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Originally Posted by rainy-taxi  Even if people have their certificates and degrees? Sounds pretty hard to me, you spent thausands of dollars on college, you finally get the degrees and the first months on your new job, you are a coffee/tea boy. Something that everyone can do... I hear a lot of times that people have to proove themself, I can come in on that, I think people need to but still, you really learn things after you finished school... I'd rather let those people be involved in the mixing and recording sessions as juniors (if thats their degree of course) then making them the well known coffeeboy... |
Yeah...I totally agree. I've read a few of these threads and I'm continually baffled by the fact that this is the accepted and standard way of dealing with recording "interns". I actually started chuckling a bit when I read the comments of that studio manager, thinking he was being kind of funny and/or sarcastic with the idea that hitting the level of "Runner" is some kind of big deal, but I think he's totally serious. My first impression when I started reading about this was that studio owners must just be populated by dickheads who enjoy capitalizing on free labor, but I really don't think that's the case as I read more of these discussions. It seems that this has simply become the the normal, accepted practice and folks looking to get into the biz need to know this up front. I have a hard time finding any justification in this myself. I suppose that if an "intern" is willing to put in all of this menial labor and do all the studio's grunt work, then it does display a bit of resolve and this is worth something. I suppose a couple of weeks doing odd jobs and errands would be in line, while at the same time getting familiar with the staff and studio routines. Still, it seems that you could throw them into the fray to some degree and immediately determine who does/doesn't have potential and let the one's that don't back onto the street. This would seem to be much more respectable than stringing someone out for months on end cleaning toilets and emptying the trash. Like I said, it almost seems that this is just considered standard practice in the industry, so it's just "how it is" for interns and they should know this before they get into the game.
I'm thinking back to a cheesy kung fu movie I saw years ago in which an aspiring ninja was put to the task of stirring the soup cauldrons. Months pass and he has yet to recieve any of combat training, in spite of his continual requests to "learn some kung fu". Well, at one point the monastery is attacked by a rival's team of ninja warriors and the soup-stirring student cries out to his master that he will have no way to defend himself since they never trained him. To this the master replies, "ahhh, but we have", at which point he tosses him a staff, with the student discovering that he has, indeed, become a masterful fighter and proceeds to kick some ass.
Does toilet swabbing create a master of the Neve....? Hmmm....
