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Take #23 | Ryan Nilsen’s Route from New York Intern to Marvel Studios Post Coordinator
Ryan Nilsen didn’t grow up with a straight line into Hollywood post‑production. He was a kid from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania — mushroom drop, small‑town Americana, classic suburbs of Philly — whose world was more theater camp and high school sports than red carpets and studio lots. At Temple University, late‑night train rides to New York, PA gigs on grad thesis films, and internships on ABC daytime talk shows became his crash course in how “real” sets run, long before Marvel, Skydance, and Apple TV+ ever entered the picture. What started as an ADHD‑kid’s love of The Office and movie nights with his parents quietly turned into a full‑blown obsession with producing, editing, and post — the part of the process where the story actually comes together.
In this episode of Call Sheet Confessions, Ryan and I walk through how a Temple film major who almost stayed a New York talk‑show intern became a post‑production coordinator on shows like Reacher, Marvel’s Agatha All Along, and big Netflix series, while also stepping into story producing on Fox’s Reality Check with Kalen Allen. We trace the brutal 12‑hour days at a talk‑show network where he literally lived at work during COVID, the furlough that forced him back to Philly, and the single referral from a fellow Owl that dropped him into his first big post job — and changed his entire career trajectory. Ryan opens up about what a post coordinator actually does day‑to‑day (dailies, edits, ADR, vendor wrangling), how union hours, tax incentives, and strikes shape where jobs even exist, why goals are allowed to change after family health scares and industry upheaval, and how a random “think tank” visit led to meeting his favorite filmmaker and acting in his movie. We also dig into navigating LA cost of living, shifting from “corporate post” to freelance story producing, the myths about staying a year at your first job, the reality of nepotism, and why community and networking — from Temple alumni mixers to Marvel hallways with Samuel L. Jackson — matter more than any one credit.
Follow the podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/callsheetconfesspod?igsh=MXM4ZGtlOHhyYXljaw==
🔔 Subscribe for more honest conversations about working in entertainment, breaking into post‑production, building creative careers through internships and referrals, surviving LA in an unpredictable industry, and what really happens on the other side of the call sheet.
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By Mia LePageRyan Nilsen didn’t grow up with a straight line into Hollywood post‑production. He was a kid from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania — mushroom drop, small‑town Americana, classic suburbs of Philly — whose world was more theater camp and high school sports than red carpets and studio lots. At Temple University, late‑night train rides to New York, PA gigs on grad thesis films, and internships on ABC daytime talk shows became his crash course in how “real” sets run, long before Marvel, Skydance, and Apple TV+ ever entered the picture. What started as an ADHD‑kid’s love of The Office and movie nights with his parents quietly turned into a full‑blown obsession with producing, editing, and post — the part of the process where the story actually comes together.
In this episode of Call Sheet Confessions, Ryan and I walk through how a Temple film major who almost stayed a New York talk‑show intern became a post‑production coordinator on shows like Reacher, Marvel’s Agatha All Along, and big Netflix series, while also stepping into story producing on Fox’s Reality Check with Kalen Allen. We trace the brutal 12‑hour days at a talk‑show network where he literally lived at work during COVID, the furlough that forced him back to Philly, and the single referral from a fellow Owl that dropped him into his first big post job — and changed his entire career trajectory. Ryan opens up about what a post coordinator actually does day‑to‑day (dailies, edits, ADR, vendor wrangling), how union hours, tax incentives, and strikes shape where jobs even exist, why goals are allowed to change after family health scares and industry upheaval, and how a random “think tank” visit led to meeting his favorite filmmaker and acting in his movie. We also dig into navigating LA cost of living, shifting from “corporate post” to freelance story producing, the myths about staying a year at your first job, the reality of nepotism, and why community and networking — from Temple alumni mixers to Marvel hallways with Samuel L. Jackson — matter more than any one credit.
Follow the podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/callsheetconfesspod?igsh=MXM4ZGtlOHhyYXljaw==
🔔 Subscribe for more honest conversations about working in entertainment, breaking into post‑production, building creative careers through internships and referrals, surviving LA in an unpredictable industry, and what really happens on the other side of the call sheet.