Eren Joyce, a 2022 Television Academy Foundation summer intern, is working in Development for Children’s Programming at Jim Henson Studios in Los Angeles.
“I’m assisting their development team for the children’s programming,” they said. “Development is basically everything you need to do to take a concept and make an actual TV show out of it.”Ideas are sketched, outlines are written, characters are designed and fleshed out and then the ideas are pitched to networks streaming services in the hopes the idea gets funded and leads to an actual show, they explained.“It’s kind of a fancy book report.
“Henson does a wide variety of ages,” they said. “A lot of what people probably know of them right now is they’ve done a lot of cool preschool shows. But they also have a prime-time television department for older shows that I also help out with whenever they need me.”Joyce applied in January for this internship on an adviser’s recommendation. There was a lot of paperwork plus an artists’ statement on what they liked about television and what they hoped to contribute to it and accomplish.
“They asked me if I would like to accept it and I said yes immediately. And here I am, in Los Angeles,” they said.“I’m so passionate about storytelling,” they said. “Storytelling has always been such a big part of my life. I was a huge reader as a kid. I’ve bonded over TV shows with my parents and my little brother. When I figured out entertainment is storytelling as a career, that’s what I wanted to do.