Published: Friday - June 13, 2008
Words by Donny Goines
Donny Goines (Photo: Don Hankins)
Recently my boy Matt Diamond over at Coalmine Records hired an intern to help with his Internet presence. He asked me to help him get the intern acclimated and when I finished I realized that I haven't touched on this subject yet.
Intern positions serve many purposes in this game, but before I get into that let me touch on something real quick. As an artist, producer or just anyone trying to break into this business in general, this step is usually the first one taken. If this blog were chronological, this probably would have been the first one but being that my thoughts come sporadically, I'm writing about it now. When I worked for Disco D (God bless the dead), one of my jobs was hiring and managing the interns and we had nothing but producers, artists and DJs. It's actually a very smart move when you think about it. Most people though are not cut out for the position of intern.
One of the worst things about being an intern is that the majority of times, YOU WON'T GET PAID!!! Make sure you understand that first part perfectly. You might be somewhere working long hours for a long time and not earn a single penny. It's not unheard of but sometimes it makes a small salary, but most often you are compensated in many other ways. Experience I think is the most valuable thing you can take away from an internship. Some of the other benefits include access (being able to go places where you couldn't before), use of equipment or tools (all my interns were able to use the studio on there off time) and the opportunity to build relationships with others in the business. There are also many downsides to it besides not earning much if any money. Sometimes you might have to do the kind of work that others won't do -- take out the garbage, clean toilets, running errands, etc. And you might be doing that the majority of the time. For instance, let's say you interned in a studio and you wanted to learn how to engineer. Chances are you would spend most of your time doing these menial tasks rather then learning what you want, but that's just apart of the program. Another drawback is that you may feel disrespected at times (many interns end up feeling that way), but again this is just something that comes with the territory. Either you have the kind of attitude for it or you don't, but internships can be very beneficial is utilized properly.
Now that we've discussed the pros and cons of it, I wanted to talk about actually GETTING the internships. Honestly there really is not set way or protocol to this. Yeah you can send resumes and things like that, but I've found that people usually find the best intern positions by just being in the mix. Not saying that you should expect one to fall from the sky of course, but if you are in places where people in the business socialize you'd be surprised what you can find out. A lot of times that's how people find their positions, by just networking (which in my opinion is the best way) and others seek internships in different ways -- Posting on Craigslists, recommendations, forum boards, etc. Like I said before, there is no one set way to find them, but you just really have to get out there and look if you want it. Trust me, it's not that hard to find unpaid work, haha.
Helping my boy the other day bought me back to the days when I was up in D's studio with all the interns. Sending out emails, cleaning up the crib and doing all sorts of miscellaneous things, but you wanna know something? Those were actually some of the best times I've had in the business believe or not. Much love.
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