The world over have seen the
airfield battle to capture the golden snitch in one of the most phenomenal
(recently) wrapped-up teen-wizard movie “Harry Potter.” In another
universe called Google campus where great thinkers converge to create something
new being featured in the movie “The Internship,” they have found a way
to reinvent the game of quidditch on ground.
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| Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox |
Starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, “The Internship” finds Nick (Owen
Wilson) and his partner Billy (Vince Vaughn), as two newly unemployed watch
salesman trying to find employment with a limited skill-set in a world that
appears to have passed them by.
“As salesmen they are incredibly good at what they do,” says director
Shawn Levy, “but the whole profession of selling in person, in an age where
most people are increasingly buying their goods on the Internet, is on the
wane. So they are downsized, suddenly unemployed, and Vince's character comes
up with this idea of applying for an internship at Google, a company that
represents the vanguard of the new economy. It's a long shot, but this
possibility of self-reinvention is exciting to Billy and Nick and they take
their shot.”
It required a certain amount of Googliness on the part of Levy and production
designer Tom Meyer to reimagine a world where innovation intersects with fun
and purpose. “We scouted Google a number of times. It's quirky,
idyllic, strange, and very specific,” says Levy. “But, it was clear to us
that there's no way the production could shoot at Google for an entire month
and a half, because they're an ongoing business. So we needed to find a
way to replicate Google in Atlanta, which I initially thought would be
impossible.”
But infrastructure alone does not a Google campus make. “When you go to Google,
the most important thing that you take away from it is its non-traditional
aspect and out of the box thinking,” says Meyer. “Google reps said to me
when I was trying to recreate it, ‘Do it, but keep the spirit of what Google is
about.’”
“For each one of the sets we did a photo-real illustration, or a model, or
both, then sent it off to Google, and had conversations back and forth,” adds
Meyer. “I tried to capture that feeling that you take away when you’re an
employee or visitor there. There’s a huge sense of playfulness. And
the idea of a healthy body and mind is central to Google.”
“This isn’t Owen and Vince being interns at Corporate Office Number
5. This is Google; this is Oz,” adds Meyer. “So, the film starts
off in the first act at a normal, almost retro-office environment, which we
call Kansas [as in the “Wizard of Oz” setting], our black and white
atmosphere. And then, when you go to Google, you hit those primary
colors, the clean glass, white walls, and wacky, crazy objects, which provided
a real sense of a pop and wonder.’”
Ultimately, “The Internship’s Googliness is that it’s not just about life
at Google. “It's about every one of us who'd like to believe that another
shot is possible,that another kind of chapter in the story of you is possible,”
says Levy. “I don't know anyone who doesn't relate to that; whether
you're 16, 22, or 40, we all want to believe that we can change our lives –
that it’s never too late. And so, the movie is really about possibility.”
In other words, we must dare to search. Billy and Nick remind us that the
best is yet to come, and that old dogs are capable of learning new
tricks. With guts, grit and Googliness, everyone has a chance. So,
dream big, dream again, dream some more. Because the world loves second
acts.
“The Internship” is released in theaters from 20th
Century Fox and distributed by Warner Bros.
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