Job Shadowing for American Idol

Such a great experience!

What an awesome attraction. I wish everyone could do it!

What an amazing day! This morning, I woke up pretty excited to start the day. About two weeks ago, I approached one of my leaders about possibly doing some job shadowing in a theater or venue at Hollywood Studios to finish my internship. He had some really good connections with a friend who is the executive producer at American Idol and was able to set-up a day of shadowing for today. During my shadow, I was able to watch the audition process from beginning to end. I began watching the casting director, then the screening room, and finally the producer. I was able to sit in for auditions and was almost always correct about the choices that the producers made about each contestant! After a while in the audition process, I was moved over to the actual production stage and process. I shadowed the stage manager, techs, backstage manager, and vocal coach. I was even able to sit in on a session of vocal coaching for each contestant in the 1:00pm show! The coach was very helpful and knowledgeable about manipulation for each song. He was awesome to talk to and had alot of information about the music business scene in Orlando. Everyone I met was extremely nice and very generous in giving advice to me about how to get where I want to go at Disney. Most of them even remembered me when I performed in January on the stage! I was a little shocked, to say the least. I was able to get the executive producer's card with his email and number on it. He is an excellent contact and was very enthusiastic about wanting to help in any way he can.

On another note, while I was exercising on the treadmill today, I received a call from the head of Photopass at Hollywood Studios (he used to be a big producer in entertainment at Magic Kingdom for 15 years). After catching my breath for a few minutes, he wanted to ask me to do a favor for him and the Photopass/American Idol team. He expressed that American Idol enjoyed my presence in their venue during the day and approached Photopass about putting together a promotional package for the two teams. My area manager called me to ask if I would be willing to be the model for the promotional package! Since they already have all of the photos from when I performed in January, they will just need to document the audition process with photos and possibly a video of me singing. I was shocked! I felt very honored that they thought of me for something like this. He informed me that he appreciated my hard work, and he could tell that I am attempting to do everything I can to get where I want to go. I will be leaving work a little early on Friday to change and get ready for the shoot around 2:45 or 3pm. To be the face of the American Idol promotional package! Wow!