Monday -- How to get hired by the Smithsonian.
They gave a bunch of description of how to apply, but the goodies were at the end. 'Goodies being inspirational pearls of wisdom
~Challenge answers.
~Know what you want.
~Your career is not linear. Take advantage of opportunities every day of your life. Tenure, or no tenure.
~Be excited about the mission.
~Be motivated and go a step beyond.
~Have quantifiable skills.
~Be an independent & creative thinker.
~Speak about how you can add to the position.
~Be able to 'change gears'.
~Be able to be an expert who can collaborate.
~Be the person who others will want to work with.
~Anything can be an opportunity.
~Sometimes the one with the work ethic will beat out the brilliant person from Harvard.
~Be articulate and act interested and nice on the phone screening as well as interviews.
~Keep your interests open. Have multiple plans.
~Back up your questions with a resume.
~Get a mentor.
~Be successful in everything you do.
~Everyone is a client or potential client. Everyone is someone who could hire or fire you.
~Be a risk taker.
~When I'm not leading anymore, and just managing, then it's time for the next challenge.
Tuesday -- Film Lecture by Jim Deutsch
The best movies are those in which the visual tells the story. The picture is the important part, there is no need for excessive explanatory dialogue; it is truly literacy in a visual sense.
Jim's Favorite Movies
1. Psycho
(Hitchcock)
(First film where the audience members were not allowed inside the theater except at the beginning. Did you know that back in the day, there would be two features, and you would pay a fee, and just go right in... If you go there halfway through the first feature, you would watch the second half, watch the previews, then watch the second film, then watch the first half of the first feature.)
2. Citizen Kane
(Orson Welles)
(Used the film medium and sound to move the film along)
(Used sound montage)
(He says everything through picture)
3. The Kuleshov Experiment
4. High Noon
5. The Godfather
(It doesn't glorify violence, but we feel the voice and the death in the terrible way in which it should be felt.)
6. Schindler's List
(Speilberg)
(Opening scene is a candle that is lit with a family partaking in their cultural rituals, the family disappears, and the candle goes up in smoke... foreshadowing?)
7. Touch of Evil
8. Muriel's Wedding
We also got a nifty little Glossary of Selected Film Terms that I wish I had when I had to do that Film Presentation in Baumtanica's MUHI class.
In general, Jim likes Classical Hollywood Cinema... the viewer is never disoriented.
The bad news is... I haven't seen any of these, and now feel completely illiterate.
Thursday -- The Office of Exhibits Central
This office is housed in a huge warehouse 30 minutes outside the city. I think we went North, and therefore Maryland? But I'm not 100% sure.
All 30 of the SI interns that decided to go piled onto the bus and chatted the entire way. Talk about chatterboxes. I don't even know what radio station was on, cause we were just talking up a storm.
We entered the warehouse, and got to munch on some UTZ (which are gluten-free btw) and watermelon. After 30 more minutes of socializing, we received an introduction about the OEC...
The OEC is responsible for the literal production of exhibits, usually the traveling exhibits through SITES (Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service). I have a newly found interest in Museum Studies, and while my concentration would be Museum Education, Museum Exhibit and Design are still very intriguing to me.
When we went around to the different departments within the exhibit, we learned from the INTERNS. Which I think was a totally rad way to go about the designing the program.
Im'ma break it down, folks.
1. Project Management
--they make the contracts, do the scheduling, keep everyone on budget, and coordinate in general
--what was interesting is that curators ask for services, but so do outside clients... i thought it was an SI only thing, but we are apparently givers :)
2. Design / Editing
--they develop the concept for the exhibit and design it, from layout to graphics, to the script
--the interns at this station got to do some really cool work, and we saw their vision actually completed
3. Graphics
--they receive the graphics, and print them and mount them, including signs, silk screens, and installation
4. 3D Digitization
--3D Digitization is really rad
--did you know that they 3D scan artifacts and can use a 3D printer to re-create them out of thin sheets of plastic? pretty freaking cool. we saw the jaw of an accomplice of Blackbeard this way.
5. Modelmaking
--i met an intern from the UK here, we swapped neighborhoods
--here they create models and replicas as well as mannequins using silicon casting
6. Fabrication
--this is pretty much building and installing things and getting them safely to the exhibit through crating and packing
Overall, the tour was rad, especially because we learned from our colleagues about an Office that nearly none of us knew existed. Did you?
The crazy thing was, we had another opportunity to go to today, but just couldn't manage another brain-wrinkling activity. The joys of SI.
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