di Carolina Giannessi
We have had the pleasure to interview Andrea Zannetti, a former Bocconi student who now works in Los Angeles, in the movie industry, and is a perfect example of a successful career both in university and work. He attended the course Cleacc, which is the acronym for economics and management for art, culture and communication. Subsequently, the interview:
Let’s recall a little bit your studying career, in particular the year you spent at the UCLA.
A professor put me in contact with a Bocconi Alumni who attended a master at USC and highly recommended me to attend a course called Business and Management of entertainment at the UCLA. The course is great, I highly recommend it, you can see the difference. Everything is very professional, the teachers are great. This gave me also practical knowledge, all the professors work in this business, so they really now how everything actually works. This course gives you the possibility to make the application for the OPT(optical practical training) the Visa that allows you to stay and work for one year. Now it’s harder to get this visa because of the actual political situation, so many studios don’t really accept foreign people.
What about your experience with Studiocanal in London?
Studiocanal has three offices in Europe (Berlin, London and Paris) and one in Sydney and in New Zealand. In London, in addition to distribution, there is also a part of production, for example the movies “Paddington”and “Legend”were produced and distributed by the London arm of Studiocanal. I was able to got this internship through Bocconi. It’s a very international environment. This experience made me realize that I definitely wanted to work in this business. This was a very useful experience also when it comes to networking, thanks to the Head of Theatrical distribution of Studiocanal, who is now the Managing Director of Real D and I was able to connect with the Vice President of creative international marketing of Sony here in Los Angeles, who helped me a lot. Here I worked for the marketing department, promoting in particular the new movies produced by Studiocanal.
Tell me about your experience in the acting studio in LA.
This was a very interesting experience. The person I worked for really believes in the international diversity, so it is not only for Americans, there are for example a lot of contacts with Russia. He wanted to create a partnership with Airbnb, in his studio he wanted to take international tourists to show them what does it mean to act and to work in Hollywood. Six months earlier he got rejected and couldn’t apply until December. Then in December, with my help on this project, he got approved. The project officially started in January. We’ve been contacted by China to promote the Hollywood cinema experience for Chinese people . He is very curious about other countries and cultures. In this job I also worked for the social media marketing. I created Instagram TV, which is useful because with it you can make a video long as you want and at the same time it is the only way, if you don’t have more than 10k followers, to put the link inside the post. He made these lessons every week about a different topic and we put a link that directly connected to Groupon, Airbnb and all the companies he worked with and to the page of the studio. What’s more, with instagram TV you con directly connect it with an Instagram story where we used to put an introduction of the video. I also worked on the graphic design for the posts. Instagram is the core market for this company, but I also posted on Facebook and Twitter.
You also worked for a film production company.
This job was very different from my previous, it was more focused on the material, like the scripts. Mauro Borrelli, an Italian director, is the founder of this company. He worked as a concept designer with many important directors such as Tim Burton, he worked for his movie “Sleepy Hollow”, even for “Pirates of the Caribbean”, where some of the scenes were created by him. Basically he had the creative visual idea on how the scenes should be shot and he painted them in order to give the directors the visual idea on how to shoot them. He worked also in “Star Wars” and in the last 2-3 years he created his own company . He did his first movie with Wesley Snipes and now he’s working on a lot of material. Now he is in talks with various actors such as Mel Gibson and Schwarzenegger for a movie. What I did here was make coverage, so to evaluate the scripts with their strengths and weaknesses, to give notes and to change the script when necessary. In addition to this, I assisted him during the events and meetings with potential investors, such as a meeting with an important woman who gave us the possibility to make contacts with Alibaba. He’s also working in the remake of “Pinocchio” in China. He’s invited to various important events, such as an event of the Universal dedicated to the movie “First man”, where we had the chance to meet Damien Chazelle and Ryan Gosling. Networking is fundamental here in Hollywood to have a job, the business is mostly based on relations between people , even a great business could be finished at the restaurant during a dinner. What’s great here in the US is that everybody is constantly reinventing themselves, changing job every one or two years, changing both company and working field.
So we have now arrived to your last job, a job you’ve started a few days ago.
I’ve just begun my first full time position. I was very surprised to be chosen, because it’s very difficult for a foreigner to remain here. I’m working as a marketing coordinator and this company collaborates every day with the studios, because it rents and sells technical materials to shoot movies, like cameras. This company collaborates everyday with the studios and independent filmmakers as well and it is the second greatest company in the United States in this sector. I’m working on the marketing and the event planning for the events organized with the members of the entertainment industry to promote the company. I also work on both the digital and the physical marketing, posting on social media and maintaining and finding contact with costumers.
Articles written by the various members of our team.
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Colombo Paola
Che bravooo… Complimenti. PAOLA COLOMBO