RIT student turns summer internship into Hollywood experience with stunning Predator Badlands billboard in Los Angeles

Rochester, New York – When most college students dream about a summer in Los Angeles, they picture beaches, palm trees, and celebrity sightings. For Lucy Ray, a fourth-year dual degree student in medical illustration and psychology at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), her summer in LA meant something far more cinematic — bringing a piece of Predator: Badlands to life high above the bustling streets.

From June through August, Ray worked as a contracted artist with Drissi Advertising, a leading creative agency known for its bold entertainment marketing campaigns. Her three-month stay in Los Angeles placed her in the heart of Hollywood’s advertising world, where she helped design and build massive promotional displays for some of the year’s most anticipated films. The biggest highlight of her experience was a striking stunt billboard for Predator: Badlands, located at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Bundy Drive — one of LA’s busiest crossroads.

“I can’t share a lot of what I did yet, but I can share that I got to work on a stunt billboard for the movie Predator: Badlands,” Ray said. “It was two separate billboards that were connected. I had a part in the tail end of the graphic design process. My main role was creating 3D models of vines for the 3D aspects of the billboard. Those models were then created at real scale, which was amazing to see.”

The towering billboard — complete with oversized vines appearing to crawl across the sign — quickly became an eye-catching fixture in the area, drawing attention from movie fans and commuters alike. While Ray didn’t get to see the final display in person before returning to school, she said the experience of contributing to something so visible and impactful was deeply rewarding.

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“Unfortunately, I was not there in person to see the actual billboard,” she said. “But I grew up spending a lot of time in LA and I always loved seeing the stunt billboards, especially when they were three-dimensional. These special stunt billboards are a very big part of the LA landscape, so it was amazing to be a part of that. Being very new to this type of work, and my major not being graphic design or anything, I felt a little bit like an imposter at times. But it was nice and affirming to see a design that my hands were on last come together in real life.”

For Ray, who joined Drissi Advertising through an optional co-op arranged under the RIT Honors Program, the role was a chance to blend her technical training with real-world creative challenges. She supported projects from the earliest brainstorming sketches to the final print-ready designs, gaining exposure to every stage of the advertising production process.

One of her other notable assignments included contributing early-stage design concepts for the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash movie. Although she left before that project reached completion, some of her visual ideas made it into the final version. “I was able to participate in the first couple rounds of that design before I had to come back to school at the end of the summer,” she said. “Some aspects of my design were used in the final product.”

What made Ray stand out in a studio filled with seasoned graphic artists was her background in medical illustration — a field that demands precision, realism, and technical mastery. Through her coursework at RIT, she had developed strong 3D modeling skills, a valuable asset in the entertainment advertising world where digital and physical design often merge.

“I think a lot of what made me more marketable in this job was my 3D-modeling abilities,” Ray said. “It is a unique skillset, and I learned those skills entirely through the medical illustration program. A lot of people don’t know that we do a lot of computer work, including two semesters of modeling and animation. I’ve taken extra classes in those areas to be able to work on this skill set since I’ve realized it is so valuable.”

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Her psychology studies, too, played an unexpected but important role. Understanding how people perceive images, colors, and motion helped her think about design from a communication perspective. “In my psychology classes I’ve learned a lot about communication, and they even touch on principles of advertising and how different methods of visual communication can interact with the viewer,” she said. “It’s really interesting to think about combining that knowledge with the design principles that I learned in art classes.”

Working in a fast-paced creative environment like Drissi Advertising also offered Ray a taste of what it’s like to collaborate in large teams, manage deadlines, and balance artistic vision with client expectations. Despite her initial doubts about fitting into a marketing setting, her experience reaffirmed that her diverse academic background could open doors beyond traditional art or science careers.

Now back at RIT, Ray often reflects on how the experience broadened her understanding of both her professional capabilities and herself. She encourages other students — especially those hesitant to leave their comfort zones — to consider opportunities that might seem unrelated to their main field of study.

“It’s totally worth the experience, especially if you’ve never spent that much time outside of your hometown,” Ray said. “It’s good to be in a completely new place where you have to build a new network for yourself. Since I did have family there, I expected that I would just spend time with my family and my friends that I’ve known for years. But I surprised myself and I met a lot of new people, went to a bunch of new places around the city, and tried new things.”

For one RIT student from Rochester, a summer internship turned into something more — a hands-on Hollywood adventure. And though she may not have been there to see the final billboard rise over Wilshire Boulevard, Lucy Ray’s work is now part of the Los Angeles skyline — a testament to her creativity, her curiosity, and her ability to merge science and art in unexpected ways.