A Day in LA

On Friday my supervisor told me about this awesome community festival, the Abbot Kinney Festival, down in Venice Beach area and today (Sunday) I met up with her to check it out! It is a really neat and very popular festival featuring three stages with live music, over 300 artisan booths and some amazing food booths. The proceeds from the event benefit youth projects in Venice and community beautification. We walked around sampling great food and checking out what the booths had to offer. There was a "green" or "eco-friendly" focus to the event this year so tons of people biked over and many of the booths offered green wares.

The Venice Beach community is so cool; the shops and restaurants are ultra hip and many houses around the area are community-style apartments. It has an extremely different feel from Los Angeles, much more of the stereotypical California.

Last night Ithaca students and alums made a huge showing at the ICLA AIDS Walk Benefit Concert where bands and performers who graduated from Ithaca College volunteered their time to play a set. The venue was totally filled to watch Jackie Sue Cook, The Tape Deck Disaster, A Field of Flowers, Elemenopy and Oh Yeah the Future. I'm not sure how much we ended up raising, between the entry, the raffle and the drinks, but it seemed to be a total hit. Big thanks to everyone who put the event together to raise money for the ICLA AIDS Walk team, especially Jon!

Emerson College in Boston is one of the universities that has a program in Los Angeles and also houses its students at the Oakwood Apartments. The Emerson kiddos are very nice and take classes in a facility in Burbank, CA. One of my new friends from Emerson is an intern on the "Best Damn Sports Show" on Fox and gets to take advantage of the perk of free screenings of movies offered on the Fox lot. I was invited to go along to a screening of the movie, "Choke," directed by Clark Gregg and based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club). The movie received some mixed reviews, but overall I thought it was a riot. It had quite the bizarre ending in true Palahniuk form but it was a great film! Walking around the Fox lot on the way to the theater was really cool; we walked right through fake streets and sets!

The ICLA program coordinator, Jon, is always letting us know about cool opportunities in LA. He forwarded us a link to participate in a free screening of the movie "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" that included a free gift from Sephora on Tuesday. My friends and I signed up, got the RSVP and headed down to the mall on Hollywood and Highland (where the Kodak theater is and Grouman's Chinese Theater) where the event would take place.

What could be better than a free movie and free gift? Well, after grabbing the gift and our ticket to get into the movie we noticed a pink carpet leading up from the street to the center of the complex. We asked around and it turned out that the Pussycat Dolls were having a CD release event for their new album along with a short concert! Since the screening wasn't for another couple of hours, we stood by the carpet, were merely inches away from Nicole and the rest of the group as they walked up, and watched them perform their biggest hits. They played such famous ballads as "Loosen up my Buttons" and "Dontcha." Right after their set we ran upstairs and just made it in time for the screening of the movie which was unexpectedly extremely cute.

I am not a particularly huge fan of the Pussycat Dolls, but it was still really cool to just be somewhere and have a top 40 group appearing live. It was a very LA situation- there are always a million things going on here and you just never know what you are going to happen upon.

Wednesday and today were just regular days at my internship; I was very busy with research and preparing presentation materials. Another intern started this week so now the intern stations on both sides of me are filled and my life is complete!

Today the ICLA program organized for students to go to Dodger Stadium to watch the Dodgers versus the Giants. This was the second baseball game I had ever attended and definitely the first major league game. My only baseball experience before this was a AAA Missions baseball game on dollar night in San Antonio, Texas. There was a great turn out of Ithaca students, current students and alums alike. The tickets were available to us at a reduced rate and were in a pretty great location in the shade. Our group hit the concessions stand with a vengeance - nachos, crackerjacks, Dodger dogs, the works. One of the best things about sporting events is without a doubt the concessions.

It was a very long game of 10 innings and in the end the Dodgers lost. Even though the outcome was not what we wanted, overall it was a neat experience. It was fun to see so many people sporting Dodgers paraphernalia and to be in a legendary stadium. Plus we got to see Manny Ramirez up at bat and Joe Torre lurking around the dugout.

Believe it or not, you can't go to the beach at all times in California because it eventually gets a bit too chilly. This weekend was the official end of summer on the calendar, so we figured that we needed to get in as much beach time as possible between now and the true change of the weather. We went to Malibu and drove along the Pacific Coast Highway until we found a beach that looked just right. It was so peaceful that I actually fell asleep on the beach. 

There is an amazing little casual place right off of the Pacific Coast Highway called Malibu Seafood where you can get deliciously fresh fish and shellfish. That was a stop on our way back from Malibu. The seafood is so fresh right there on the coast that you have to take advantage of it and eat as much as possible!

Cupcakes are kind of a big deal in Los Angeles and not just any kind of cupcakes, mind you, but fancy shmansy bakery cupcakes. Somehow it fits perfectly with the overall feel here. It was the birthday of one of the account team members yesterday and my supervisor, Gina, ran out to get some terrific cupcakes from Hotcakes Bakes, a hip little bakery close by the agency. I would never have thought to go to a bakery for cupcakes, let alone that a bakery's specialty would be cupcakes.

The true epitome of the LA cupcake craze, however, is "Sprinkles," a boutique bakery that exclusively sells these designer delights. There are several locations "sprinkled" throughout the United States in big cities where posh guys and gals pay $3.25 for a single cupcake. My roommate, Abby, went the other day and brought some back to the apartment. They were incredible! My fellow Ithaca intern at Chiat\Day, Hannah, and I vowed that we would go to this magical place ourselves one day; that day was today. As we rounded the corner to the Beverly Hills location, to our surprise there was a line stretching out the door down to the next shop! We knew that Sprinkles was quite famous throughout the city, but we had no idea that the fanaticism reached this level. We were still giddy with excitement regardless and committed ourselves to the wait. At the end of the wait I purchased four different flavored cakes: pumpkin, red velvet, lemon coconut and chai tea.  Sprinkles offers 20 different delicious flavors, from banana to strawberry to peanut butter chip, depending in the day. It was well worth the wait. To top it off, as we were leaving the parking garage on Bedford to drive home, we saw a swarm of paparazzi at a local cafe with a large glass front. Hannah and I slowed down to ask some people who was inside and someone said, "It's Lindsay Lohan. Poor girl."

This week at my internship I have been busily studying cool media ideas and keeping up with the unending yet interesting job of keeping an eye on the competition in the industry. We had another very informative intern breakfast this Wednesday featuring an agency professional who taught us all about using the computer systems and databases. Today I got to take a break from research and help organize the account meeting space. We can finally walk around in our own conference room!

Sunday was a lazy day. We got a late start and were starving, but had already missed the free brunch that Oakwood Apartments offers every Sunday at 11 a.m. We set off to find a diner for a huge breakfast, and find one we did. Sitton's North Hollywood Diner on Magnolia is your typical 24-hour diner where you can get just about anything you might want. The walls of the place are absolutely covered with old movie star photos. It really makes it feel like old Hollywood between the memorabilia and the old-timey look of the barstool front with booths around the walls. We ate very well and I could have sustained myself for the whole day off of that meal. I have realized that in California, no matter where you are you can request avacado to be put on your food.

Sunday afternoon we were all set to go on what promised to be an amazing double decker bus ride that Jon, the program coordinator, had planned for us. However, somehow the brakes on the bus went out and the bus could obivously not take us on our sight-seeing excursion. Jon came prepared with chips, dip, hot dogs, veggie burgers, sodas and cookies and we all headed over to the Oakwoods to have a cookout! Even though I was stuffed from lunch I couldn't turn down the free food. It was delicious!

This week at Chiat\Day was surreal. On Monday it was announced the TBWA\Chiat\Day had won the global VISA account. The winning of this account represents so much for the agency and the network; everyone put so much time into the pitch. Everyone was called together during the day to congratulate the team and to applaud the agency. It is amazing to be with the agency on the eve of such an exciting time.

Of course work goes on, and as soon as the short speeches concluded everyone was right back to working like crazy once again. Winning new business is amazing, but there is never too much time to celebrate it because the team instantly has to switch gears to keep it!

Many times, teams will be working on different projects and need some people to stand in for certain video projects. On Monday they needed some ladies to help out, so as interns we were suckered into it. We ended up having a blast! It's great to be a part of the process of pitches, projects and ideas.

I usually don't go in on Tuesdays after class, but I had an assignment that I knew would take more time than I had on Wednesday to devote to it.  It totally confused me though and the whole afternoon I had to remind myself that it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.

Great start to the week- good food, a multi-million dollar account, acting ridiculous in front of a camera and finishing up some work! What could be better?

Today a fellow Ithacan, Craig, invited us to go to a taping of "Family Feud." When I told people where I was going, most thought the show had been cancelled many years ago. Well, actually Family Feud has been around for 30 years and is still going strong. It celebrated its 30th anniversary by creating a new stage/setup and bringing in a new host, John O'Hurley. O'Hurley was recently in "Dancing with the Stars," played Elaine's boss J. Peterman in "Seinfeld," has written several books and also starred in numerous commercials.

The experience was fun...long but fun. The show tapes in the same studio that Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown use on the week days. The sets are there for those shows and they are surprisingly small! Basically all three shows have pretty small sets due to the nature of the content. "Family Feud" taped the Halloween specials today, which means we got to see the families dressed up and the stage decked out in ghoulish glory; they really went all out with the Halloween decorations. Everyone working on the show was very strict about audience participation and very concerned about the quality of audience shots. An AP came around with a cup for people to spit out gum and during the show audience members would be moved based on what seemed to be attractiveness or appropriateness of dress.

I sat next to the producer of the show and she was monitoring the answers, calling for options to show up on the screen and dealing with any other issues that came up. Occasionally the families would mess up, the buzzers would go off when not anticipated or no one would get the answers right. In that case, the question was thrown out and the "scene" was redone. I had never been on the set of a game show and it all seemed so fake while on site that it was hard to imagine that the contestants were actually competing for $20,000! On TV it all seems so slick and professional. Oh, TV magic!

We stayed for two shows and Craig got O'Hurley's autograph on our way out. We also saw O'Hurley's little boy and his wife. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but the little boy was dressed up for the Halloween specials. Adorable.

This is my third on-set experience for a show, and it is a lot more work than I anticipated. You have to clap your hands off and laugh when it isn't funny!

All of the interns are finally here and the internship program has officially commenced. This week Erika and Christine in HR kicked off a series of "Internship Breakfasts" that will be held every Wednesday morning. All interns (there are about 10 of us) got together, ate a delicious breakfast, were welcomed by the HR staff and watched a very inspirational movie about the amazing agency that is Chiat\Day. Afterward, we took a quick tour of the building once more to go over any aspects that had been brushed over. Each Intern Breakfast will feature a different Chiat professional and therefore a different part of the industry. TBWA\Chiat\Day really takes care of its interns. There are a very important part of the agency and it shows in the manner in which interns are embraced.

Interns eat lunch together, have meetings once a week and are encouraged to become a cohesive unit. One of the interns has already begun to make a contact sheet to facilitate intern to intern outreach. It is nice to see interns running around the agency, even though the agency is always buzzing, it just makes it even more fun.

Everyone who works on an account becomes very close - we celebrated the birthday of one of the members of the team today. All of us went out to sushi at this restaurant where you take off your shoes and sit on the floor with your legs in this big cavity underneath the table. It was great for me because I have extremely long legs and sitting cross-legged for any period of time is less than comfortable.

This week was a bit slower for me but still there was plenty to do and I had a ton of fun. I used extra time to look at industry magazines, check out nontraditional media and read about advertising Cannes winners. TBWA agencies won an incredible number of awards this year and in past years; to read all this while sitting in the very agency that won the awards is a neat feeling.

Today was the beginning of the week at my internship and since my supervisor was out on Friday, the beginning of the day was very slow while she caught up on things. It has been extremely busy every other day, so I welcomed the relaxed morning. By midday it was crazy again and I was working on a couple of research projects. 

Media Industries is a required course that all ICLA students have to take. The course meets four times during the semester for two and a half hours at the Oakwood clubhouse and is an opportunity for the whole program to be together to gain some basic knowledge about the industry. It's a chance to get everyone up to the same level of media awareness. For example, tonight was the first meeting of the course and we did an exercise regarding media conglomorates. We were all divided into teams and filled out a form with our best guesses as to what magazines, newspapers, news programs and TV channels belonged to what conglomorate. It turns out that many of us had no clue which entities belonged to what member of the media oligopoly. It was a good activity to make everyone realize that they might need to be a bit more savvy on industry news, mergers, trends, etc. In my case, I really need to figure out the advertising and PR agencies of record for the major brands. 

The second half of all Media Industries classes will consist of a panel of Ithaca alum that work in the industry in Los Angeles. Tonight five Ithaca alums, Joe Fazzio '06, Taralyn Frasqueri-Molina '99, Dana Horgan '03, Kristin Martini '07 and Erin 0'Brien '97, came to share with the the group. It was a really eclectic mix of professionals; Joe and Krisitn are associated with ER and John Wells Productions, Dana is a story editor for Red Wagon Productions, Erin is a live producer of ABC's Dancing with the Stars and Taralyn is a project supervisor for Walt Disney Animation.  They all explained a typical "day in the life" and answered questions posed by Steve Ginsberg and students. Even though the specializations of these alum did not necessarily pertain to my marketing interests, I still learned a great deal and it appeared to be very helpful to many students. The biggest take-away from the entire evening was that we all have an idea of what we want to do, but oftentimes we get into an internship and realize that it is not what we enjoy at all! But not to worry, experiences and education lead us in all sorts of directions towards jobs that we might not have originally picked out for ourselves, but in the end we absolutely love.

I am looking forward to the next Media Industries class and alumni panel September 22.

My internship this week was terrific. All of the interns got started this week, so suddenly the row of computers was filled and I had some new people to meet! The other intern on Pedigree, Maggie, is from Boston University and is taking care of the creative side of Pedigree functions while I am working on the account side.  Another Ithaca College student, Hannah, is also interning at Chiat\Day for the VISA account, so now we are carpooling and it is great! Overall it was a very busy week and we were all feverishly running around.

The Video Music Awards are in Los Angeles this weekend and I did not realize that there were so many concerts and events leading up to it. A really cool part about being in Los Angeles is that there are always events or award shows, and what is even cooler is that random people are needed to fill in seats at said events! There are organizations such as seat fillers.com that allow individuals to enter themselves into a database to be called for events. My roommates signed up to the database and were contacted to fill the dance floor at a private VMA event for Jermaine Dupri, rapper and husband of Janet Jackson, at Avalon, a very posh L.A. club. They were allowed to bring guests to be fellow seat fillers and I jumped at the opportunity!

The whole seat filler process is really weird but awesome. Friday night every seat filler had to dress up to the nines, park in a designated lot, sign-in, line up based on an assigned number, get a wristband and then pile into shuttles to go to the "secret" destination. Once we arrived there we were instructed to stay on the dance floor until the concert portion began much later in the evening, and above all else, to act like we absolutely loved the performances. It ended up being a super sweet opportunity to get into a VIP party, but it was so strange that the event hired an agency "seat fillers.com" to get people to act excited and make the party seem like a success. I did not know this before, but the seat filler phenomenon appears to be a very normal occurrence. Go figure.

Ithaca College Los Angeles Program does a terrific job of offering discounted rates on tickets to movies, sporting events and more. Yesterday, Saturday, they offered to students $35 Universal Studios tickets that are regularly $67. So, everyone interested headed over to the Universal Studios amusement park to ride the rides, take the studio tour and take the signature ICLA picture behind the fake Hollywood Hills backdrop. It was a very fun day with great weather and very few long lines for the rides. The rides there are mostly interactive movie experiences with moving chairs, 3-D and carefully orchestrated water squirts, but there are a couple that are actually rides in true amusement park form. We went into the House of Horrors, the Jurassic Park river ride, Shrek 4-D and much more. My favorite ride was probably the brand new Simpsons ride.

My roommate Abby interns at a boutique Fashion PR agency, Spin Shoppe. The agency connects designers with celebrities and often different stars come into the agency to try on clothes. It is a small operation with a few people working at the shop, but these ladies are extremely connected and run a very busy agency with the latest designers and celebrities as clientele. Spin Shoppe often has some association or an invite with many events going on in Hollywood, and this weekend Abby was put on the list plus guests for a very selective VMA event. Attendees had to arrive at a location on Sunset, then get a wristband and be shuttled to the home in the Hollywood Hills. The line was incredibly long and apparently the house was packed already by 10:30 p.m.  We gave up trying to get through the line at around 12 a.m., it just wasn't worth it. Still, if we had got in it would have been amazing- certainly a star-studded event. The whole experience was slightly surreal; there were people in the line that apparently did this every weekend.

Our professor, Catherine Boxberger, hooked us up with VIP tickets to the Tonight Show! It was so much fun!

She arranged for us to park in the special visitor/employee lot, which allowed us to walk past the "Days of Our Lives" set and see Jay Leno's parking spot with one of his antique cars. The VIP seats reserved for us were in the FRONT ROW and we even had a chance to take a picture with Jay when he came out to address the audience before the start of the show. Between the warm-up guy throwing all sorts of Tonight Show gear into the audience, audience members demonstrating their strange talents and the swingin' band, it was quite a fun afternoon. The show tapes at around 3:30 p.m. and then broadcasts at 11:35 p.m.

Professor Boxberger can reserve four seats at a time, so our group of four consisted of me, my roommates, Rachelle and Abby, and our friend Chase.  Since we were in the front row, we all got to shake Jay's hand when he came on stage at the beginning of the show. We all got together this evening to eat popcorn and watch the show to see if we made it on TV, but our 15 minutes consisted of the back of our heads while shaking Jay's hand. What was funny though was that even though we had heard all the jokes earlier in the day, they were still hilarious in the re-hearing. The guests were Russell Brand, gearing up to host the VMA's this weekend, Eva Longoria and Ingrid Michaelson. Great show!

Labor Day Weekend is such a great break right at the onset of school that just makes life so much better. The weekend seems to last forever... sort of. My long weekend was spent going out, bumping into more wonderful Ithaca College alums (LA is full of them), relaxing with my roommates and having fellow ICLA buddies over to the apartment. Throw in some great food and awesome weather into the mix and it was a very memorable weekend.

Going out in Los Angeles is very expensive. Unlike New York City, one must drive everywhere, find a place to park (which is near to impossible and the search usually ends with a $15 valet) and pay a cover. Clubs and bars close around 1:30 or 2 a.m. which is also quite early for such a big city. There are ways around the cover costs and expensive drink prices, it's just a matter of knowing where to go. There are a surprising amount of promotional free drink/entrance opportunities early in the evening; once again it is a matter of searching and talking to other people.

Cheap food is also a matter of investigating. "El Guapo" restaurant, so I hear, has $1 taco night.  Overall food isn't particularly expensive and the ICLA program team gives an introduction packet to all students that has some amazing suggestions. One of their suggestions, Toi, is an incredible Thai restaurant with a super quirky interior filled with band posters, massive mask sculptures and trippy murals. Not to mention it serves the best yellow curry EVER! When I was there they were playing This is Spinal Tap on an antiquated TV monitor in the corner.

My roommates and I have made a pact to go to a beach every weekend. So far we have seen Santa Monica, Dockweiler, Zuma in Malibu and Manhattan. I have come to the conclusion that all beaches in California are gorgeous. This weekend we attempted to go to Hermosa Beach, but there was some sort of event going on for Labor Day that made parking completely unavailable. It turns out that the Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan beaches are all right next to each other, meaning that they pretty much run seamlessly together. It almost seems silly to have different names for them because they are all the same thing, but perhaps for community-naming purposes they have different names. At any rate, when no opportunities to park met us at Hermosa, we just kept driving along the shoreline until we ended up in Manhattan Beach where we found probably the last parking spot on any of those beaches that day. It was only a two-hour parking spot at that, so we just dipped our toes in the water, soaked up some sun, then left to eat at Chipotle. Sun-tanning and burritos, how healthy.

Highlight of the Weekend: Hollywood Forever Cemetery Screening
Definitely a highlight of the weekend was going to see a screening of a spooky movie in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It is such a surreal experience; you drive over to the cemetery and search for parking in streets filled with cars (typical LA), go through the cemetery gates, pay your $10, walk past modern and old-timey hearses, and then follow the road lined with tombs of old actors and actresses until you reach a lawn filled with about 200 people sitting on blankets listening to a DJ waiting for the movie to start. People really get into these screenings that are only during the summer on Saturday and Sunday nights and stand in line early to get in to stake out a spot. Many bring dinner and wine for big groups of friends. The ICLA program recommended the event to us and I highly recommend it to anyone else. The movie screened was Don't Look Now (1974), starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie and it was fantastic. The side of what looked like a huge mausoleum served as the movie screen and the sound boomed out across the field from an intense speaker setup.