This summer, I had the pleasure of doing my summer internship at Expressed Entertainment. As a communications major, I'm still undecided on what I exactly want to do in the communications field. But this helped open up some possibilities for me. Throughout the six weeks, I was there, I learned about filming, photography, creative writing, spoken word, and music production.

I met a bunch of interesting and awesome people, who were as excited about working at EXE as I am. Yes, I felt a little awkward being the only college student interning there with some high school kids; but we all worked together like a well-oiled machine.

Throughout the six weeks I was at EXE, we had several group and individual projects from writing poems, filming mini skits, making a storyboard, editing footage on Adobe Premiere Pro CC, and writing scripts.

1. Canvas Poem

We each recited a poem that one of our supervisors wrote, and we made a video of us reciting it. We practiced our lines, and we had to make sure we emphasized what we were saying.

2. "Express Yourself"

We filmed a video about how teens can express themselves. Answering questions like: "What does it mean to express yourself?", "What happens if you don't properly express yourself?", and "What ways can you express yourself?". We joined forces with students from OTC (Occupational Training Center) Buffalo Public School #42. Then we learned that special needs kids express their selves the same way that anyone else would.

3. "Another Life Taken" Mini Movie

We brainstormed ideas for our group project. At first, we planned to do a police brutality awareness video, in spite of the deaths that happened in July with Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. But instead, we decided to do it on violence that goes on in society.

4. EXE Jr. Commercial

One of our last projects was to do a commercial to promote the EXE Jr. Program. We wrote a song and made a track that was COMPLETELY acapella. Then we recorded everything. It turned out pretty awesome for some people that had no music experience. Then we filmed some footage of us working on different things, whether it was behind the sound board, in the sound booth, recording footage, editing footage, or going over ideas.

Working at EXE gave me the experience to try filming, videography, and script writing and bring the experience to my school for some of my classes and hopefully to the TV studio!

If you're in the Western New York area and know someone in grades 7-12 I suggest you enroll them in the EXE Jr. Summer Youth Program for 2017!

Check out http://exejr.com/