The first day of my internship at The Ellen Degeneres Show was so exciting.  I entered my apartment talking a mile a minute about my day.  I was placed in the audience department for my first rotation. There are 14 other interns working at Ellen just like me.  We are all on a three week rotation process moving between the research, web site, production, human interest, and audience departments.  So far the audience department has been a blast and I hope that after I rotate through the other four there will be time for me to go back to the audience department

The first day I dove right into making confirmation calls on my super cool headset. I usually confirm those people who have already been sent information about being a guaranteed or standby ticket holder.  After lunch around 1 o'clock I am summoned outside to help security, direct people where to go, collect surveys, and take gifts for Ellen.  As the audience members start to enter the studio, I collect their tickets.  The exciting part of this particular job is my location at the top of the stairs near the entrance of the studio.  At that time I am able to watch the musical performances warm up before the show starts.  After studio audience members are seated, we bring in the standby ticket holders into the Riff Raff Room.  If you are not familiar with Ellen, they have a big room behind the main audience were it’s our job to keep the people happy with a lot of dancing and some giveaways as they watch the taping live on big flat screen TV’s. 

I am starting to realize Ithaca is taking over Ellen.  There are three full time staff members who are recent graduates of Ithaca and two interns, including me, who are currently enrolled at Ithaca College.   It’s encouraging to know that so many Ithaca College students are working at Ellen and other places around LA right out of college.

Another amazing benefit of working on a television and/or film set is the Kraft Services they offer.  It is basically a whole smorgasbord of lunch meat, cheese and crackers, fruits and veggies, candy, breakfast foods, and drinks…for FREE! Who doesn’t love free food? Especially poor college students or production assistants living in LA.

The second day of Ellen was even more exciting for me.  I got to see the Jonas Brothers warming up AND I got to chat with her body guard!  He was full of wisdom and experience as he offered career advice to two other interns and me.  I told him I was interested in non-profits and he gave me some helpful advice on his experience working for charities and the mission trips he has been a part of. 

This past week I really started to feel comfortable working with the people in my department and the other interns as we all are getting to know each other better. I am also starting to feel more comfortable dancing in the Riff Raff Room.  I am always a little bit shy about my dancing, but then I realize the majority of people I am dancing with are women old enough to be my mother or grandmother. It was an exciting/busy week because of Ellen’s 50^th birthday celebration.  On Thursday, everyone in the office lined up all the way down the main hallway to Ellen’s office and formed a spirit tunnel for her to run through.  I ALMOST had a chance to be on camera at the end of Friday’s birthday show when they passed out Pink berry frozen yogurt to the audience! There weren’t enough aprons so I didn’t get to go out there…some day before I leave I will make a camera appearance!

After the taping was over and Ellen had announced she was giving away TV’s to each member of the audience , it was the job of the audience and production crew to orchestrate the loading of 32’ flat screen into the cars of each studio audience member.  My job was to make sure the box or boxes would fit into each person’s car before they arrived at the loading dock.  One man was very impressed with my strength as I came up to his car to ask him how many TV’s he would need. He said he had been watching me whip the huge box in and out of the cars in front of him…unfortunately I had to tell him there was not actually a TV in the box.

My last fun fact of the week is a result of both my stupidity and luck.  As you may know, southern California is experiencing a lot of rain.  Well, one morning I wore flip flops trying to convince myself it wouldn’t rain and even if it did it wouldn’t be that bad. Boy was I wrong. As the rain pored down and the wind blew I was outside from 12:30 until 5:30 working to get the audience members of two shows in and out of the studio. Already feeling bad enough that I had obviously chosen the wrong shoes to wear, almost everyone I saw made a comment about my “poor toes.”  My boss offered to take me to Ellen’s wardrobe closet where they were so nice as to let me borrow and then keep a pair of her shoes! I think if I ever ask for Ellen’s autograph it will be to sign the shoes : )