I’ve been trying to track down a job since January. So far it hasn’t worked. I’ve really been trying to take a long, hard look at my skills I have and what I enjoyed doing in the past to maybe pull some inspiration for my job search.
The most obvious thing to look at would be television. I have spent a majority of my professional life working in television in some capacity. The only thing I haven’t done is sales, be on camera (intentionally), or run the station. With everything I have done in television, I’ve had so much fun.
I started in the back running the inner-workings of the station. It’s called master control. That’s the control room that is the final stop before being transmitted over the air. It’s a fun little dance of programming and commercials. You have to keep the right show on at the right time, air the commercials, fix issues at the drop of a hat, keep a little bit of paperwork…and you get to watch television. However, since TV is at the heart of so many peoples schedules, then you can’t miss a beat or so many people will call to complain.
I’ve also worked in the field as a photographer. I was never actually a photographer, but was always helping out. There were sometimes on my overnight shifts I’d call out the on-call photographer and he wouldn’t answer the phone for whatever reason. If the situation was close enough to the TV station, I take a car and camera out myself and shoot it. I also shot a lot of things for sports, including many hockey games.
I actually got really good with the video camera that I used while in television. I became pretty good at the nuances and controlling them for the perfect picture I was looking for.
I learned editing back during my first year in TV. What I first learned was linear editing. One day I asked a friend that was a photographer to show me how to edit, and she did. I got pretty good pretty quickly at editing. (I’d really love to be doing professional videography. I would just need a big investment if it was going to be a business I ran.)
The biggest amount of time I spent working as a news producer. It was a big feeling of power because I determined probably about 70-80% of what went on the air. What we did. When. Where. How. Then during the show, I was the captain of the ship. If and when something had to change on the fly, it was my responsibility.
Honestly, while I like the power and the writing, I’d much rather be doing special projects, promotions, or technical work. I haven’t done promotions before, but it’s really only the art of extending a newscast tease. You want to get as many people as possible to watch. I did special projects in my last TV job, working on a 30 minute special. It was the most fun time I’ve had in TV. Technical work is where I am most comfortable. Give me something physical to manipulate and I can get lost in the task (in a good way).