“It was the best experience of my life.”

That’s how Quinnipiac senior Joseph Micucci sums up his summer filled with 70-hour work weeks.

Micucci, a media production student from East Longmeadow, Mass., traded his first summer as a 21-year-old for a work experience he will never forget.

It began when he took an internship in Lowell, Mass., with the movie “The Fighter,” directed by David O. Russell, starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale.

Three weeks in to the internship, Micucci had made such an impression on the production crew that they offered him a job as a full-time production assistant.

This meant more work and more responsibility.

“My average week was about 70 hours,” Micucci said.

His job as a production assistant (PA) had him working a lot with the cast and crew.

“During pre-production, it was a lot of setting up, preparing for the cast to arrive, preparing for the crew to arrive,” Micucci said. “Once shooting actually started, it was making sure that the cast was comfortable, the crew was comfortable, and helping out in any way that I could.”

This was not Micucci’s first experience on a major production set however.

Last summer he interned in Los Angeles on the NBC television show “Heroes.”

“It was an eight-week internship, and each week I rotated departments,” Micucci said.

He attributes his experience with “Heroes” to helping him land his plum job with “The Fighter.”

“It was my first job in the industry so I got to L.A. not knowing anyone and I met a lot of interesting people and made some really good contacts which helped me get my job that I got this summer,” he said.

His internship with “Heroes” and job with “The Fighter” have given Micucci a very diverse experience of working on the set of a movie and being involved with many aspects of producing a television show.

“[Television] is a lot more hectic,” he said. “You have scripts coming out each week, whereas with a movie you have one script, and though it gets revised, it’s still just one script you’re working with.”

Micucci added to his repertoire last semester when he acted in the movie “The Mercury Cycle,” a movie being directed and produced by Quinnipiac students.

“I played a small role in the movie, but it was definitely time-consuming and a really cool experience,” Micucci said of his first experience as an actor.

Aside from getting a taste of acting, he was also able to gain a better understanding of some parts of the job on the production side as well.

“It was a good experience because I got to see what it’s like on the other side of the camera and it also helped me develop a respect of and sense of how to communicate with actors,” he said. “They’re very important, and their job is harder than a lot of people think.”

Even at such a young age, Micucci is certain that this is the field of work he wants to be in.

“It’s kind of cliché but I’ve always wanted to do it,” he said. “I’ve just been making little movies since I was 5 years old with my camera. Just acting out and goofing around, and it’s a passion. I’d stay up all night in high school editing things and playing around with different effects and Adobe Premiere, Final Cut and After Effects. While other kids were doing normal things, I was slaving over my computer.”

And passion is no understatement when it comes to his love of movie and television production.

“I’d love to be an actor, I’d love to be a producer, I’d love to be a director,” Micucci said. “I really love all aspects of film making; everything from hair and make-up, to wardrobe, to acting, to producing, to directing, to writing. I think it’s all fascinating.”

Of all the experiences Micucci has had in his young career in film and television, his time spent on “The Fighter” has been his most enjoyable.

“I really liked the script; I thought it was a great story,” he said. “I feel the crew on the movie was really dedicated and passionate about what they were doing and felt like they were a part of something really special.”

Micucci’s timing seems to be favorable too as he has already worked on a film in Massachusetts which could very well see a lot more work in the near future with the recent opening of Plymouth Rock Studios in Plymouth, Mass.

Wherever he ends up, he’s well prepared to take on whatever comes his way.