Getting work as a sound designer (still student here)

Couchard Thomas · 2014-02-01T17:32:15

Hello, So as it says in the title I'm a student and I try to break into the video games industry as a sound designer. Right now I'm just looking for an internship tho but even this is hard. I actually live in France and I have absolutely no contact except one guy who works at Ubisoft and even then I don't really know him, just exchanged a few mails as he's an old student of my college so he has my future degree. Obviously GDC and all of the big conventions are out of the picture for me because I have no money and I can't afford to go to LA for this even if I would love to. I do have my parent support tho, so I can definitely go worldwide for an internship. My audio skills are actually pretty varied since I do sound design myself with a professor from the GRM outside of my classes but my degree is about programming audio with stuff like Max, Csound, etc… and also audio engineering, also the past years have been mostly about regular music so I have music knowledge. I also have programming classes and I read on my own and so I know a bit of C/C++ and quite a bit of C#. I'm getting hired in most of the free student project I'm applying for and I'm programming my own little game with Unity. For my demo, I know I can't advertise myself here but you can see them in the audio forum and I got multiple good reviews from a few pros and some other people like on this forum. Yet after having an actual pro who said I definitely have the skills to "find an entry job, or even more at a small company" , finding an internship seems mostly impossible. First there is like no sound design internship in the first place so I just apply to the "we always hire" kind of stuff and I got no response. When there is one I apply and I actually had one company out of two answering (the other one only looks at resume at the end of the deadline the 31th) and telling me they would be happy to consider my application but they only make their final choice in March. I do have to keep looking tho because if they don't take me I'll be screwed since this internship is related to my degree. It kinda scares me because if no one takes sound designers even when it's basically free for them (I don't ask for a paid internship and I know in France they do have to pay because of the law but not everywhere), how would I even find a paid job one day. So I'm really wandering if I'm doing something wrong or it's just normal? Did you experienced that when you tried to start if you're in audio? Do you know someone in audio who had this problem? (and I do know audio is the place where there is the less jobs) The guy I "know" who's at Ubisoft actually got an internship there and then they extended his contract as a sound designer. Thanks in advance. EDIT : After reading this again, it sounds kinda whinny. It's not I'm just looking for advice.

Games Career Development Business

Started by Valoon January 29, 2014 02:18 PM

14 comments, last by Valoon 10 years, 2 months ago

Tom Sloper

17,201

February 01, 2014 02:24 PM

Yes but right now I'm not really looking for a job, it's just the internship.

An internship is a job. The search for it is done exactly the same way. The interview process is exactly the same.

But in regards to audio, an internship is even less likely than a job. First, it's rare for a game studio to have full-time audio people. Second, they want only experienced audio people. The cost of inexperienced people is just too high -- not in terms of money, but in terms of lost time due to lack of knowledge of processes and standard practices.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

Valoon

824

Author

February 01, 2014 02:48 PM

I understand but I think I'm still going to try, giving up will not help me.

Tom Sloper

17,201

February 01, 2014 03:56 PM

I understand but I think I'm still going to try, giving up will not help me.

Of course! Good luck.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

Valoon

824

Author

February 01, 2014 04:03 PM

I understand but I think I'm still going to try, giving up will not help me.

Of course! Good luck.

Thank you and thank you for the advices, not super easy to read this kind of stuff but needed.

fir

-460

February 01, 2014 05:06 PM

I understand but I think I'm still going to try, giving up will not help me.

Of course! Good luck.

Thank you and thank you for the advices, not super easy to read this kind of stuff but needed.

its maybe not such bad:

1. Find all avaliable info of this work - google this specyfic domain topics then you will probably (after some longer time) get know sufficient info

2. find a society of sound designers (i think there should be something like that, dont think ther are as rare as polar bears)

then you will probably know what to do

Valoon

824

Author

February 01, 2014 05:32 PM

Well I do have a company who answered me with a personnal mail and who said they will be considering me for their internship program so I do have this little hope so far but they don't give definitive answers until March 28th (they have this kind of policy where they don't make a choice until the deadline). And it's in LA which would be very good for me since otherwise I'm stuck in France which "sucks" (it's not that bad but not the best for audio in my opinion) even if we do have a few companies here. On top of that the company is nice.

I'm also trying to get my 2 contacts (yes I know a lot of people) to help me a little bit.

So we'll see. Hopefully things will work out.

Getting work as a sound designer (still student here)

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Getting work as a sound designer (still student here)

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