Owen Matthews wakes up on the other side of the world every morning, and heads to his job where he has a hand in making some of Australia’s favourite TV shows.
Working as a Creative Producer at Endemol Shine Australia, Owen works on the conception, development, production, direction and pitching of Endemol Shine Australia’s new and existing television programmes. The shows he works on are broadcast across Australia and the world.
Owen gives much of the credit for his current role to the skills he learned while studying his degree at Bournemouth University. Owen explains, “My degree definitely helped me step up to my first big producer role and my minor and major projects also separated me from the rest when I won a spot training as a director on The Bill.”
Owen graduated from the BA (Hons) Television and Video Production degree at BU in 2002 and speaks highly of the skills he gained on the course, “It gave me a broad understanding of all elements of TV production allowing me to step up and move forward after taking entry level jobs in the industry. I learned to be curious, and to have the confidence to question everything. I learned production techniques, scriptwriting, directing skills, editing, legal frameworks, budgeting and the history of the industry I was venturing into, it was really helpful.”
While most are now envious of Owen’s Australian adventure, he still thinks fondly of Bournemouth. “Living in Bournemouth was great, the facilities were great, and the final year working on over 30 productions was amazing. Being given a camera to use within the first week was great as well.”
Looking to the future, Owen’s work still excites him, and there may even be opportunities to see his work on UK television soon, as Owen says proudly, “There is a new show coming to Sky in the UK ‘The Big Spell’ of which I was one of the original creators.”
Speaking with Owen, one can’t help but notice the love he has for the, often unusual, work he does, and the pride he takes in it, even declaring, “I’ve worked on a broad spectrum of things; from filming football documentaries for Nike to being nominated for an Emmy for creating Printfriends, a mischievous community of finger puppets for FremantleMedia.”
So if you want to follow Owen into a career in television, where should you start? Again, Owen was on hand to share his advice, “Never be afraid to put your hand up and admit you haven’t got the foggiest what someone is talking about. The TV industry is full of people pretending they know what they’re talking about it doesn’t need it anymore… so never pretend to know something, accept you’ll always be learning and share learning with others as often as possible.”