Final Job Memo

I interned this past summer at Sony Pictures Entertainment, the home to so much theatrical history. I worked within the Motion Picture Finance Group. This is the core group of financial analysts that forecast and report everything passed up the chain of the other finance groups in the company, corporate, production, and distribution. 

I came into this position with my passions for both film and finance slightly separated. I loved films, the start to finish from the idea of a movie to the film moving around to different streaming platforms. My academic passions have always been financing and mathematical learning based. Figuring out I can combine the two, work in the industry I love all while performing tasks that intrigue me. It is almost like this position was made for me. It was nothing but fascinating to learn how to practically apply what I have learned in the classroom. Finance in a classroom and finance in films seemed like different languages. Like how Spanish and English use the same alphabet, but they ultimately lead to different words and sentences, that is how my tasks seemed to me at the beginning. I recognized formulas and the big why when I was doing certain tasks. I had a clear view of how financial and accounting tools are utilized to tell us how we can make the most money from a movie, while making sure everything is properly paid and accounted for. This position gave me a larger life perspective of playing connect the dots with everything I know. 

Here are the broken-down aspects of my job, so you can better understand the day to day of being a financial analyst intern.

• Curiosity 
• Problem solving
• Ownership of Responsibility

Curiosity

The technical skills needed for a job as a financial analyst always overshadow what is one of the most essential skills needed every day, curiosity. When forecasting, the idea is, let us compare our movie to things it is like so we can figure out how well it will perform, you need an eye and a drive to find similarities and differences. Being able to efficiently cross reference and cross-check well over thirty different Excel files for upwards of hundreds of movies requires a desire to want to know more. I am a firm believer that if you do not have a burning want to know more about a movie that was filmed in England, confirming and submitting its spot currency rate, maybe you do not have the curiosity to carry you through a career of this capacity. This ability to want to know more has not only helped me excel in this role but also allowed me to experience so many different opportunities to its highest virtue. We learn at a higher rate with the more we explore and with the more questions we ask. One piece of advice my manager told me that dramatically changed the way I approach tasks, is that she would rather I ask questions to shorten work time rather than spend way too long on something that can be fixed with a simple clarification. Curiosity is how you excel far in what you do.

Problem solving

Much of my time was spent working on the spot currency rates of all our films in production. Typically, this task was generating a report and ensuring it has been paid out and each payment rate populates on the report. However, I ran into a difficulty that I thank the gene of curiosity for uncovering. Usually, if something is in the past month, not the one I am looking at, it should automatically show it is paid out. I noticed that in many of the films, there was money missing, some things were not being paid. I was very close to thinking I pressed the button and somehow deleted millions of dollars from our records, but instead of immediately blaming myself, I flagged it and went into the back records to see if anything showed up there. With the grace of double-checking, it was there and just needed manual input. After a lengthy talk with my manager, she confirmed exactly what I saw and the solution I thought we needed. I am grateful for my ability to move forward and have patience in figuring out what the problem was. This changed my task slightly as I had to input numbers myself. However, it allowed for programming issues to be found and soon fixed for the future completion of this task, ensuring all future reports are met with efficiency.

Ownership of Responsibility 

I was the only intern for this team, the first one they have had since 2019, the pre-Covid era. The navigation that we all went through together was riveting. As it was a team consisting of nine people, my tasks varied day to day since I got the opportunity to collaborate with everyone and learn what their contribution to Sony’s Motion Picture Finance was like. Every day I got the opportunity to deliver our Monday morning meeting report. With every film we had released in theaters, I compiled a report of the daily changes in the box office, how it compared to what we forecasted, what changes we needed to make to the ultimate percentage (the total box office revenue after two months), and what competitors are in theaters that could take away from our revenue. This was a very daunting task during my first couple weeks, however, it soon turned out to be my favorite thing to do and put together. It required more than just pulling reports properly, I needed to confidently provide insights on the film's performance and ask questions to do the best we could.

My time as an analyst for the Motion Picture Group has forever solidified my love and passion for the career, I want for myself. Interning and getting a glimpse into what my day-to-day life would look like was nothing short of a jump of excitement. It required drive, passion, and a willingness to explore and ask questions. These skills are so transferable to any career, and any role, however, in my industry, it is a baseline to prosper and get results that match your efforts. 

Passive Sentences: 6%

Flesch Reading Ease: 56

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11