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Promo Pathway’s second cohort of 25 students—all armed with the skills and experience to head straight to work in the entertainment marketing industry, finish their four-year degrees or pursue whatever else their dreams could concoct—graduated on Thursday, Sept. 19.
Promo Pathway is a program that PromaxBDA has conducted since 2011 in partnership with Santa Monica College (SMC) and South Bay Center for Counseling (SBCC) to train and educate students in the entertainment marketing industry’s best skills and practices, including everything from script-writing, audio and video editing, and professionalism.
When the one year program came to a close, students who initially didn’t even know what a promo was had created professional-quality reels to show to potential employers. The students got that chance the next day, during a Creative Review held for all industry comers at Santa Monica College. The Creative Review operates like a cross between casual job interviews and speed-dating, with industry executives sitting down with whatever student they choose to talk, grab business cards and resumes, and watch reels on the students’ laptops.
“They have supported us from the beginning,” says Dina Hiramanek, one of the program’s recent graduates, who interned at NBCUniversal’s Style Network. “They told us: We’re going to build you up, we’re going to give you the tools and then we are going to connect you.”
The graduation ceremony, held on the Fox lot, was both the culmination of a year of hard work, as well as a new beginning for the students.
“No mistakes in art, only lessons”
As valedictorian Jonathan Lopez told the class: “Every day is a blank canvas for you to start fresh. Life is a painting, painted one layer at a time. We are armed with the knowledge and foundation of every layer that came before it. So instead of saying start over at every milestone in your life, we should be saying there are no mistakes in art, only lessons.”
Some members of this year’s graduating class—which includes military veterans and people working full-time jobs—already work in the industry, while other students plan to enter four-year universities and finish their degrees. Several students started the program thinking they wanted to do one thing, and finished concluding they really wanted to do another.
“I will probably work in news, producing, writing and editing, and I feel like Promo Pathway played a huge part in that,” said Franklin De Paz, who is interning at Warner Bros. De Paz was planning to be a social worker when he entered the program, but “[news is now] what I see myself doing.”
He also plans to finish his four-year degree, pursue a few more internships and travel before settling on any one thing.
While some of the program’s graduates take their new-found knowledge and experience in a different direction, some head right into the industry, including Antonio Benitez, who finished the program in December 2011 and now is a writer and producer at Lifetime Networks.
When Benitez applied for Promo Pathway, he was working at Fox’s KTTV Los Angeles as a promo scheduler. While he was working in the right department, he wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted to be doing. When he got the information about Promo Pathway, he thought “What do I have to lose?”
Benitez got into the competitive program and then had to make a decision: Keep his job in a TV station’s promo department, which had him on the right track, or take a chance on Promo Pathway. He chose the latter.
“Something told me to go for it,” he told this year’s graduating class from the podium. “I knew that if I was going to get where I wanted to go, I was going to have to go through Promo Pathway. I made the right decision and it was totally worth it.”
Getting Paid to be Creative
The graduates also were encouraged by keynote speaker Kent Rees, executive VP of marketing, scheduling and operations at Pivot, Participant Media’s new cable network aimed at Millennials.
“There’s a three-letter word essential to leading a satisfying and successful life, Rees said. “It has an S and an E in the middle and that word my friends is YES. Y-E-S.”
Very early in Rees’ career, he dreamed of being “the next Quentin Tarantino or Coen brother,” he told the audience. “Looking around at my peers who were ready to spend the next ten years of their lives in quiet desperation, I decided to worry less about my dreams and more about my goals.”
“Dreams have the power to get us out of bed in the morning, but I think it’s goals that have the power to get us through the day. My dream became to get paid to be creative, and guided my focus in everything I did.”
Rees exhorted the class to say yes: say yes to opportunities, yes to bosses and yes to hard work.
“There are execs out there who shall remain nameless … who have never done, not even once, what you now know how to do.
“Those people will stand over you and your work and say no. No, this is not what this show is, this is not what we are trying to do, or even worse, no, you are not the person we are looking to hire to work for our incredible important television network. And there will be sorrow and dismay when what you have worked so hard to communicate is shot down without a second thought
“But there’s a really good way to mess with their heads: say yes. Yes, we can try that; yes, that might work and I have some ideas on how to do that.
“Then, get the ultimate revenge,” said Rees. “Make their ideas better. Find a way to say yes to the process.”
Promo Pathway’s third cohort launches in June 2014.
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