Jake Sirianni, a communications student at Washington State University, sought to go that extra mile for his dream internship.
“The Tonight Show, with Jimmy Fallon, is probably one of the most sought after internships in the late night industry,” Sirianni said. “It comes with thousands of applicants trying to get a position, and I thought this would help me stand out a little bit.”
The inspiration for his video sprouted while watching Nick Garrett’s Fall 2016 internship video, where he recreated a shot-for-shot remake of "The Tonight Show" intro. Garrett currently works as the general production intern for Jimmy Fallon.
“I saw that this viral video kinda worked for him, and I started thinking, what can I do,” Sirianni said. “I wanted to do something that mixed my two passions of video and music.”
He decided he would make a parody of one of the most viewed skits on “The Tonight Show”.
“I was looking around at some of Fallon’s videos, and saw the Daniel Radcliffe video where he was rapping the alphabet aerobics,” Sirianni said. “ I’m not by any means a professional rapper, or i’m good at it, but it was a fun way to incorporate music and video.”
Sirianni spent the next month on the production of his two-minute video. He even wrote “26”, a symbol of his alphabet aerobics parody, on his hands every morning when he’d wake up in January.
“This is my dream internship, so just looking down, it reminded me to work hard, but it also served as a way to hype up the suspense,” he said.
The video has prompted the hashtag #HireJake, on Facebook and Twitter.
He says he’s been amazed by all of the support from friends, family, and complete strangers.