I started the internship at Born in Brooklyn Media in hopes of getting hands-on experience in both the production and business side of the media industry. As I reflect upon my days at the beautiful Industry City office (and our busy shooting days running around Brooklyn neighborhoods), I can proudly say that I experienced beyond my expectations and explored the inner workings of an independent media production company.
The first project for the summer was to create a social media campaign for a merchandising company. The biggest challenge was to advocate traditional shopping (in-store shopping) on an online platform such as Instagram and Facebook. It was a great opportunity to practice storytelling and marketing on a social media platform where you need to be both concise and positive. It was a struggle to create captions that fit the brand’s friendly “voice,” while at the same time incorporating enough information to educate people and influence action. I helped with some video edits on the Final Cut software and joined in to create the visual components of the campaigns as well. I also explored my interest in graphic design though Canva by creating an inventory booklet and promotional posters and gained familiarity with Hootsuite for scheduling social media posts.
The Building Brooklyn Awards was another big project that gave me an opportunity to dive into a professional shoot setting. Running around Brooklyn not only gave me a chance to work with cameras, but also gave me an opportunity to explore the Brooklyn neighborhood in a way I would never have been able to. At the awards ceremony, I was able to see our work presented to the public and connect with people in and outside of the media industry.
Lastly, I am very satisfied with what I was able to gain in experience over the last two months, but I am even more grateful to have met the amazing people in the BIB Media family; Leslie, Joe, Kenton, and CJ, as well as my fellow Bibterns, John and Ryan. After all, the people who you work with are everything and I could not have been luckier to work with such energetic, smart, and caring people. Thank you so much for having me!
-Haruka Minami
