Who, What, Why: Third-year gets a taste of the film biz

With a goal of working on the business side of entertainment, third-year Bea Hammam is pursuing a double major in cinema studies and communications in the College of Arts & Sciences and a minor in consumer psychology. From Manhattan, she began making short films while in second grade, and the passion for cinema stuck. At Penn she’s been involved in student theater and film-related clubs, including Penn Players, Bent Button Productions, and the Wharton Undergraduate Media and Entertainment Club, and she has produced musicals, directed plays, and made short films. Last summer she took the Penn in Cannes course and attended the film festival in France.

This summer Hammam had a chance to live in Los Angeles while working at two internships in the entertainment industry at firms founded and managed by Penn alumni. “It was really great to be able to do both and get a look at very different sides of the industry,” she says. “I’ve did a lot of reading for one, and I wrote a lot for the other.”

The in-person internship in Los Angeles was with Hidden Pictures Media, a film production company founded by producer Todd Lieberman, a principal in the firm and a 1995 Penn graduate. The opportunity and financial support offered through the Arts and Entertainment Career Connections internship program with Penn Live Arts. Hammam was a development intern, reading scripts and writing summaries with her personal critiques. She also read first and second drafts of projects currently in development and wrote her critiques. Interns sat in on weekly staff meetings as well. “It was interesting to hear everything that’ was going on at the company, different bids for projects, or how to consider what kind of director to pair with actors,” she says.

The online internship was with Film Hub, a New York City-based film distribution firm co-founded Alan d'Escragnolle, chief executive officer and a 2011 Wharton graduate. The opportunity and financial support for that internship was through the summer internship program with the Cinema & Media Studies Department. Assigned to the marketing department, Hammam helped write posts for the company’s blog, as well as promote films in the collection. “It’s been very cool to observe a tech-forward media company,” she says.

“I knew when going into college, I was interested in entertainment,” Hammam says. At Penn film has become her chosen medium. “I have found so many films have deeply spoken to me as a person and changed my world view or have made me feel seen,” she says.

Hammam says the course Artist Representation: Talent Agencies, Artist Management & The Manager Producer's Job taught by visiting lecturer Randi Michel, a Penn alum, showed her “what the career path for the industry would look like.” The class also helped her to see her own strength as a connector, as someone who could work with a team to complete a project. “I really love working with creatives,” she says. “One of my favorite things about the industry is connecting people to projects and nurturing creative talent.”

The chance to have the two summer internships, with financial support from Penn, has given her a behind-the-scenes view of the film industry, Hammam says. Hidden Pictures was the “start to finish of the product,” and Film Hub was “more dealing with the end product and how to work with filmmakers,” she says. The two together were “a perfect mix of the process.” She says the opportunity to work in Los Angeles this summer was a “culture shift” from her East Coast life. Being immersed in the film industry “made me really excited to be involved in cinema.”

This fall, Hammam is headed to Prague for a semester of intensive courses in film production before returning to Penn in the spring to take more classes on the business of film. And next summer? She’s hoping for another Penn-sponsored internship, “within production or distribution or development, or a talent agency or management. Just to see what it’s like.”