2012 Interns: Day 1, Part A - The title of "Best Interns EVER" may be in jeopardy.

I know I've said a few times that last year's summer interns were our best ever (not considering my own tenure as an intern, of course), but after today I think they've got some pretty stiff competition! We had a really awesome time with the 2012 interns on their first day today, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of the summer.

The day started off a little quiet and nervous, but before too long we broke the interns into three groups (The Newtons, the Edisons, and the Eastmans) to compete against each other in the third annual intern version of the Hunt. I was happy to see the groups eagerly and enthusiastically venture off into the vast space that is RIT's campus, but got a little worried when, two hours in, a lot of the interns seemed to be struggling to find much of anything. Oh boy. We all gathered back in the Reading Room at noon for pizza and to relax before the groups would get down and dirty with video processing. Similar to past years, not a single kid in there had ever used iMovie to make a video... One team thought ahead and started their processing while they waited for the pizza to arrive, and the rest followed suit once they were done chowing down. I set video viewing time for 1:30, even though I knew none of the groups would be done by then. Sure enough, 1:30 rolled around and they asked for 15 more minutes. 1:45 rolled around and, while they THOUGHT they were ready, none of the groups had actually exported their videos to transferable files - and one group even LOST their project! (They ended up resurrecting it from the Trash; don't ask me how that all happened.) We judges took the time to get started on paper plate awards for the teams, since we were already seeing categories worth recognizing, such as: the "I'm ready! Oh wait, no I'm not..." Award, the "My video got trashed :-(" Award, and the "First ones done!!! (...but still late.)" Award. Finally, around 2, it was SHOWTIME!

First up: The Edisons - Whoa. These guys set the bar pretty high. They got a ton of the mystery items and threw in a bunch of special effects - someone managed to figure out iMovie just fine (and went overboard, if you ask Joe). I appreciated that they really made use of their resources and the fact they they kept reminding us that they were good interns for doing so. 1,000 bonus points for finding Zoran, and then jokingly calling him their "NON-helper (with an accent)". You can watch the video on intern Denise's blog.

Looks like someone sacrificed video quality for a quicker export time... No wonder they won the "First ones done!!!" award.

Next up: The Eastmans - They led their video by saying it was dedicated to me, so that right there earned them 2,000 bonus points. And then their video totally delivered - tons of hunt items (which they interacted with/presented incredibly well), great production value, and interspersed clips of me awkwardly waving which obviously made it that much better. You can watch Team Eastman on intern Kyle's blog.

Taking advantage of traditional Hunt bribery and appealing to my vanity.

And lastly: The Newtons - A.K.A. the Kaila show, because she seemed to be the only one willing to get in front of the camera. Bonus points for team member introductions at the start of the video and for Kaila dropping the dictionary thesaurus. This team got a ton of hunt items too! I'll post a link when I get one.

Final verdict, after much deliberation: Eastmans take #1 (overall best production value), and Edisons and Newtons tie for second/last (losing points for extraneous FX, and not enough team member representation, respectively). We also awarded a Crowd Favorite AKA "Biggest Mouth" Award to one of the teams (since they won basically by cheering most loudly for themselves).

Overall, the videos TOTALLY blew us away! I couldn't believe how many items all the teams got and how well produced their videos were. Sorry, 2010 and 2011 interns, but these guys totally owned you!

Next up, Part B- Scandal!