RTF Pre-Grad Intern Evangeline O'Keefe
"Just a quick sharing moment about my IE experience: I participated in IE with my RTF mentor Courtney Brannon Donoghue in spring semester 2009. My project was to further explore the possibilities of producing my original project "The Highwayman". Additionally, Courtney encouraged me to look into grad school programs in LA, NYC, and at UT; I had decided I didn't want to pursue a graduate degree, but Courtney and IE helped me see how important and helpful a Master's can be to a filmmaker's career. Fall of 2010 I found out about the Masters of Entertainment Industry Management program at Carnegie Mellon University. It combines business and management classes with courses specific to the many different aspects of the entertainment industry, and places a heavy emphasis on practicum experience through internships and participation in the industry. My class consists of 23 people of different creative and business backgrounds and we're all interested in different aspects of the industry. As of today, we've finished our first year of the program, which was in Pittsburgh at CMU, and consisted of lots of business and management courses. We are currently spread across NYC, LA, San Antonio and the rest of the country completing summer internships and getting ready to start our second year in Los Angeles. Year 2 entails industry specific courses and many internships. I'm so happy and excited to be a part of this amazing program, and I'm really looking forward to this coming academic year! Even though it is tough, it has already been helping me reach for my goals of becoming a Producer and Director in Film and TV.
Much gratitude to Richard Cherwitz, Courtney, and the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium for helping and encouraging me to pursue my Master's!<