What I Learnt From Work Experience At Matinée

Matinée Multilingual recently had the opportunity to welcome first-year University of Reading student Verity Gray for work experience.  

A creative writing, film and theatre student, Verity wanted to gain practical experience within the film and television industry. So, she reached out to us expressing her interest and we said – come on board! 

Bold and ready to rumble, here’s what she had to say about her work experience with us. 

How did you come across Matinée? 

As part of my degree, I wanted to gain experience within the film and television industry, focusing on the more technical and production side of things. I came across Matinée Multilingual when speaking to my department’s career advisor, where I then found the company on LinkedIn. 

I did my research on the company and tuned into their podcast, ‘You’re in Studio One’, before getting in touch to ask if they would be open to the possibility of work experience.  

And, we said yes!  

What did you get up to during your time at Matinée? 

I was given insight into every sector of the business, including sales, marketing, talent management, project management and audio engineering. It was a wonderful experience learning from members of the team about the importance of all these roles, from receiving the client’s brief, to delivering the final product. 

• Sales  

I was interested in Callum’s sales role, understanding how important this part of the business is to expand the client database. From pro-actively researching companies who may require Matinée’s services, to calculating company and client costs.  

He also gave me advice on the effectiveness of a professional LinkedIn profile when scouting additional work opportunities and its importance when scouting Matinée’s clients. 

He recommended inserting a profile picture, a banner and a brief amount of text explaining my degree, desired career, and my wish to gain more work experience. Already, I have been able to make more professional connections linked to the film and television field which will become helpful in the future.   

• Talent management 

In talent management, I got to analyse client briefs and finding appropriate talents for the work. This included listening to talents’ demos and deciding if they matched client specification. I enjoyed learning the specifics of hiring a voice artist for projects, including analysing their recording facilities and their vocal ability to provide a variety of demos, from corporate to advertisement.   

• Audio engineering 

I was also lucky enough to sit in on live voice recording sessions with artists and the audio engineers to learn about the voice over process. This included understanding the connection between the microphone used by the talent, and the editing software controlled by the engineers. Additionally, throughout these sessions I observed the vital relationship between the project manager, client, artist and audio engineer.  

One of my many highlights from the two weeks was having the amazing opportunity to be in Studio One and record a script for World Voice Day. I was able to record the distinctive styles of voice overs and observe the high-quality editing process before my audio was precisely time-matched to the assisting video.   

What are your key takeaways from the work experience? 

I have left my work experience at Matinée Multilingual with a plethora of new skills which I can take into the future for university work and my career. It has given me the practical experience that I was looking for, as well as experience in other key aspects of the business.   

Thank you to everyone for making me feel so welcomed and providing me with a great, in-depth look into the world of voice over, translation, subtitling and transcription.  

It was a pleasure having you around, Verity.  

Matinée wishes you the very best 😊