How to Become a Television Producer

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Michael Orkin and I'm a television producer. How did I get my first job in television. Well, I went to the University of Texas in Austin and got a degree, Bachelors of Journalism degree in television and film. Basically that was supposed to make me prepared to be a news... television news person. They did teach me to shoot and edit and report and all the things you have to learn about journalism. I then went to... I got in a car with a handful of resume tapes and drove from one small market tv station to another, begging somebody to give me a job and after about a month of that, and man there was a lot of rejection in that, I finally got a job in Meridian, Mississippi, WTZH, the CBS affiliate in market number one hundred and twenty eight. That means it's the hundred and twenty eighth smallest market. There are about two hundred and fifteen markets in the country. But it was basically going to college, learning enough, getting a reel together that somebody could put in their machine and look at an say that person there I could see being on my tv station, and giving me a job for twelve thousand dollars a year... tough times. But that's how I got my first job in television."