turning passion into professionalism

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Turning passion into professionalism

Mass communications student uses networking, internship to jumpstart career

Posted: Thursday, October 13, 2011 9:00 am | Updated: 9:32 am, Thu Oct 13, 2011.

Lexi Cortes |

Senior mass communications major Noah Readhead’s passion for music and media landed him an internship with Avatar Studios in St.Louis and gave him the opportunity to meet and work for some of his favorite bands.

When Readhead is not in class, he is working to get his name out there. He said one of his favorite things to do is to go to concerts in St.Louis at venues like the Firebird, Off Broadway and the Pageant, where he will take pictures and video footage throughout the show.

“This summer, I was at a concert [for] Mansion,” Readhead said. “After the concert, I approached the lead singer. There’s this type of videoout on YouTube, it’s called a take away show. I said, ‘It’s a really popular thing. If you’re willing to, I’d like to do a take away show withyou.’”

Readhead said a take away show is filmed outside, with shots of the band and some of the environment, while they play an acoustic song.

“It’s really, really raw, but it has a pretty good following. He agreed to it and after the success of that, I thought I can approach any of thesebands,” Readhead said. “Not everybody is going to be so receptive, but it’s free publicity for them so I just had a feeling that some of themwould take me seriously, but I wouldn’t be too hurt if they didn’t take me seriously.”

Readhead felt confident enough to even approach his favorite band, Trapt, who he had been following since the eighth grade.

“I just contacted them myself and told them I’d go out there for free and do that because I’ve been a Trapt fan for a long time,” Readheadsaid. “So I just contacted them on the Internet...I just kept persisting.”

He said, at first, it was not easy, but his persistence paid off in the end when he finally heard back from Trapt asking if he could make it toBurbank, Calif., in a week. Readhead quickly booked a flight and headed out there.

“Basically, I went out there and shot combined scene stuff for them and I already have one video up just to create some hype for this newsong,” Readhead said. “I’m cutting another one right now and I have some live footage that they’ve sent me that I’m going to cut togetherfor their actual music video.”

Readhead said there has never been a question as to what he wanted to do with his life. In his four years at SIUE, he has never changed hismajor.

“Radio is kind of dying out and journalism is kind of dying out, so I went for what I thought would be the best,” Readhead said.

He decided to major in corporate and institutional media and has never looked back. When Readhead was in professor Riley Maynard’smedia management class, he was thinking about internships and making connections in the field of mass communications.

“One of our assignments was to go find a media manager, so I decided to go interview somebody at Avatar [Studios],” Readhead said.

He said after an interview with a person working in creative content, he was told he should apply for an internship.

Doug Hastings, director of photography and SIUE alum for Avatar Studios, said he often works with SIUE to find possible interns and



employees.

“We probably have a little bit of a preference to SIUE,” Hastings said. “We have an understanding with the Mass CommunicationsDepartment that they only send us the best of the best.”

Mass communications professor Riley Maynard said he considers Readhead one of the best and he was happy to help him get this internship.

“Noah is an outstanding student,” Maynard said. “He has a lot of talent in writing, editing, shooting and he has the intangibles – a reallygood work ethic, good listener. He has a passion for the work.”

Readhead said he applied shortly after the interview with a letter of recommendations from Maynard.

“I applied there and just kept persisting and kept emailing them and calling them and made sure they had my information and it finallyturned into my internship there,” Readhead said. “I did that over the summer. I started about mid-May and I finished about two weeks beforeschool started in August.”

Readhead said he was able to work under Hastings on outside studio video shoots and other projects. Hastings said he was able to giveReadhead guidance when he needed it, but for the most part he could handle himself.

“I was very confident that I could pretty well give Noah any task and not worry about it, not have to supervise,” Hastings said.

Typically, Readhead said he only got to do the setting up, but he was also allowed to do editing for a big client.

“For Marine Week St. Louis, I got to put together a video that played at the Ballpark Village, Jefferson Barracks and the Arch,” Readheadsaid. “I put together a 15 minute video [of] different marines talking about what they liked about Marine Week and different Marines’commercials and it was seen by I don’t even know how many people, like hundreds of thousands of people.”

Readhead said what he learned in the classrooms of SIUE was only part of what he needed to gain knowledge in his field of study.

“We may know how to shoot and how to edit, but it’s a whole different experience being out there,” Readhead said. “I definitely picked up alot of things from interning there. The best thing about it was the real-life experience.”

Not only did Readhead gain hands-on experience from his internship at Avatar, but he also networked with people already in the business.Hastings said if Avatar had a job available, Noah would have it.

“Noah has the ‘great Midwestern work ethic’ that professionally, we’re looking for,” Hastings said. “It’s a rarity right now. There seems tobe such an attitude in the youth today that they’re deserving. I’m finding this everywhere. Noah doesn’t seem to be cut from that cloth.”

Readhead said interning taught him “street knowledge” of the field in addition to some different options for his degree.

Before the experience at Avatar, Readhead wanted a staff position at a company. While interning, he met and spoke with many freelancevideographers who changed his view on his job opportunities.

“I realized that there may not be a staff position in St. Louis for me, where I’d like to stay, but I could do freelance work and make a decentpay,” Readhead said. “I realized there are so many more ways that I could go with my degree.”

He said he is still not quite sure what career he wants to settle on, but he knows he has tons of choices, from freelancer to corporate staffposition or even professor someday.



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“[I’m] just going to play it by ear and start applying soon and see what happens,” Readhead said.

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