At a time when emerging creatives face increasing barriers to entry, Made in the West Creative has been quietly building meaningful pathways into the arts and cultural sector. Since 2020, we’ve supported nearly 20 interns across a range of structured programs, offering real-world experience that aligns education with professional practice.
Delivered in partnership with Made in the West Film Festival and supported by Western Sydney University, our internship offerings span Event Management, Publicity, Marketing, Production, and Content Management and Curation. Each program is designed to support emerging talent while contributing directly to the delivery and sustainability of our festival and broader creative work.
In an industry where experience often outweighs formal qualifications, our internships are built to bridge the gap between study and employment — providing practical skills, professional context, and tangible outcomes for both interns and our organisation.
Content Management & Curation: A Case Study
Our 2024–25 Content Management and Curation Internship series is a strong example of how internships can deliver genuine learning outcomes while addressing real organisational needs.
Seven interns — Lujayne, Isabella, Diana, Calvin, Jasmin, Mia and Tully — worked with the Made in the West Film Festival archive, transforming ten years of finalist films into a structured, searchable and accessible digital library.
Delivered through a mix of in-person and online workshops between February 2024 and January 2025, the program introduced interns to five core skill areas essential to contemporary arts organisations.
Digital Archiving & Data Management
Interns began by learning the fundamentals of digital organisation: file structures, naming conventions, metadata, and long-term archiving practices. Working with large volumes of film content, they developed systems that ensure assets remain accessible, discoverable and usable over time.
These skills mirror those used across festivals, museums, galleries and broadcasters — making them highly transferable across the creative sector.
Classification & Cultural Context
A key component of the program focused on film classification and genre frameworks. Interns explored how categorisation shapes audience expectations, programming decisions and cultural interpretation, while also recognising the subjectivity involved in curatorial practice.
This training connected academic theory with real-world application, particularly benefiting interns studying film, media and cultural analysis.
Insight & Program Strategy
Using the classifications and metadata they had applied, interns analysed trends within their assigned festival year, then expanded this work to identify patterns across multiple years of Made in the West Film Festival content. This analysis helped interns understand how archives can inform future programming, audience development and strategic decision-making.
Several interns extended this work by researching potential future screening opportunities, including regional tour stops and independent cinemas — insights that have since informed ongoing research and broader conversations about how festival content can be activated beyond its flagship annual event.
Editing & Creative Decision-Making
Interns received hands-on training in video editing workflows and promotional storytelling. Beyond technical proficiency, the focus was on developing editorial judgement — understanding pacing, narrative clarity and the impact of creative choices.
This emphasis on critical analysis helped interns move confidently between technical execution and creative evaluation. All of them came away with a much greater understanding of the editing process.
Promotional Content & Applied Outcomes
The program culminated in the creation of promotional reels highlighting annual festival content. This final project brought together all skills developed throughout the internship — asset management, content selection, trend analysis, video editing and voiceover scripting.
The outcome was twofold: interns produced portfolio-ready work, and the festival gained new perspectives on our promotional assets. It’s a model that ensures learning outcomes and organisational impact go hand in hand.
Designing Change Through Creative Internships
At Made in the West Creative, we see internships as more than entry-level experiences — they are a form of systems design. When thoughtfully structured, internships become a practical tool for addressing long-standing inequities in access, training and professional networks across the creative industries.
As a Western Sydney–based social enterprise, our responsibility extends beyond delivering projects. We are committed to building pathways that keep skills, knowledge and opportunity within the communities where creative talent already exists. By investing in mentorship, ethical engagement and real responsibility, we help emerging creatives develop not only technical capability, but professional confidence and industry fluency.
This place-based approach ensures that creative careers are not dependent on proximity to traditional cultural centres, but on access to meaningful experience and support. When emerging arts workers can build sustainable careers in Western Sydney, the entire creative ecosystem becomes more diverse, resilient and representative.
Work With Us
We welcome conversations with arts organisations, cultural institutions and education partners interested in developing internship programs that deliver both social impact and professional outcomes. Whether your organisation is managing digital archives, producing events, or building future-focused creative capacity, Made in the West Creative brings proven experience in designing internships that serve people, place and purpose.
Together, we can strengthen the next generation of creative professionals — while building a more equitable and sustainable arts sector.
