Internships Blog

I am currently interning at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford and as an intern, I am learning many different skills in various fields. My main focus right now is working on scout badges that will incorporate information from D-Day. My goal is to look at girl scout badges and their requirements and then based on the requirements make hands-on D-Day activities for girls to gain their badges. I have been working on this for two weeks now and can not wait to see the final product.

Another main goal within the past two weeks that I am focusing on is preparing for future field trip tours. As March and April come around, the memorial will be lively with the number of school trips coming in. I have been going on site to shadow and practice my own tours in order to prepare for the busy season. This year is also the 75th of D-Day, so there is a lot of exciting things coming up and I can not wait.

Catch you again in two weeks,

Arian 🙂

A few weeks ago, I started my history internship at the O Winston Link Museum in downtown Roanoke. I am working under the curator Ashely Webb. My first couple times going so far have been enjoyable and very interesting. Actually seeing how a museum works, and how much hard work actually goes into it, has been very interesting to me because hopefully I maybe will be doing something along the same lines. My first visit, came with lots of hanging of photographs that Winston Link took himself. I had no idea how much thought would actually go into hanging pictures for an exhibit. I was given many mathematical steps to make sure they were all at the correct height. In another visit, I went with Ashely to their collections building which is located in the Jefferson Center in downtown Roanoke. My task, with Ashely, was to help move and organize many different items that were acquired or given to the museums collection. There was everything from paintings, pictures, different types of clothing, and even old bicycles and statues. This opened my eyes to how big museums collections actually can be, and I could not even imagine what a large museum’s collection could be. My past few visits have been all about using and learning the program Pastperfect. This program is made for museums to organize, date, describe, and electronically store contents of the museum. While at first the program seemed very overwhelming, when I got the hang of it, it was a very satisfying feeling when I found all the information to plug into the program. Also, it made me feel like I was actually helping out the museum in a real way. My next visit will be next Tuesday and will most likely contain more work in Pastperfect. I am looking forward to helping out Ashely and the museum.    

These last few weeks of the internship have been pretty awesome thanks to the fact that I have been able to work on creating and designing a little exhibit of my own. It is about the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918-1919 and some of its worldwide as well as local impacts. The whole process has been a new and informative as well as a fun and engaging experience, from coming up with initial ideas for how to use the space, to writing out the signs and physically arranging all of the objects. It felt really good to finish it up today.

I’m kinda sad that my internship is now over  since it was an experience full of learning, enjoyment, and engagement. I knew next to nothing about museum work or anything that goes into it before I started. Thanks to all of the hands on work I have done at the museum, I have a much better understanding of this kind of work and the museum world in general. This has been my first internship and it has been one of the best educational experiences of my college career. I hope future interns get to find out just how awesome the Salem Museum is. 

 

This past weekend, the Virginia Museum of Transportation hosted ¨Candy Express,¨an event that engages the community in learning about the different types of transportation we have while adding a winter wonderland theme. As a team, we worked together; we decorated the entire museum and set up activities for people of all ages. At the event, I was in charge of crafts and letters for Santa. In my elf costume, I helped the children that came through by reading them instructions, coming up with ideas, and even for some of them writing their letters. I worked with kids of all ages and had great conversation with their parents. I loved working this day because I got to be more involved and not just working the background. I’m glad this was my last main event at VMT because I got to see everything come together. The staff helped one another and created a great event for the Roanoke community. Everyone worked together to ensure that the visitors truly experienced the Museum in the holiday spirit. I am so grateful for this semester at the museum and for all that the staff and volunteers have taught me, not only about working in a museum but what it means to be excited about your work and helping to educate others.

This is my last blog post for the semester, and it has been an interesting one.

Over the course of nearly five months, I have had the opportunity to work with wonderful high school students from across the Roanoke Valley. To watch them grow and development has been a wonderful experience.

They have covered a vast amount of information in such a short time as well. It has been quite impressive to see them tackle the new information and quickly adapt to new technology and programs. Comparing their early videos to ones now is often amusing.

This program requires such a time commitment from the students. The students are in Film Lab almost eight hours a week and often have substantial homework assignments.  When I look back at my high-school experience I know I would not have been able to commit. I love seeing their dedication to film.

Next semester the student will begin their short films. Two will be chosen and the class will be divided into teams to bring the winning stories of life. They will spend the entirety of semester filming and editing. At the end, the short films will be sent to festivals across the country.

Today (11/28), the students bid for positions on the film crews for the spring. Each student will fill the role of Director, Producer, Director of Photography, Editor, Technician, or Other (specified) for one of the two films. If a student’s script is chosen, they get first choice to decide if they want to Direct. Outside of this exception, the students bid and get divided by my supervisor.

The two scripts have not yet been chosen. My supervisor sent the scripts out to a number of readers and has not yet heard back from all of them. When he does, the winning two will set the motion for the spring.

I was originally suppose to intern the entire year. But as I take into account my academic and personal schedules I am not sure I can continue the time commitment. However, I have enjoyed my time interning at the Grandin Film Lab. I look forward to seeing the final productions from this group. If I do not continue then I will still attend the screening of their final products.

I would recommend this internship to a student who wants to explore avenues of film making.

https://www.grandintheatre.com/history

Last Monday (10/29), the students learned about types of lighting. Today (11/7), they applied their new understanding of lightening to settings on the camera. Things like grain, zebra strips, exposure, aperture, white balance and iris all flew around the room. While I am typing this, I am actually being used as model for one of the groups. My paleness and light hair caused the group some difficulty which my supervisor found amusing. I then started taking pictures and was eventually handed a professional camera to jaunt around the room and record the day.

About halfway through the class, my supervisor had a professional lighting/electrician film professional come to the class. He brought his own equipment to class as well, which he uses on productions. The students then took the rest of the class to put together equipment, manipulate lighting effects with different tools and methods, and experimentation.

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Today (11/14), the students began their first unit of Directing. They started with learning about how Directors are more ‘generalists.’ A sort of jack-of-all-trades, master of none, better than a master of one type deal.

In the 1950s-1960s, a new wave of auteur directors rose to prominence. This was the belief that the director is the primary author of a film and said film should reflect the director’s creative vision. Auteur directors were known for controlling every aspect of their films to a high artistic standard. Alfred Hitchcock was an example of an auteur director and he story-boarded every scene in the film. No scenes were filmed that were not necessary. Other examples include Truffaut, Kubrick, and Bergman. A modern example is David Fincher.

Terry Gilliam suggested filteur theory. This was the belief that a director must “filter” though all ideas regarding films from all sources on the set. This is a more collaborative method of film making and has rose to more prominence today over auteur directing. Directors should have the strongest idea of what the movie will look like and sound like and is primarily responsible for artistic execution of a film and being the decision maker. If the director’s clear vision is communicated well, the vision will inspire departments to think creatively. Vice versa, departments share their creativity with the director who then filters them to the final vision.

 

As our country was celebrating Veterans’ Day, the Museum of Transportation wanted to express its gratitude for those who have served. I had the chance to go through the museum and find any sort of military connection that the exhibits may have. Then, I created a guided tour for anyone who came in on Saturday. Unfortunately, most people wanted to explore the museum on their own but that lead me to create a quick print out version of my tour and give it to visitors. It was upsetting at first to not feel like I succeeded in the tour but it allowed me to see that sometimes you have to improvise and its a learning process to see what people like more. I enjoyed being able to have my military research given to the public and briefly interact with visitors. The picture here is taken from the “thunder bird” used during the Roanoke Veterans’ Day parade. The parade ended at VMT to allow more people to visit.

In our auto gallery the cars often are changing, but this time it is a little more special. The museum is hosting “Hollywood Cars” for the next few weeks. On display are the actual cars from famous movies, such as Dukes of Hazzard, Herbie Fully Loaded, Ghostbusters, and even one of the only non-damaged cars from the Fast and Furious franchise. This is an exciting time for the museum and car buffs of Roanoke. Along with these famous vehicles, the museum also lost a few cars but nonetheless is making it up with these new donations. It is great to see how the museum world is always changing and the process that the institution goes through. I am really excited to be able to be here and helping with the new Hollywood cars exhibit!

Something really exciting that I got to do last week at the museum was put up and design part of one of the exhibit cases in the lobby of the museum. This was a really fun and important activity for me as actual exhibit design is one of the most appealing aspects of museum work. Another incredibly interesting thing that has been going on at the museum recently has been the implementation of a new VR or virtual reality program downstairs. I have been lucky enough to test it out and get this new experience. The program puts individuals in a virtual tunnel from WW1 in a town that no longer exists thanks to the war. They are able to experience this space and also listen to narration and see pictures related to the town and its experience in the First World War. Working with VR is an extremely cool thing and I am very grateful to have this opportunity. It has also made me contemplate this technologies possible applications to museums and the field of public history. 

Film Lab has been going well. The students have been developing their short story scripts on their journey into the complex mechanics of script writing. At the end of this semester, the best scripts from students will be chosen and put into full production for the duration of the program- the entirety of next semester. Seeing this process has been amazing. Their first project was writing scripts based on music videos. These were rather…interesting. And my, how they have improved. I cannot help but believe that this class will help their in-school writing as well, especially since most of the students are high school sophomores.

Today the students brought the drafts of their short stories to class and conferred with other students, basically a peer-review system. At the beginning of the semester I doubt this activity would have been helpful. But now, with the knowledge and language and practice of analyzing, I have hopes that this activity will, in fact, be beneficial. I write this during the introduction of the activity to the class and will check back in at the end of today’s session.

The script break-out session went very well. I had four students whom I consulted. Three of them brought scripts, one of which was finished. I was very impressed with their drafts. One student is working on a one-room suspense film. While he is struggling to build the pressure and anxiety, he is very keen on making it happen. I offered advice while my supervisor was in the room. My supervisor was impressed, and I overheard his reuse my comments later. One of the drafts is very much a draft. The third, the only complete script, was excellent. I offered some alternatives for the ending and the student asked is she could use them. All of their writing skills have come along immensely, and I am proud of their progress.

The students are now working on their cinematography project. I was not here when they began this project (due to midterms and fall break) but I helped some of them with settings in Adobe Premiere. I am not fully familiar with the program but adapted some of my skills from other Adobe software. I am looking forward to seeing their films after today’s session.