Penny Alegria, Class of 2024: Film & Management

My first memory is a story: curling my long legs into my chest, ear to the pillow, as I watched my father tell me something interesting. He didn’t need a children's picture book to tell me a bedtime story. At night, my dad simply sat at my bedside, closed his eyes, and made up stories of the trouble that he and his childhood friends would stir up around the neighborhood. This nightly improvisation would shape both my personal and professional aspirations. I have already begun to explore my creative passions at Harvard: in poetry and screenwriting classes, through courses on literary theory, and throughout my English concentration, which I hope will foster a creative senior thesis. I have done all that I can to explore the creative world of words in the English department during the school year, and this summer, I got to take my artistic and professional interests a step further in my Map Point Management summer internship.

Map Point Management is a literary management company that primarily focuses on cultivating the careers of screenwriters and TV/film creators. My responsibilities as an intern there used the foundation of knowledge and skills that I have learned in the English department. One of these skills was to provide script coverage, which required me to analyze scripts and recommend viable projects for Map Point Management to support. Another responsibility of mine was to research past and present articles, podcasts, and novels that could be turned into a TV series or feature film. Inspired by the source material, I brainstormed characters, settings, plots, and subplots that I then pitch to managers and clients alike. If my supervisor was interested in my ideas, I would spend another week fleshing out the world I had created. The third and final internship responsibility was research. I conducted market research primarily: looking at the shows being released, as well as broader themes in creative projects being picked up by studios. I also researched historical figures that Map Point Management wanted to develop into fictional characters.

Ultimately, my internship at Map Point Management allowed me to learn skills beyond the scope of English department courses. I read screenplays, plays, and novels on a regular basis, and I learned from aspiring writers not only what makes a good story, but also what is viable in the marketplace. Above all, I learned about the economy of creativity. Having a good story is not enough. An author must be able to pitch, edit, and produce an idea in order for it to come to life on the screen. Map Point Management gave me a deeper understanding of the TV and film industry that complemented what I have learned from the English Department’s coursework.