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This was all a little overwhelming for me and my family, especially since everything happened so fast. After I got back to Richmond from the United Nations, I had less than half a day to pack up everything before I moved out West to LA. My mom and brother were nice enough to postpone their Mexico trip to help me drive across the country, since I had to do the drive in just three days and then start work the next day. My dad left the same day I left, but his destination was Uganda in East Africa. He returned to Canaan Children's Home, the orphanage where I shot my “Film Your Issue” movie exactly one year before. You can imagine the chaos in our house that day!

On our trip across the country, we drove what seemed like way too many hours everyday and pulled into each hotel around two or three in the morning. One night we stayed in a hotel in Las Vegas. We felt like zombies as we checked in at the front desk and we looked at each other and said “what on earth are we doing here?!” The next morning my brother and I went on a ride called “Big Shot” on top of our hotel that holds the world record for highest thrill ride. That same day we made the mistake of driving across the Mojave Desert at three in the afternoon during an extreme heat warning, when it was 114 degrees outside. Fortunately, we crossed the whole desert and my car held up. My mom and Aunt were also kind enough to drive my car the entire way back across the country at the end of the summer, once I was already back in school in Virginia.

I started work at Disney on June 26th, and continued almost until my last year at Virginia Tech began on August 21st. My mentors were some of the top executives, and they wanted me to have an internship where I could see the filmmaking process from beginning to end, so they let me observe each different step, from pre-production to theatrical release. They also had me meet with the heads of various departments at Disney to get a crash course on the kinds of things they do, and to see everything that makes up Disney's motion picture division. Some people at Disney jokingly said "I wish I had your internship because you get to do all the fun stuff!" I had a fantastic experience working there and I really loved LA, despite the crowded roads. I lived in a hotel for the summer in a scenic little area of Burbank about 15 minutes from the studio. I still can't believe all this has happened, especially so fast. Also, I can't say enough great things about everyone I met at Disney. It's amazing how people who are so high up in the film industry are approachable and willing to share their knowledge and experience. It was an awesome environment to be working in. So much of my previous experience with making movies has been working alone in the middle of the night doing tedious editing. I can't believe I got paid to be on a movie set now. Talk about one heck of a summer job!

I was told that Disney did something for me that they've not done before with an intern. They made my internship half “Feature Production,” on the sets of films, and half “Post Production,” in the editing room with the director and editor. That's how a director spends his time, half on set and half in the editing room, and they told me that this would be good experience for me.

One project in post production that I observed for a few days was The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, starring Tim Allen. I started in the assistant editor's cutting room one day. Then after lunch, the director came in and introduced himself to me and asked me all about the “Film Your Issue” contest and how he could see my movie online. He said “Why don't you come over to my office to see us edit right now.” So I spent that afternoon in the editing room of Santa 3 with the editor and director. It was neat to listen to their comments as they painstakingly fine-tuned a very small section of the film. I was surprised to see how many similarities there were to the process that I always go through when editing my own movies. A few days later, I observed some of the actors as they did ADR, which is “Automated Dialogue Replacement,” where dialogue is re-recorded in a recording studio and matched to the picture on screen to get higher quality, cleaner sound. I watched them do ADR with Martin Short, whose voice was being broadcast from another state, and saw how the director and Martin poked fun at each other all in good humor. I also met the legendary and eloquent Ann-Margret during one of her ADR sessions. She was very sweet as she congratulated me on the FYI contest.

I sat in on a production meeting for another upcoming feature film that I'm not allowed to mention yet, but it was neat to see how producers make their decisions. I also observed on the set of that film and had dinner sitting next to Mr. Roy E. Disney himself onboard the Queen Mary. Mr. Disney seems like an awesome person and is also very passionate about this film. By the way, he looks just like Walt, his uncle.

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