Practical Experience 

Critical to your successful training as a future leader in the entertainment industry is the opportunity to gain invaluable practical experience. Not only will this practicum allow you to test and refine the classroom theories and principles in a very real setting - a kind of "working laboratory" - but you also will enhance your personal network of contacts and build your resume.

Production Management Assignment

During your first year in Pittsburgh, you will undertake a production management assignment in the School of Drama that will allow you to confront and address the complexities involved in collaborative theatrical production. You will commit a maximum of 200 hours of work to the production management position. You will receive a stipend for your work ($10.00/hour). The assignment could involve work on one or more productions during either or both fall and spring semesters.

Summer Internship

Before you take on any practicum work in Los Angeles, you need to be as comfortable as possible with actual film and/or television production work. This context is vital for you to understand the management work supporting and facilitating the creative process; it also will help you be a more valuable apprentice during your second year. MEIM students will spend six (6) weeks working full-time as a production intern at either the new state-of-the-art Steiner Studios in New York City, or another film/television production studio (with the permission of the MEIM Program Director).

An internship support stipend will be provided to assist MEIM students in covering housing and transportation expenses.

(MEIM students with previous training or experience in film or television production may request either an exemption from the summer internship requirement or permission to accept an alternate internship experience.

Apprenticeship

In order to become fully immersed in the film and television industry in Los Angeles, you will accept a full-time apprenticeship assignment in a management division of an approved studio or production company. You will be expected to maintain a work journal of your experience and complete a written, analytical report of your experience at the end of each semester. Apprentices receive an expense reimbursement stipend ($2,250 per semester) from the MEIM Program.