Allied Integrated Marketing- Gillian Doupé

My name is Gillian Doupé, I am a Media Studies major and a Drama/Theatre minor. I am currently interning at Allied Integrated Marketing, and this is my first internship!

1. What have you learned about working in the media that you did not know before your internship? Include here processes and procedures, job titles, you never knew of, how companies interact with other companies, and so on.

There is a lot I did not expect when entering a field of marketing, especially the amount of responsibility that my internship hold on interns. I find it very exciting that we are able to work on our own projects, and the deadlines for my internship are much more extreme than my deadlines for papers in college. Although in college my grade in assignments means a lot to me, if you mess up a project at Allied or make a small mistake like forgetting to call a company to pick up a package, it could ruin an entire event. I have learned to organize my reminders in a better way. I am usually good at remembering what people ask me to do, and remembering the assignments I have but I have realized during this internship that I need to write absolutely everything down that is expected of me to get done.

Allied has many different offices throughout America, but the NY office specifically handles movie promotions. I did not realize how many huge production companies Allied represents. I knew of the major ones, but there is so much more beneath the major companies. Not only does Allied promote the films, but we are also responsible for doing “Topline Reports,” which are screening reports for films. Some reports are even as detailed to write down reactions from the audience of major scenes. All of the interns are split up in teams, and I am with Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, and Universal Home Entertainment. I did not know what “hard-passes” (passes on paper for a screening that are not printed out online) for films were or what “R.O.E” passes were (passes printed online) until I started becoming familiar with all of the small nicknames for tickets and screenings. 

It is still hard to tell who exactly is who within the office since I am still just getting to know everyone, but I know that my supervisor is a Publicist, and you can also tell because she’s the only one not in a cubicle J Allied is an extremely friendly environment, the graphic design department in the office gets along with the promotional department, and everyone seems to work together.

2. Is the internship what you expected? Why, or why not?

The internship is surprisingly way beyond what I expected. I expected an office-like busy work job, and it is nearly the opposite. I just finished my own project organizing an event for the new film THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL with Twentieth Century Fox and it feels like one of the biggest accomplishments in my college career. I had to seek out a Bollywood Dance School in the city to see if they would host an event based on the soundtrack of the film. After many phone calls and making sure people follow up, it happened and my supervisor was excited so I was extremely happy :) (pictures below!) My supervisor places a lot of trust in me which is overwhelming at times but is absolutely amazing. We also do not get paid, which I knew, but I didn’t know that we could offer our time to do reports on screenings, and work at events at night or on the weekends in order to get paid. There are usually at least 3-5 events going on every week between all of the promotion teams with each studio. My supervisor also found out that I enjoy photography, and has paid me to photograph two events since. There is so much room to grow rather than make copies and tickets all day.

3. Is there any way you could improve your internship experience? Explain how.

I believe that the only way my internship experience can get better at the moment is to volunteer for as many events as I can. It is hard to balance between classes and work, but they are truly so much fun and it helps in order to talk to more employees at Allied and get to know how they got to where they are now. Since I really enjoy the environment I’m in, I want to make it show that I am passionate and dedicated. I also have to constantly remember that this is a big stepping-stone into my career, so that I can set aside what is less important and just focus solely on this for the next three months. Being at Allied is an exciting journey, and I can’t wait to keep on learning there J