A note to prospective internship candidates:
We get many requests for internships every semester. Internships can be valuable for both aspiring engineers and the studio. We’re always interested in hearing from particularly talented and motivated internship candidates. Unfortunately there’s no way we can accommodate all of the requests we receive. At any given time we usually have only one or two interns, sometimes none at all.
If you’re interested in an internship at Flowers, here’s some information to help answer some preliminary questions and save all of us some time. Please read the following before contacting us:
1. Internship inquiries should be made by EMAIL ONLY. Do not call us. We delete any phone messages left regarding internships.
2. In your email, tell us more about yourself besides the simple fact that you’re looking for an internship. Are you sending out a blanket email to all the local studios just to fulfill a school requirement? Or, far more interestingly to us, do you want to work at this specific studio? Do you know who we are? Are you familiar with artists that have worked here? Are you acquainted with the equipment and techniques we use? There’s a lot of info about our studio on our website and elsewhere on the Internet. Take a minute to do a bit of research about us to see if your interests and ours overlap. And if those interests do overlap, please tell us how.
3. We work with an extremely wide range of projects, with a focus on music using live instruments and players, broadly in the indie rock, punk, roots/Americana, indie electronic, psychedelic/experimental, and folk genres. It helps very much if you have an interest in (and affinity for) these general types of music. If your musical ambitions, for example, lie exclusively in the world of “beats”-based, EDM-style recording, you probably won’t be a good fit here.
4. Can you bring something unique and constructive to a session environment? (Note that “unique and constructive” does not include obvious stuff everyone should be able to do like running Pro Tools, etc.). Please include a link to examples of your work (i.e. on Soundcloud or your own web site). It doesn’t have to be super polished, we know you’re just starting out, but it helps give us an idea of who you are. Give us details of what you did on the recordings (i.e. engineered, produced, mixed, etc.). Again, send a link, PLEASE do not email us mp3’s of songs. If you don’t have samples of your work posted on the web, you should get that together before contacting studios about internships.
5. A prospective intern should be prepared to participate in the normal workflow and tasks of the session. We don’t accept interns who can only be here a couple of hours at a time, or only plan on being here once or twice. It’s not productive to get someone up to speed with the facility if they split after a day or two. If your work or school schedule can’t accommodate these considerations, you probably won’t work out as an intern here.
6. In order to work here, it’s essential that you already have a basic operational understanding of Pro Tools (and, somewhat less importantly, Logic). We don’t expect complete mastery, but a foundation knowledge is a prerequesite. One thing that an intern can really help with initially is “driving” Pro Tools while the producers/engineers concentrate on other aspects of the session. Pro Tools and other recording technologies are available to people on virtually any budget these days, and anyone with a serious interest in doing this professionally should already be working on their skills on their own. If you’re totally inexperienced with recording tech, you may want to work at home for a while and get up to speed before contacting a place like this.
7. Unlike some studios, we do not view interns as slave labor fit only to clean toilets and take out trash. If we accept you as an intern we encourage you to absorb as much as you can from the experience and to help out as requested. However, please remember: we are in the business of making records for our clients, not training new engineers. We value your time, energy, and ambition. We ask that you reciprocate by respecting our work process and not bombarding us with questions or, worse, unsolicited “suggestions”. The wishes of the producer and client are paramount in a professional recording environment. Failure to recognize this has shortened the careers of many novice engineers.
8. This should go without saying, but please proofread your email (and your resume if you include one). Typos and grammatical errors don’t inspire confidence. You’d be surprised at how many emails we get that don’t even spell the name of the studio correctly. Details are important in this business.
It takes us a while to sort through internship requests and respond to the ones that are interesting to us. If you send us a compelling email, and if we’re looking for interns at that time, you may hear from us. Unfortunately it’s not possible for us to respond to every request.
We wish you the very best of luck in the world of recording!
Thanks for your interest in Flowers Studio!
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