MSE Detailed Journal

7/30/2019 MSE Detailed Journal

1/9

Week 1: Jan. 25-30

Like the first day of school, the first day of a new job is always intimidating. Youdont know what your colleagues will be like; you dont know the building too well and

you certainly havent memorized everyones names. Im normally not nervous about first

starts, but for some reason the first day walking through the office doors at Monumentalwere extremely nerve wracking.As soon as I arrived, I was thrown into a production staff and marketing staff

meeting. That was probably one of the most confusing experiences of my professional

life. I had no idea what they were talking about. Production terms that I didnt know flewaround the room and I spent most of the meeting trying to put names to faces and job

positions. The main information that I took away from that meeting was that this day

marked the launch of Monumental Network.

Attending a meeting within my first fifteen minutes of work was not what Iexpected and not the best confidence boost on the first day of work. Even though it

caused anxiety, this meeting gave me a glimpse into how employees communicate with

each other and establish tasks for the upcoming week. They used certain communicationstrategies that I recognized from past communication classes at the University of

Marylandthis proved to me that some things you learn in class actually do come in

handy in the real working world.

Later on in the day, everything eased up. I was instructed to sit with a video editornamed Brian to observe his work on a Black History Month video on Rosa Parks. The

video was set to play on the JumboTron on the anniversary of Rosa Parkss birthday, Feb.

4. I actually got to help Brian find a song to go in the background of the video. This is noeasy task and it took over 2 hours to find something that fit the context. Finding a song

requires the use of a website called Killer Tracks, which the company subscribes to, and

checking off a bunch of categories you want your track to fit. We checked off the

categories for pride, power, wisdom and instrumental. Eventually we found a fitting trackto use, but I give a lot more credit to those who must find songs on a daily basis than I

once did. This task definitely had professional and personal value because now I know

how to use another online resource regarding music. This has the potential to benefit meprofessionally if I am in need of a song for a video I am working on.

On my second day of work, I collaborated with two other interns in the

production department: Ariel and Lynnci. Both women work more on the filming andbroadcasting sides of the department and we worked on filming standup shots together.

These standups give a quick preview of the nights game and are posted on the team and

company websites. Because I do not want to go into broadcast, I decided to film the shots

while the other two interns memorized lines and spoke to the camera. As a camera shyperson, theres no way either of them could push me in front of the camera. I am a

behind-the-scenes kind of worker.

Week 2: Feb. 1-6

My second week of work was definitely better than the first. On Feb. 1, I sat in

the production office and logged Caps and Wizards games in Final Cut Pro. Loggingfootage requires finding important moments in the games, marking the time they are at,


2/9

describing the play/moment, describing the angle and type of shot and recording the

names of players or coaches included in the shot. This process is quite tedious, but

someone needs to do it. Doing this task has taught me how to work in Final Cut Pro and Iknow this skill has a lot of professional value. Adding it to my resume will help me stand

out for future job applications.

Following that workday, I shadowed Ariel and Lynnci on their standup filmingadventures once again. As I filmed them, the three of us received advice and constructivecriticism from Casey Phillips, the on-air talent for Monumental. She talked about the best

positioning on the screen for your specific facial and body type as well as which words to

emphasize most in a script. I dont plan on doing broadcast work in the future, but thiswas helpful advice for giving speeches in a class or in front of an audience in the

professional world.

Similar to the first day of work, I attended another production staff and marketing

staff meeting. This meeting detailed the upcoming events at the Verizon Center for thefollowing two weeks and which events needed coverage for Monumental Network versus

the individual team websites. Unlike the first meeting, I felt more comfortable at this one

and knew who most of the employees were.This first week of February also marked my first Wizards game. They played the

New York Knicks and I was shocked to notice that 75 percent of the people in the stands

were Knicks fans. They overwhelmed the stadium and were extremely disappointed when

the hometown Wizards upset the fan favorite visitors at the end of the game. During thegame, I took fisheye photos of players running down the court and shooting practice

shots, filmed sponsorship advertisements on the JumboTron, sideboards and LED screens

and then downloaded all of this footage to the computer to be edited.Working the game was quite exciting and there was always something happening.

I really enjoyed this fast paced environment, but I did realize that the downside to a

career like this is the amount of hours. Just as an intern, I was working from 2 pm to 10

pm. Many full-time employees had arrived at the office at 9 am and left after I did. Thisis the kind of job that will definitely help you work on your time management skills as it

takes up so much of your life.

Week 3: Feb. 8-13

On Feb. 8, I filmed standups with Ariel and Lynnci before the Wizards games.Once again, I worked on filming and telling the girls which facts they needed to rattle off

during the shoot. Im still afraid of getting in front of the camera and I have a pretty

strong feeling that thats never going to change. I will forever be a behind-the-scenes girl.

After shooting standups, I helped send out game footage to media organizations.Every Capitals and Wizards game, people request footage of certain events that happen

during the games. This involved burning the video to the DVD, labeling the DVD in a

certain format, addressing envelopes and bringing everything up to the mailroom.

Two days later, I was extremely lucky to sit in on an interview with Wizards starplayer John Wall. I helped set up all the lights and the camera in the locker room and

arranged what the shot would look like. We ended up waiting almost an hour for Wall to

leave the practice court, but it was well worth the wait, at least for me. This was the firstopportunity that I had to interview a player and it was so cool to watch how an interview


3/9

with an athlete is done. Although his answers werent very long or detailed, he gave us

what we needed to hear about the game that night and we cleaned up and went back to

the offices.After the interview with Wall, I was assigned to pulling clips of any and all Pepsi

advertising appearances from the Capitals vs. Panthers game and Wizards vs. Clippers

game. To select the right clips, I used Final Cut Pro. In order to select clips, you hit Ifor your input time (when the clip begins) and O for your output time (when the clipends). Then you simply drag the clip to the bottom half of the screen and there you have

your saved clips. The whole point of selecting these clips is so that Monumentals

marketing department can contact Pepsi and assure them that their ads do exist and thattheyre getting their moneys worth.

Returning to work on Monday, I received a special task. I was the lucky intern

who was chosen to ride the metro a few stops and exchange a hard drive with someone

who works in Virginia. It seemed very secret agent-esque and that I was completing someconfidential mission. Of course it was a simple task, but life is what you make it. If I

wanted to pretend I was a secret agent, this was the time to do it.

Later when I got back from my adventure to Virginia, I went to lunch withQuentin Addison, one of my bosses. Hes the man I report to daily and check-in with

about what Im supposed to do each day. He didnt want to eat lunch alone so I went

along with him. We discussed my passion and love for hockey as well as sports

advertising and marketing. He told me that I could sit in the Capitals press box for a gameor two to really learn the ins and outs of what goes on behind the scenes of a hockey

organization. This was one of the coolest things I had ever heard and was so excited to

jump on the opportunity.

Week 4: Feb 15-20

On Feb. 15, I updated all of Quentins game operations schedules in a worddocument. This required assigning people to their specific tasks: cameraman, producer,

editors, lighting director, etc. Although it was a mundane job, it was cool to see the

official break down of a video production.In the afternoon, I learned how to copy and transfer video tape footage to DVDs

in the tape room. Before, I had burned footage from computers and .mov files, but doing

it from the original tape is very different. I had to learn a completely new device, but itwas pretty simple and the device did most of my work for me. I then labeled the DVDs

and envelopes to send off to media outlets and sports news entities. These DVDs were

mostly footage of player interviews and a few in-game action clips.

The following Monday, I worked with Quentin again to prepare the MonumentalProduction schedule for the week of Feb. 18-23. This schedule is personally sent to Ted

Leonsis (the owner of Monumental, Capitals, Wizards, Mystics, etcthe man runs the

show). The fact that the head honcho of so many organizations gets to see my schedule

that I created is a really cool feeling. It makes you feel important as an intern and thatyoure not just a coffee-filler (not that Ive done that) and that you actually are an

essential part of the organization.

Although I dont usually come in on days other than MWF, I decided to work theWizards vs. Raptors on Tuesday night. At the game, I filmed players practicing on the


4/9

court and sponsorship advertisements on the JumboTron, sideboards and LED screens.

After the game, I downloaded all the film footage from the game to the computer

database so the editors could access it.

Week 5: Feb. 25-March 1

Lindsey, one of the production staffers, asked me to help her out with her Capitalsalumni interviews. These interviews were for the Capitals Red Line (CRL) show.She had

me research basic information as well as unusual/stand-out events in the players lives.

The first two players she had me do research on were Craig Laughlin and Ken Sabourin. Iused Wikipedia to find out their basic information, the Capitals websites section on

alumni and other sports history websites.

This project process actually took two workdays to complete. The first day was all

about the research on the players. I found good information on their best games/seasons,theyre most notable goals or plays and what theyre currently up to as retired NHL

players. After I finished the research, I formulated questions that Lindsey could use for

the actual interviews. I found this process to be fun because I was able to learn a lot ofrandom facts about these players. As hockey is my favorite sport, I always enjoy learning

more about its players, especially legacies who left their marks on the league years ago.

On the final day of the week, I transcribed a video for Lindsey. This video was an

interview of Capitals alumnus Alan May for the Monumental Memories video series.This series is a compilation of interviews of Wizards and Capitals alumni for the

Monumental Network website. I didnt realize how long transcribing a nine-minute video

would take. It took two full hours. You have to hit pause every time you want to writedown a sentence, you need to rewind to make sure you copied down the words correctly

and you have to look up the correct spellings of other names mentioned in the interview.

It was really hard to decipher some words that May said because of his thick Canadian

accent. Although I learned a lot of fun facts about Mays life, this task wasnt as easy as Ithought it would be.

Week 6: March 4-8

Casey, Monumental Networks on-air talent, assigned me a very important task

for the remainder of my internship. I am now the designated tweet finder. Every nightbefore I go to sleep, I am to find five tweets that mention @washcaps, five tweets that

mention @georgetownhoyas, and five tweets that mention @WashWizards to send in to

Tammy, Casey and Angela. They will then put these featured tweets on each

Monumental Today show every morning. Having this job makes me feel important to thecompany because I see that my work is directly benefitting the company for their daily

web show. This will be a good task for me because I love going on Twitter and it will

help me learn to use HootSuite, a social media website that I wasnt used to working with

before.Two days later, I revisited the sponsorship footage that I filmed at the Wizards vs.

Raptors game. I had to find all of the Capital One advertisements and put them in a Final

Cut project. I specifically had to grab footage from the welcome sign that was on theJumboTron during the game. Because I had to go through multiple hours of footage to


5/9


6/9

I had to continue working with the release forms while the commercial was being

filmed on the street. In order to avoid legal trouble, Monumental needed any and all

passersby to fill out release forms in case they were seen in the film shot. This wasnteasy because many people were in a rush and didnt want to stop and sign, or they didnt

really understand what they were signing and felt uncomfortable. I actually came across a

fair amount ofpassersby who didnt speak English and didnt understand what was goingon and I couldnt really explain it to them. Aside from the annoying part of flaggingdown people, watching a crew film a commercial with Ovi was absolutely incredible. I

got to see first hand how a commercial is filmed and all the incredible effort that goes

into it.Wednesday and Friday were definitely not as busy or as exciting as Monday was.

I worked on editing a video with fellow intern Heather. The video was for the Capitals

blood drive, which the Capitals partnered with INOVA Healthcare at Kettler Capitals

Iceplex (which Monumental owns and where the Capitals practive). All we did wasshorten a few of the clips in the sequence and choose music for the background. I later

worked on the video transcripts for the Alan Hanglesben and Ken Sabourin portions of

Monumental Memories. Both of these transcripts took a while because the videos keptcrashing.

Week 9: April 1-5

On Monday, I mainly worked on an Excel spreadsheet for Quentin. This was a

schedule for all the daily production assignments in the upcoming week. Quentin hoped

that this spreadsheet would help organize the employees and their assigned editing andfilming projects. Certain projects included Wizards and Capitals player interviews, in-

game feature segments and game watch party coverage. This document was then

distributed to all of the employees in the production department.

The following Wednesday I continued to work on the transcripts I had started theweek before. I was able to finish the Ken Sabourin transcript and then started working on

the Wizards ones. The Wizards ones tend to be shorter than the Capitals ones for some

reason so I was able to knock those out more quickly. Although its not the most excitingtask in the world, I do still enjoy doing these because I get to learn so much about the

individual players and their take on their careers.

On Friday, Quentin assigned a special project to me. I was asked to log clips ofMystics games to put together a ticket promo for the upcoming season this summer. I

specifically had to find good footage of Michelle Snow, Monique Currie and Crystal

Langhorne. This was the first time I ever had to work on a project for the Mystics

because I usually just have Wizards and Capitals assignments thrown at me. Afterwatching a fair amount of Wizards game footage, there is definitely a huge difference

between the way NBA and WNBA games are played as well as the fan base. Yes, the

Wizards games dont have the biggest fan following, but the Mystics really had a small

crowd and there were many empty seats at the Verizon Center. This is a challengebecause MSE doesnt want to show clips of empty seats in their promos, so all of the

clips that I had to pick couldnt have empty stands in the background.


7/9

Week 10: April 8-12

Monday of this week was an interesting day for me, even though I didnt actuallydo anything. I sat in the office waiting for a computer to open up so I could work on

transcripts or anything really, but nothing ever did. Every intern seemed to be in today

and nobody wanted to give up a computer even when asked. I ended up spending theafternoon in Quentins office with him and his assistant Careen just talking about lifeworking in the sports world. Quentin gave me a lot of good advice that I found very

helpful for future job applications and my career path in general. Careen, a UMD

graduate who was also a COMM major gave me academic advice and talked about whichclasses really benefitted her the most and prepared her for life post-college.

On Wednesday, I worked on some Bullets transcripts for the Monumental

Memories show. It was funny because one of the players that they interviewed reminded

me of a combination of my two uncles and my grandfather. The player was just so wellspoken and had such a great stories to tell and advice to give. Out of all the interviews

that I transcribed I think this one may have been my favorite because I felt this strange

connection to a former NBA player that I have never met.On Friday, I spent the entire day logging and labeling clips from the Wizards vs.

Knicks game in New York. This definitely isnt a fun assignmentI mean, Im sitting at

a computer for three hours straight in a freezing cold officebut I understand that it

needs to get done and the higher-up employees have more important things that they needto work on. Needless to say, when I finished doing this I was very excited to hop on the

Metro and go home for the weekend.

Week 11: April 15-19

On Monday, I spent the majority of my day helping Quentin organize his office

and run errands for him throughout the building. Sometimes he treats me as his personalassistant rather than his intern. I definitely like this because he trusts me with more

confidential material and important information than other interns. Knowing he trusts me

makes me feel more confident in my work at Monumental. If someone trusts you, youmust be doing something right. After organizing his office, I worked on some more

Bullets transcripts.

On Wednesday when I first arrived at the Verizon Center, I attended a productiondepartment meeting. This meeting was all about the events occurring on Thursday 4/18.

These events included the John Wall commercial shoot for Red Bull, a Court Side Report

shooting and filming Garrett Temple doing a Duck Tour in DC. After the meeting I

pulled highlight clips from the Wizards season. I needed 15 clips of each player on theteam. This took the remainder of my workday because I had to go through about 30

games to find the best clips per player, but it wasnt the most challenging of assignments.

It was almost kind of relaxing in a way because it wasnt taxing on my brain.

On Friday, Quentin assigned me to another Mystics assignment. I needed to grabhighlights and clips from the 2003 season games. These clips were then complied in a

Final Cut Pro sequence and burned onto a DVD. This DVD was then sent off the ESPN

so they could put together a segment on the Washington Mystics and their history in theNBA. Again, not the most interesting of assignments, but someone has to do it.


8/9

Week 12: April 22-26

On Monday I arrived to work only to find out that it was a half-day at the office.Nobody had told me this prior to coming in so I showed up for my usual shift. As soon as

I walked into the production office, Quentin asked, What are you doing here? Everyone

is leaving now! I was very irritated that nobody told me of this and I wasted my timeand money taking the metro to work and parking in the metro garage. Although I wasrelieved to be sent home for the day, I was still annoyed that I had rushed from class to

get there on time.

Wednesday was a full day for me. I was assigned to look for clips of RodLangway playing for the Capitals in the 1980s and 1990s. It was hard to find clear,

quality videos of him because of the camera quality of the time period. There were very

few videos of him on the Internet period and those that did exist were just of him in fights

on the ice or scoring a major goal against the Rangers. These video clips were for thebirthday tribute package that is to be done as a favormeaning free of charge, so they

gave it to me so a real employee wouldnt be wasting his or her time on it. I then looked

for background music for the package on Killer Tracks. Brian then helped me decide onthe two songs that best fit the video and we downloaded the tracks.

On Thursday I came in to work the Capitals vs. Senators game. Before the game

started, I logged 279 clips from the Wizards vs. Bulls game, John Wall interview and

John Wall magazine spread in Modern Luxury DC. Logging the Bulls game clips mademe homesick because there was a lot of scenery shots in Chicago and of the United

Center. During the game, I went with Jumoke to Ted Leonsis suite and we filmed a

bunch of different things there. The first thing we filmed was an interview with BobbyShaw who won a scholarship through the Capitals because of his outstanding academics

and hockey skills. We then filmed b-roll on Willie ORee, the first black hockeyplayer in

the NHL. We got shots of him talking with Bobby and Ted, which will be great for the

segment on Monumental Network. The third interview we did was of Jennifer Buchanan,a civilian who saved a mans life after he fell into a metro track. She even had a picture of

her son with Ted when he was a baby (hes 13 now). We filmed Jennifer with her

husband and two kids watching the game. This was all very fun for me because Jumokelet me film everything and gave me really good advice and criticism on my filming

techniques. After the interviews, I logged all of the footage and proceeded to watch the

game.Friday was special for me because my parents were in town. I was able to give

them a tour of the Verizon Center and give them an exclusive look at everything in the

Monumental offices. They met Jumoke and it was a really funny interaction. Im not so

sure why, but it was just like something out of a TV show. Before showing my parentsaround, I finished the Rod Langway birthday package. I had a little difficulty

downloading the music for it, but it was fixed in a few minutes. I was glad that I finally

finished this video project.


9/9

Week 13: April 29-May 3

On Monday, I started to pull clips from the 35th

Anniversary of the Bullets 1978World Championship Reunion Weekend and put them into a video project on Final Cut

Pro. I took clips from the Wizards Magazine episode as well as photos from the event. It

includes footage from autograph signings, alumni interviews, an interview with TedLeonsis and general shots from the parties and events. This video will be burned ontoDVDs and sent out to all Bullets alumni who attended the reunion weekend.

On Wednesday, I spent my time finishing up the video. I put in the transitions for

both the audio and video. I also had to find music on Killer Tracks, download it and dropit in the video. After all of this I had to adjust the volume levels to make sure everything

sounded good and was at the same volume. Although you wouldnt think so, this video

really did take up my entire workday. Editing is a careful and detail-oriented process.

Friday was my last at Monumental and was quite the bittersweet day. I didntactually do any work because Quentin wouldnt let me. Instead I went to Joseph A. Bank

with Quentin, Will, Rob, Matt and Alyse for the big suit sale. The guys were buying suits

and they had us tag along for fun and fashion advice. We then went to a chocolatier andbought some chocolate to share with the production department. Once we got back to the

office I just hung out with Quentin talking about my future and what Im going to be

doing this summer. He even invited me to come to the Capitals game against the Rangers

on Saturday for round one of the playoffs. I took him up on that offer and spent the nextday on the 400 level of the Verizon Center watching the game with another one of the

interns who was filming things for promotional purposes. Watching the game was a great

way to end my internship.

Documents

MSE Detailed Journal