Brands are increasingly putting pressure on their creative agencies and production companies to bring young and diverse voices into the creative development of their product campaigns. Brands are doing this because they want to expand their customer base and speak to a more diverse group of consumers in an authentic way. This means that in order for agencies and production companies to thrive in this client-driven business, they will need a team that actually reflects a brand’s consumer point of view.
Learn how your creative agency or production company can rise to meet this brand challenge. Find, attract, and develop black emerging talent that will help you develop better work and transform your agency from status quo to status whoa.
Don’t let money or lack of experience hold you back. If you’re truly committed to managing a meaningful and immersive internship program for young black talent, then the William Grose Center can help you design a program and potentially offer financial sponsorship.
Book a time with Winfield Ezell to start the discussion.
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CASE STUDY
Seattle-based film studio All is Well was frustrated by the lack of diverse talent they were attracting to fill their job openings. So, they partnered with Africatown Community Land Trust (ACLT) and FujiFilm to launch an internship program to help overcome their challenge.
FujiFilm joined the effort as a corporate sponsor providing funding for two full-time positions for the year as well as gear and technical training on the gear.
ACLT acted as a community partner to All is Well and Fujifilm to be the source and connection to emerging talent and to build out the program for success, keeping white privilege in check and identifying racial bias and blind spots that could undermine the goals.
The result was a year-long paid internship program that paired two creative talents together full-time for a three-month curriculum in All is Well’s creative department.
In addition to ongoing client and business-development work, the interns were immersed in an intensive story-making curriculum, developing the essential creative concepts and technical craft to make commercial films for clients. They each produced a 60-second spot on behalf of All is Well.
The curriculum worked like this:
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The first month of the internship involved learning story concepts and receiving technical training.
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The second month put that training to work writing a fully developed treatment and script for the All is Well 60-second spot.
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The third and final month required making it all come to life as the director of a full professional production crew.
Not only has All is Well re-hired some of these interns beyond the internship, they have also hired other internship applicants for ongoing production positions. The program has left a profoundly positive impact on All is Well and the young emerging talent that went through the program. Hopefully it will serve as inspiration for other companies to build their own internship program and attract corporate partners who are looking to have a more direct impact on making change in our industry.
Go to FujiFilm’s Creative Forever website to learn about the interns and see the work they produced. We strongly suggest you hire them too