During the Winter Break, Stern's Media, Entertainment and Sports Association (MESA) hosted their annual Los Angeles Trek. The trip, which took place January 5th through 7th, was organized by the club's Trek VPs and is put together each year to expose Stern students to entertainment industry opportunities in L.A. This year's itinerary included visits to Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, Activision, Fox Interactive Media – Myspace, Warner Brothers Entertainment Group, The Fox Sports Network and Fox Searchlight Pictures.
The trip got off to a great start on Monday afternoon with a visit to Sony Pictures Entertainment's Culver City Headquarters where we were welcomed by Lexine Wong, a Stern Alum and Senior Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for Sony Pictures' Home Entertainment Division. Trek participants were also treated to presentations by executives from various functions in the Worldwide Acquisitions Group, Sony Pictures Television, Motion Pictures Acquisitions Group and Sony Pictures Television International. One of my favorite moments was getting to hear from the General Manager & Senior Executive Vice President of the Worldwide Acquisitions Group. His team's main function was to find and acquire film development properties. Basically, he leads the group that goes to the annual worldwide film festivals and buys the movies that consumers eventually go to movie theaters to watch.
Day 2 of the Trek began with a trip to The Walt Disney Company where the Stern group was joined by several other business schools on similar treks. After a panel presentation, we were given the opportunity to network with some of the professionals and HR representatives from a few of the Disney divisions and media properties including Parks and Resorts, ABC and ESPN.
Later in the afternoon, the group travelled to Activision's Santa Monica Headquarters to learn more about the Video Gaming industry and to meet with a few of the company's Brand Managers. The individuals we met with were upbeat and passionate about their jobs (which including managing the Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft game series), and spoke of the fun, casual and laidback environment that the company offers. They also spoke of the monetary power of the gaming industry and provided some of the startling figures surrounding new video games' development budgets as well ‘opening weekend' revenues when compared to movie blockbusters. It was surprising to hear that each of these totals can be in excess of $100 million! At the conclusion of the site visit, several trek participants, including myself, found ourselves to now be interested in possibly pursuing post-graduate careers within the gaming industry based on the energetic presentation that we had participated in!
After leaving Activision, we headed to Beverly Hills to visit MySpace, a Fox Interactive Media property, where we were given a tour of the facility and met with executives (including one Stern alum) from the Marketing and Business Development divisions. We learned about some of their current projects, heard about their upcoming office move which will include facilities that they say will rival Google's offices, and engaged in an interactive Q&A session. After the presentation, we headed to Universal CityWalk to network with Alumni and prospective students over appetizers and cocktails.
Day 3 of the Trek began with a visit to the Warner Brothers Studios lot in Burbank where we were able to observe a panel presentation in one of the screening rooms that the executives and employees use to view television and film projects in post-production. We heard from executives in the International Media & Planning, Distribution, Acquisitions, Business Development & Strategy and Home Video Divisions who all provided words of advice in these troubled economic times. In addition to describing the entertainment industry as one which requires a great deal of passion, one executive stressed to the audience, "Don't follow the ‘image' of a career, know the day-to-day realities when you are making a career decision." After the panel discussion, we participated in Q&A before leaving the studio lot. On the way out, I ran into a few of my favorite actors from the NBC show ‘Chuck' who were filming nearby.
is a member of the 
Be the first to comment on this article!