Hello, my name is Carly Armen. I am a current intern at the Greater Cleveland Film Commission for the summer of 2019. I recently graduated from Columbia College Chicago, with a major in Arts Management. I just moved back to Cleveland from Chicago six months ago, and I am excited to learn more about the arts community in the town that I grew up in. I live in Cleveland Heights right now in Coventry and am currently working at Playhouse Square and at the Lee Road library.
I studied film business in college because I knew that I wanted to be involved in arts and entertainment, but I wanted to do something more aligned with my skills. I’m a creative person but I am mostly interested in the production side of film, which involves more logistical knowledge than being an actor or a writer. I grew up watching so many movies and my favorite genres are definitely fantasy, mystery/thriller, and I have a soft spot for British movies. My favorite movies include A Room with a View, the Lord of the Rings series, Amelie, The Usual Suspects, and a small Irish movie called Waking Ned Divine. I haven’t been watching much film lately though because of all the amazing television shows recently premiering. Currently, I am watching The Magicians, Killing Eve, and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
I wanted to intern at the GCFC because I wanted to see exactly how movies are brought to Cleveland and I wanted to see the beginnings of production. I also wanted to intern here because it’s nonprofit. I really do love the community of Cleveland and I want to see it thrive, especially in the arts. I like the idea of bringing work back to Cleveland through film and getting Cleveland exposure in the process because I feel like everyone outside Cleveland doesn’t know how cool of a city it is. I hope to gain a lot of practical knowledge out of this internship about working for a nonprofit arts organization, and I’m excited that location scouting is part of the internship. It is an area I never really focused on in my film classes at Columbia and I would love to see how to scout locations and what Cleveland has to offer filmmakers. Hopefully, I could become a location assistant!
I really don’t know exactly what I want to do with my career. I know I want to stay in the arts and I want my career to be purposefully helping the community that I’m living in. I do think I want to get my master’s degree, possibly in Arts Administration. I’m only 23 though, so I’m looking forward to where life leads me and I’m going to try not to stress myself out about it too much.