The Stern Opportunity

Every year the Media, Entertainment, and Sports Association travels to Los Angeles to visit with various entertainment companies. This can be an important step for many EMT students in overcoming their denial of the entertainment industry being based in LA and not New York. I arrived a day late to the pilgrimage because I, like a handful of students, also attended the TANG trek to the Bay Area.

Day two (day one for me) started-off with a visit to Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. We were accompanied by other MBA students, specifically UVA Darden, a theme that would continue throughout the trek. Three Sony MBAs spoke to us and two events stand out in my mind. First, a Stern MBA discussed the difficulty of getting a foot in the door of a major film studio. His journey to become a vice president at Sony was not easy. After Stern, in order to pay the bills while searching for his dream job, he was forced to work as a video game tester for an hourly wage. Some of you may be thinking, “Wait, video game tester? That is my dream job!” If so keep reading; you will really enjoy the next two companies. The second incident that sticks in my mind at Sony was the answer to the question to another Stern MBA, “Do you need an investment banking or consulting background to land an internship?” The answer was, “No, but do you LOVE excel?” The room’s response was predictably confusion, however, in order to prove her point, the speaker went on to profess her love for and discuss Sony’s reliance on the Microsoft product. Therefore, my take away is if you want to work in business development or finance for a studio, you need to take Decision Models.

The rest of the day was a visit to two of the biggest names in gaming: Activision and THQ. Being a non-gamer I was surprised by the impressive numbers Activision showed the group on the growth of the industry. Gaming continues to steadily grow and is making significant advances in new areas such as the female demographic. Given that piracy is currently causing great damage in the recording industry and might possibly have some of the same effect on film, in the near term the safest bet for employment in entertainment may be gaming.

That night a Stern alumni mixer was held. The other MESA trekkers told me this was a very fun and valuable activity. Unfortunately, I had the pleasure of driving out to Pasadena in epic LA traffic to watch my alma mater lose the college football national championship in the first 5 minutes of the game.

The following day consisted of a visit to three of the major studios: Disney, Warner, and Universal. Disney was a highly organized event and many top schools were in attendance. The event was impressive as it included a great “sizzle” video of upcoming projects, a Q&A with a notable roster of MBAs (I think more than half had HBS degrees) and a speech from the new Studio Chairman, Rich Ross.

The Warner visit was a very casual lunch with Stern alum. This was my favorite visit because we were actually able to walk around the lot. I can only describe the lot as incomprehensibly massive. The Universal visit involved another “sizzle” video and Q&A with a few MBAs. It also involved accompaniment by MBA students from Wharton. I asked one such student, “Is there a dedicated entertainment program at Wharton” to which she replied, “No, just a club” to which I replied, “Oh… that’s too bad.” Universal, like all the major studios, reinforced that there is only a handful of MBA summer intern spots and many applicants. However, after discussing this, the good people at Universal taught us of the most important lessons I learned from the trek. If you want to work in film, major studios are definitely not the only option; there is a plethora of smaller companies hiring MBAs including indie studios, distributors, agencies, etc.

I highly recommend this experience to anyone thinking about pursuing a career in entertainment. At first, I was somewhat skeptical, as I perceived the trek to be a purely networking/job search event. It did cover those areas, but more importantly, it gave me insight into living in Los Angeles and working in this unique industry. Hopefully, everyone was able to clarify their career goals… the perfectly sunny, 70-degree weather every day surely helped.

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