Getting to do What I Love Doing

For me, the biggest challenge and satisfaction in my career has been working as a producer. I am passionate about what can be done with media, and I enjoy managing groups of talented people to that end. Producing is a job that’s hard to describe because there are so many things that go into it. Finding footage, crewing up for shoots, talking to clients, writing (and rewriting); these are just some of the day-to-day tasks that producers deal with. More often it’s the the sudden, unexpected problems that test a producer and show what he or she is made of.

I had the chance to work as a producer on the mini-series “Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye”. From start to finish, the project took about nine months to complete. In that time, I found myself getting a crash course in producing that constantly tested me. It was as much an education as it was work experience, and in the end I came out much better for it. Of course, I had a lot of help from an exceptional production staff, editing team, and the other producer on the project, my good friend Jeff Ginsberg. I stumbled a lot at first, and there were times that I thought it was too much for me. In the end, everyone stepped up to created a series we could be proud of. “Greatest Inventions” is an excellent show with a winning combination of science, history, technology, and the occasional “wow” factor. Having the smart, funny, and witty Bill Nye as our talent certainly didn’t hurt.

In addition to being a producer, I acted as the head writer for “Greatest Inventions”. I wrote two of the eight episodes in the series, “Transportation” and “Energy”. This offered me an incredible opportunity to research and write about two topics that I am extremely passionate about. I had been honing my writing skills for years as a segment producer on the series “Assignment Discovery”, and “Greatest Inventions” opened up whole new possibilities for me. In addition to writing my own episodes, I supervised the writing staff as they wrote segments for the rest of the series. My primary responsibility was to proofread for clarity and make sure the segments adhered to The Discovery Channel style guide. I also incorporated notes from Discovery and worked closely with the editors as they pieced together the segments. 

For our hard work on “Greatest Inventions”, the show was given an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Children’s Series” in 2008. It was an incredible honor to even be nominated, and winning was beyond my expectations. It served as a reminder to me that producing is what I live for, and that meeting challenges can only help me grow professionally. The award is also a testament to all the people that worked so hard on the show and helped me when I needed it.