Alumna lands dream production job with experience, dedication

The art for this post was updated April 2, 2022 at 1:57 p.m.

Jasmine Eusebio’s job in television production is a game of Tetris. Her work involves sorting schedules and tasks, she said, fitting them together in neat blocks.

Eusebio began working as a production assistant at DreamWorks Animation on a soon-to-be-announced Netflix television series in July. She assists with arranging episode timelines and managing creative talent to produce weekly episodes. The alumna and former HOOLIGAN Theatre Company member said personal connections and gradual exposure to production at a Nickelodeon internship helped her ultimately land her dream job at DreamWorks after she graduated in June.

Eusebio’s training ground before launching into her commercial production career was UCLA’s student-run HOOLIGAN Theatre Company, she said. As a stage and production manager for “The Wedding Singer,” “Hair” and “Rent,” she said she learned to manage actors, schedule rehearsals and delegate work among hair, set, makeup and costume designers.

After working with HOOLIGAN, Eusebio said she was well-prepared for the fast pace and tight deadlines of commercial show business.

“In theater you can’t fall behind because you have a show on a date and it’s not like film where you get to reshoot it,” Eusebio said. “If it’s not right, it’s not happening.”

Eusebio always had a knack for delegating production tasks efficiently, said Noopur Anagol, a rising fourth-year sociology student who worked with Eusebio as a HOOLIGAN stage manager. When the pair worked on “The Wedding Singer,” Eusebio managed to unload the whole production’s worth of set pieces after a show with just the manpower of the student cast and crew, and no professional assistance, Anagol said.

Running a smooth show was always Eusebio’s highest priority, Anagol said. She and Eusebio often stayed up until 3 a.m. working out show logistics in production meetings long after HOOLIGAN rehearsals ended at 10 p.m.

“With any position where you’re overseeing others, you have to have that likable personality but also a personality that puts work first,” Anagol said. “Work always comes first – and (Eusebio) has that mentality.”

Eusebio said hard work is a given to succeed in the entertainment industry, but the second most important factor – professional connections – is not always as automatic.

To land her first production company internship with Nickelodeon, she said she asked her friend’s sister’s best friend, who had worked with the company previously, to put in a good word for her. That connection helped earn her a phone interview with Nickelodeon’s human resources team, and Eusebio said the personal contact was what she needed to get the job.

“With entertainment, people think there is that wall where if you don’t know anyone, you can’t get in,” Eusebio said. “It’s not like everyone in entertainment automatically knows someone – you have to make yourself know someone.”

At Nickelodeon, Eusebio was a production intern for the children’s animated series “The Loud House,” which premiered May 2. She said it was gratifying to see her work come alive after spending the summer of 2015 sitting in production meetings and watching storyboards for the show slowly unfold.

“Here I am a year later watching it on TV,” Eusebio said. “You feel so proud seeing everyone congratulate each other, and you really feel their hard work pay off in the ratings and how well the story is doing now.”

Tenaya Anue, an alumna who also interned at Nickelodeon last summer, said she met Eusebio despite working on a different television show because Eusebio went out of her way to get to know everyone in the studio.

“(Eusebio) always had a smile and was up for a quick chat … and that makes a really big difference, “ Anue said. “If you are only interning somewhere for ten weeks, there’s never enough time, so being able to get to know as many people as possible really gives you a leg up.”

Anue said Eusebio now works at DreamWorks with a line producer she had worked with in the past. Eusebio had already interviewed on three different teams at DreamWorks by the time she graduated, because of the connections she made while interning at Nickelodeon, Anue said.

From her experience in major studios, Eusebio said the producers and studio executives she worked with have been more willing to help than she initially anticipated. All it takes to find success in the business is a little courage to ask for career guidance or help with a connection, she said.

“It’s really navigating the network and reaching out to someone to help you and making your own connections that will close that bridge,” Eusebio said.