Spring internship at Disney is senior's dream come true
Joshua Jeffery will be graduating from SUNY Fredonia this spring with a BFA degree in Theatre Design and Production/Scenic Design. He won’t be on hand to accept his diploma, however, because he’ll be in Orlando, Florida, finishing a six-month professional internship at
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"The office setting I'm in is wonderful and very creative," he said. "The days are a bit long and very busy, but never boring. I love coming to work."
One of the first to be selected for a professional internship program at Walt Disney Company, Josh is officially called a “Consumer Direct Sales Creative Services Intern." He is one of about 100 talented and diverse interns from all over the world who embarked on the new internship program this year.
He works with an elite team in Consumer Direct Sales, which is charged with collaboratively creating interactive design elements in Disney parks, resorts and venues. The team is comprised of five professionals—four of whom began their careers with Disney as college interns—including a graphic designer and a Flash animator. "Things I've done so far range from designing color-coded job aids for reservation takers, to helping with signage in parks and resorts, to a custom map made for Meg Crofton, the Walt Disney World Resort President," Josh said.
Josh, who began his internship on January 12, has wanted to work at Walt Disney World for as long as he can remember. His family traveled from their home in Rome, N.Y., to the Florida theme park every year when he was a kid. “There was something about it that was so fascinating to me,” he recalls. “I would look up at Cinderella’s Castle, for example, and think ‘How did they do that?’”
Involved in theatre and dance in high school, both as a performer and as a set designer, he became interested in Fredonia because of its strong BFA program in Production Design, which he says was much more specialized than theatre design programs at other schools. He believed the program would uniquely prepare him for his intended career as a Disney designer—or what the company calls an “Imagineer”—and, looking back, he says he was right.
“At Fredonia State, there’s a very strict process to follow when you’re designing,” Josh says. “That preparation gave me excellent insight into what it means to be a designer.”
The training he received in his courses at Fredonia provided him with a multi-faceted foundation of experience. His resume and self-designed Web site highlight the broad range and beauty of his skills, including scenic art and design (hand drafting, painting, foam carving, supersaturated and “deep color” mixing, stage carpentry and electrics), lighting design, costume design and digital media. Jeffery honed these skills through work on numerous productions at SUNY Fredonia’s Marvel and Bartlett Theatres, the 1891 Fredonia Opera House, and summer internships at both the Utah Shakespearean Festival and the Mt. Washington Valley Theatre Co.
Along the way, members of the design faculty at Fredonia have been extremely supportive in helping Josh meet his goals. For example, in his sophomore year he was given the opportunity to work on a design project with faculty member Ted Sharon. The project involved a script that Sharon was developing in collaboration with Lisa Webster, a friend of Professor Sharon’s who was senior story developer for animation at Walt Disney Company. Theatre Department Chairman Steve Rees has offered invaluable support, as well. “He even made it possible for me to earn 15 credit hours from my Disney internship so that I can graduate on time,” Josh said.
“In fact, if it wasn’t for them,” he adds, “I probably wouldn’t be able to do this internship.”
The May graduate will complete his Disney internship on June 15. From there, he wants to pursue a master's degree in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The draw: that program offers a summer internship with Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc. in southern California.
