much at all.

So the commute isn’t … quite … brutal. If it weren’t for the fact that I have to get up at 4:30 a.m. to do this, and the fact that the commute adds 3 hours (round trip) to my day, I would really like it.

I like riding the train. It starts with us drones walking from the parking lot, everyone going the same place to get in line to get on the train. But once in line you start to see people who have traveled together every day for a while say ‘Good Morning’ to each other and start talking. After a while, you start to recognize faces, both of the travelers and of the train engineers and bus drivers. Maybe after a while I’ll become one of the people they say ‘Good Morning’ to – probably just before I come back to CSUF.

Week 2 Previews

The DAMM Project is Coming Along
On the Warner Bros. Lot
Different From Other Work Environments
Where Couches Retire