Speaking with a Hollywood Producer

    Last night I had the pleasure of being invited to a zoom meeting with Big Brother producer Don Wollman. Wow, it was an incredible experience hearing about his life and getting advice from someone so successful. We started out the night meeting in the GCC with Chris Marsh, an amazing COM professor. After that we all split up into different rooms so we wouldn't have to be masked and hopped on zoom. Within a few minute, Mr. Wollman hopped on the zoom call live from Los Angeles. We were all so excited!

    We were informed before the meeting we would be asked "why are you here?" True to that, it was the first thing Mr. Wollman asked the group of 10. That question can be answered in so many ways. I was there because I am passionate about the industry and would love to learn about what it is like from someone who has been in the deep end for so many years. I was also hoping to learn a bit about the process of shooting Big Brother. I was able to ask a question first about how they sift through hundreds of hours of footage to create three one hour episodes a week. It is a big task. The answer I got was fascinating. There is a story team that goes and sits in the control room and watches everything that happens. They've got an idea of where they want the episode to go and look for footage that fits with it. They also have a live transcript that you can type in "sally at the front door" or something like that and footage of that person in that location will show up. I found all that to be incredible.

    I don't want to share too much about the conversations that were had during the meeting as it was private and a privilege to be chosen as one of ten students to be on this zoom call. One piece of advice I would like to give you that Mr. Wollman gave was "If you don't like it, don't do it." He said this in reference to finding a job and a career. Don't feel obligated to stick to a career or job that you aren't happy with and not excited to get up and go in to work for. Find a job that no matter how bad of a day you have the day before, you're excited for the next day. I have always said that I want to have a job where I am happy. It's the most important thing to me in my search for a job and it felt great hearing it from someone who has found that and has become so successful in it.