Career Spotlight: Allyson Philobos ’14
Class of '14 student Allyson Philobos discusses her internship at 20th Century Fox and Indian Paintbrush and gives advice to current King's students.
Home State: California
Current Residence: New York
Current Employer: Literary Intern for 20th Century Fox and Development Intern for Indian Paintbrush
Brief description of your responsibilities: For 20th Century Fox, I write up two daily memos about news in the industry relevant to the Literary Department, where we primarily research books and articles that can be adapted to film format. I’m also assigned to read 2-3 published and unpublished manuscripts per week to verbally pitch to my superiors. For Indian Paintbrush, I write up a daily memo about important industry news, convertible content, and relevant book, article, blog and film reviews for the executive staff to evaluate. I also assigned to read and write coverage for different mediums of reading material every week, including scripts, books, plays, articles, blogs and writer’s samples.
Relevant past employer/position: Development & Production Intern for DiGa Vision, Development Intern for Atlantic Pictures, Operations Intern for Focus Features, Research Intern for David Lapp, Communications Intern for the National September 11th Memorial & Museum.
Brief description of your responsibilities: Throughout all of the internships I’ve had in my time as a student at King’s, I’ve pitched television show ideas to executives, helped write a marketing plan for a high-profile Focus Features release, learned to verbally pitch books I’ve read for 20th Century Fox, interviewed survivors of 9/11, and organized and researched hundreds of pages of interviews about middle American family structure.
How did King’s education help and prepare you to succeed? I love that my education isn’t limited to one major. Whenever I have to explain my MCA major (which, lets be real, is all the time) I often compare it to something like a Cultural Anthropology/ English/ Creative Writing major because we learn so much more than the typical student, who is technically proficient and prepared in just one thing they choose to major in. Also, the professors we have at this school are amazing and we’re lucky to actually learn from them and all of their real-world experience they bring to the classroom.
What recommendations do you have for current King’s students? Make connections in whatever industry you are planning on joining now, don’t wait until after you graduate. Living in the middle of New York City at this age is an unbelievable opportunity. Make it count.
Favorite Books:Life After God by Douglas Coupland, The Year of Magical Thinking & Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion, How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
Favorite Music: Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, Neutral Milk Hotel, The National, Grizzly Bear, The Black Keys, The Antlers, Eagles, Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon.