What Working at Small Agencies Taught Me About Making It Big

By Maura Consedine, External Communications Specialist at Disney Experiences

For anyone who dreams of moving to Los Angeles and working in the entertainment industry, that dream is often attached to a particular studio or company, usually one of the major players like the “Big Five” – Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and the Walt Disney Studios. These historical institutions are pillars of the film and television industry, having existed for decades and continuing to dominate this space with hundreds of releases each year. 

For many people, it feels like you’ve truly made it when you get to spend your days walking around iconic studio lots and working on projects that have noticeable cultural impact or name recognition, all things that the above employers can provide. However, I think it is a necessary reminder that there are plenty of folks out there who don’t land the “dream job” right away, and spend a fair portion of their career working towards this moment. My desire to move to LA was very specifically driven by my goal of working for Disney, but this certainly did not happen overnight for me.

The Internship Dilemma

Internships are an incredible gateway to the entertainment industry, if you’re lucky enough to secure one. Most of the major companies have very thoughtfully structured programs designed to give students an immersive look into this world, while hopefully opening the door to full-time assistant opportunities down the road. I had started applying for intern roles at Disney and other studios the moment I became eligible as a sophomore, and remember feeling so discouraged and confused as to how my peers seemed to be landing internships with my dream companies when I could rarely get an interview. 

As someone with essentially no industry connections, this felt like the best, and maybe only, way to get my foot in the door, so it seemed like it was now or never. The rejection was hard, but pushed me to think more creatively about how to break in. As a PR major who wanted to pursue publicity and communications, it became clear that in order to start gaining relevant experience that would make me a compelling candidate, I needed to create opportunities for myself – resulting in hours of research and outreach that led me down the boutique agency path.

When Hustle Meets Opportunity

I still knew my goal was to eventually go in-house at a studio, ideally Disney, but recognized that in this early stage of my career I needed to prioritize the foundational skill and knowledge building in my field. For those looking to pursue something like PR, comms, marketing, or advertising, there is no better place to gain these critical introductory skills and knowledge, in my opinion, than a boutique agency.

These smaller, specialized agencies typically focus on a particular niche and offer an array of customized services depending on the client. Knowing this, I identified my primary interests as food & beverage and entertainment, and began searching for agencies that worked with these types of clients. My strategy was to send my resume and a personalized note to each place I found if I had an interest in joining their team rather than waiting for an actual job posting, and this is basically how I wound up getting all three of my internships. Back to the creating opportunities for yourself mindset – be proactive and fearless when it comes to putting yourself out there! 

Start Small, Learn Big

I started my agency journey in the food & beverage and hospitality world, doing PR and social media for chefs, restaurants and other businesses mainly in the Denver area. As a college student in NYC, I then had the incredible opportunity to spend almost two years at a theatrical agency working with clients in the Broadway and live entertainment realm. 

I can say with 100% certainty that without these experiences, I would not have landed my jobs at CAA or Disney. I found that I was more likely to be trusted with meaningful, substantive work when I was a part of smaller teams, rather than falling victim to the machine of a large company’s formal, rigid internship program or entry-level hierarchy. Soon into all of my roles, I was writing press releases, pitching media, and working junkets or other events. At my very first red carpet with an agency, I somehow found myself interviewing talent on the press line, a responsibility I likely would have never been considered for in other environments! I also had direct access to my team and our clients, and this visibility made me feel like I was always in the know and could truly do my job to the best of my ability, never feeling excluded or dismissed because of my entry-level status. 

At a small agency, you learn to be scrappy and resourceful, skills that continue to serve me well. You learn to wear a million hats and juggle a ton of plates, which helped me to develop an incredibly diverse set of skills and interests. You learn to tell stories for different audiences in creative ways and fiercely advocate for your clients, which I find both fun and challenging. So much of publicity is people-focused, which means it can be quite an unpredictable field and you can really only learn in real-world, hands-on situations. I was constantly being given chances to say “yes” and jump in on tasks that helped me truly understand this line of work and grow rapidly as I was just starting my career. These experiences to me were an absolute masterclass in PR, and ultimately positioned me perfectly for my job at Disney, as I had a full portfolio of work and experience to show for myself. 

All of this to say – an internship with a studio is not the end all be all, and the boutique agency route is a really effective way to get your footing in the industry, even if it might seem less glamorous at first. Once I realized the value of true experience versus name recognition on my resume, it felt so freeing – this is honestly when I accomplished some of the things I’m most proud of, got to be a part of the best teams, and solidified for me that I was on the right path. Now as a communications specialist at Disney, I often reflect on the lessons I learned in agency life and know those roles are what set me up for success.