As a journalism student majoring in television with experience interviewing, shooting and editing video, I thought I knew what to expect at Double R Productions. I especially thought this because I have interned at production and broadcasting companies before. Turns out, I couldn’t be more wrong. I soon discovered that this is definitely not a 9 to 5 job, which I already kind of knew, but my first couple of shoots made it extra clear.
First up: day one of the ‘Ammonia: The National Refrigerant of Choice’ video shoot. An intern arrives at the scene about 15 minutes before the crew gets there, but since there was no simple way to get to the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration office in Alexandria, Rosemary and I took a cab. We had to be at IIAR at 7:15 am, so we left the Double R office at 6:30 am, expecting a lot of traffic (there wasn’t!), which meant I had to get up at 5 am. The shoot itself went great. I helped set up, welcome the interviewees, collect release forms, etc. After a long day one would expect I could go to bed once I got home, but of course the paperwork I have to do for The Washington Center waited for me back at the RAF. And so my night work began.
Now doing that once is not bad right? Well I had to do it all over again the next day. Get up at 5:30 am, leave Double R at 7:00 am and start the first interviews at the IIAR office around 8 am. Again the shoot went flawless (thanks to the awesome Double R crew!). After wrapping up and capturing all of the shots we needed, it was time to head back to the office and start transcribing the notes I took during the interviews. That took quite a while and of course after that, more papers needed to be written.
Then there was our first intern shoot. We had to cover an event on the Hill where Professor Carolyn Stegman was presenting her book “A Gold Mended Life”. Of course this event was at night, so first we had our “regular” day at the office, and then we made our way up the Hill to shoot our first intern project. Again, I had to go straight back to the RAF to type up, that’s right, another paper.
Being young I can of course handle all of this. But I’m not making it easy on myself. In addition to the internship, classes, programs, events, papers, civic engagement and late-night shoots, I try to work out every day and even have some fun on the weekends. So there’s not really a lot of time to sleep, but oh well, you only live once right? Thank God I’m a morning person and a night owl.
— Laurence Blondeel
