By Damian Cristodero
By his own admission, Nathan Garduno was terrified.
Here he was, two weeks into his summer internship at Southwest Airlines, and the film and video studies major at George Mason University was alone on assignment.
“I literally had no clue what to expect,” the rising senior said. “I’d never filmed at an airport. I didn’t know the rules, so all the descriptions and stuff they gave me didn’t help at all.”
Not that he needed any as his 1-minute, 32-second video—“Herb From the Curb,” about Herb Watts, the friendly Southwest skycap in San Antonio, which he shot and edited, drew raves.
“A great video,” said Ashlee Duncan, a multimedia specialist at the airline. “It went over really well internally.”
That kind of praise is the norm for Garduno. From working three semesters in George Mason’s Creative Services department, to shooting weddings for SkipperFilms in Centreville, Va., to making short films for his website (nathangarduno.com), the Tacoma, Wash., native is building a body of work that will be a career launching pad.
But it is the Dallas-based Southwest internship, which gave Garduno the opportunity to work in Denver, Las Vegas and Atlanta, that will be “on top of my resume.”
“I did a lot of camera operation and was the eyes for lots of projects,” he added. “It gave my voice to a visual aspect, which is what I did at school.”
Rising senior Nathan Garduno, majoring in film and video studies, is pictured during his internship with Southwest Airlines in Dallas, Texas. Photo courtesy of Nathan Garduno
In fact, Garduno said, “I took a lot from my George Mason marketing job. I treated these projects like personal stories.”
A Mason friendship led to the Southwest gig.
As a freshman, Garduno’s film work caught the eye of Duncan, who asked Garduno to work on her senior project. They kept in touch through Facebook, and when Southwest advertised an internship, Duncan, working for the airline, notified Garduno.
“He has a natural eye,” Duncan said. “I grew up around photography and that is something I was exposed to and recognize.”
“He knows what looks good,” said Billy Skipper, owner of SkipperFilms, which for two years has used Garduno to shoot weddings, and corporate commercials and is where Garduno will intern as a senior. “He truly loves shooting and editing and everything about film. It’s one of those things you can’t teach or learn.”
Actually, Garduno learned to love film and video.
In high school, at the Tacoma School for the Arts, Garduno videoed himself dancing—modern, tap and hip-hop, which he said he also taught for six years.
“I filmed myself dancing and realized there’s a lot more I want to express, not just dancing,” he said. “I gave it a go, and people liked it.”
Especially Watts, who after the shoot in San Antonio wanted to give Garduno a bottle of his Herb From The Curb barbecue sauce, a local favorite.
“I couldn’t take that on the plane in carry-on,” Garduno said. “I was bummed about that. He made some pretty good barbecue sauce.”