Changing Gears, Not Speed
A few months ago I decided to change my professional life. After 16 years of working in the frantic world of local TV news, I had a wonderful opportunity to join the team at Fireside Production and see how my skill set translated from news to video production. I assumed that, with the width and breadth of my experience, the transition would be seamless and (quite frankly) easy.
My intuition proved to be right on… and completely off the mark… all at the same time. I do have a well-tuned sense of working quickly while maintaining quality. I understand how things look to the naked eye and how they will translate on video. I can enter a situation and, while being minimally invasive, make it look its very best. I can sequence video, edit in the camera and I know how to get the absolute most out of the capabilities of my gear. All of those are skills I honed in my years in TV news and they’ve been useful in the transition to video production.
What other skills could I possibly need? Well… it turns out I walked into a different ball game. The rules are not exactly the same. I had spent 16 years being the master and commander of video production for whatever story I was assigned to cover for a TV station. My objective was to show up, capture events as they occurred without interfering and help produce a story reflective of the facts. Working in video production, I’ve had to learn to that my work exists for the purpose of satisfying our Clients. When I show up to capture an interview I need to do whatever I can to make our subjects look their absolute best. The purpose of my presence is to help our participants deliver their messages in the most visually effective way possible. I now direct when necessary. I need to be open to suggestion and welcome critique.
The first few months of this transitional journey have been refreshing, challenging and professionally invigorating. I’m looking forward to continual growth, creative challenges and expanding my skill set. Few things are as satisfying as having the great people who hire us glow when they see how we’ve been able to bring their creative visions to life. It starts as an idea and blossoms into a video full of verve and purpose… kind of like my professional journey.
