Â鶹AV

I am Kai Samuel-Szablowski, a U3 student majoring in History and minoring in South Asian Studies. In addition to my areas of study, I am interested in journalism and media, and this year I was involved with and contributed to a variety of campus outlets,

such as The Tribune and CKUT. This summer, I interned at Curious Features, a small, independent documentary film company based in Vancouver. Curious Features has produced several award-winning documentaries, many for the CBC, including The Secrets of Friendship, Living Colour, Inseparable, and Cracking Cancer. My internship was remote, 20 hours per week for 10 weeks. I was supervised directly by the head of the company, Judith Pyke. My tasks mainly consisted of research and development of pitches, such as episode ideas for The Nature of Things, a frequent partner of the company, and series ideas to pitch to the CBC. I also worked on social media marketing and conducted research to determine what people my age most want to watch. In March I traveled to Brittany, France, to interview five speakers of the threatened Breton language with the goal of producing a radio documentary on the subject. With her extensive experience in writing successful pitches and producing engaging stories, Ms. Pyke kindly offered to give me feedback as I wrote my script, edited and pitched my project to major French and Canadian radio networks.

Over the course of this internship, I learned a great deal about how media companies work, and gained a variety of skills, most significantly how to effectively conduct research, build a story and write for TV and radio. While I research, write and tell stories regularly for my studies, it quickly became clear that the style and process for media, in particular TV, is completely different. Far from the thorough, cautious, and sometimes dry tone of a history paper, TV writing requires a much more eye-catching and imaginative style. This was a skill that I spent a considerable amount of time developing during the internship. Near the end of the internship, I was given a topic and wrote a pitch along with information on the key scientists and articles relevant to the subject (which is confidential). The idea has now been pitched to the CBC and we are waiting to hear back. Being able to contribute to a pitch that could blossom into a high-quality, award-winning documentary (as Curious Features’ productions usually are) is exciting. One of the main reasons I wanted to do this internship

was because it allowed me to see how the skills I’m learning in university are used in a commercial media setting, and this pitch was a great example. I also think that this experience allowed me to become a better student, by giving my studies a newfound significance and improving my independent work skills which are so important to success in a remote internship.

I want to thank the Arts Internship Office of Â鶹AV for their generous support offered through the Dean of Arts Development Fund, which helped me cover my living costs as I conducted the internship. Without this support I would have been working a service job this summer and wouldn’t have benefitted from this educational opportunity. In particular, I would like to thank the Dean of Arts Prof. Lisa Shapiro, as well as all the staff at the AIO who made this possible. This was a wonderfully enriching experience that I feel tremendously grateful to have had.