Between Immersive and Internship

Posted by Jarrod Valentine on May 25, 2017

After 3 months in the Galvanize Data Science Immersive and 3 months in full-time job search mode, I landed myself an internship! It took over 100 applications, a lot of practice, and patience, but I was offered a data internship with Fandor. As a film and data-nerd, I am super excited!

Fandor

Fandor is a filmstreaming service similar to other services (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc.) but their content focuses on more obscure titles. Indie, art-house, experimental, shorts, animated, foreign, and more types of films that tend to be difficult to find other places (where have all my local video stores gone?). I love their selection, and their genres and sub-genres are so wonderfully specific. If you want an extraterrestrial invasion sci-fi or a conspiracy suspense film, Fandor is the place to go.

What I'm especially excited about, and what the company is expanding (yay!), is the editorial and original content. I love reading film criticism and they also have some excellent video essays on different directors, actors, genres, and cinematography techniques. The editorial and original content is available to everyone, which I think is a great way to attract new users to the subscription film streaming service.

Part of applying to Fandor involved coming up with the project I would like to work on for the summer. I had two ideas:

  • A recommendation engine to help suggest movies to users
  • An analysis of films, actors, and directors mentioned in the editorial and original content to measure the lift in user engagement
We'll see which one I end up going with. Either way, I am excited to be spending my summer nerding-out about film and data!