Larry Page on Google partnering with ‘The Internship’: ‘We’re the nerdy curmudgeons’

Larry Page on Google partnering with ‘The Internship’: ‘We’re the nerdy curmudgeons’

Google will be making its film debut, alongside actors Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, when “The Internship” hits theaters nationwide this Friday. CNN reports that the filmmakers of the comedy, which revolves around two middle-aged men attempting to land a job at the tech giant through its internship program, worked with Google to get an […]

Google will be making its film debut, alongside actors Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, when “The Internship” hits theaters nationwide this Friday.

CNN reports that the filmmakers of the comedy, which revolves around two middle-aged men attempting to land a job at the tech giant through its internship program, worked with Google to get an accurate depiction of what it is like to be an employee and some of the inner-workings of the company. Besides providing the cast and crew with information, Google also provided them access to some of its products, such as its driverless cars, the ability to film at the Googleplex for five days, and use 100 of its employees as extras in the movie. No money was exchanged by either party.

A spokesperson for Google told CNN that the company got involved in the movie as an attempt to attract more students to the technology and computer field, which is currently facing a shortage of qualified workers. During a Google conference last month, its co-founder Larry Page said the company basically agreed to cooperate for the film’s marketing potential, or in other words free advertising.

“I think the reason why we got involved in that is that computer science has a marketing problem,” Page said. “We’re the nerdy curmudgeons.”

Despite the fact that Google didn’t have any authority on the final cut of the movie, the makers of “The Internship” portrayed the company in a particularity positive way, so much so that it sometimes deviates from reality. One example is in the process of how an intern is chosen to win a full-time job. The movie makes it seem like they are separated into teams to compete in a variety of contests, such as the mythical sport of Quidditch featured in “Harry Potter,” which is simply not true. Moreover, according to The Huffington Post, another scene shows that Google makes the training of employees to work a customer help line a priority, when in reality the company directs people to browse through its own online help articles or discuss problems on message boards. And even further from reality is director Shawn Levy’s decision to film the beginning of the movie in dull, bland colors so the bright colors of Google’s headquarters stand out even more.

Regardless at any over-the-top depictions in “The Internship,” Jon Holtzman, director of Apple’s worldwide brand marketing during the 1980’s and 1990’s, explained to CNN that its not unusual for filmmakers to show a certain brand favorably saying, “They’ll go out of their way not to say something bad about it because they don’t want a lawsuit. It’s sort of implicit that this stuff will not be seen in a negative fashion.”

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