What was your biggest break in the TV industry?
While growing up in the small prairie city of Medicine Hat, Alberta, I always wanted to be a “National Geographic guy”. I dreamed of traveling the world, documenting my adventures in exotic locations, meeting new people and encountering extraordinary creatures and phenomena, and sharing those stories. I had wanderlust in a bad way. So, after graduating from high school in 1989, I left home in my green Chevy Beaumont and headed west. I ended up living in Whistler for four years, having the best time of my life snowboarding, skateboarding, mountain biking, partying, swimming in the lakes, making music, loving and living some of the best years of my life! Eventually, I was drawn into exploring the film and TV industry. I enrolled in the journalistic Media Resources program at Capilano in 1994, run by two incredible instructors – Beverly Reid and Peter Kellington. They were so passionate about their pursuits in the industry, and approached everything with such positivity, it inspired me to keep following a career path in factual production.
Bev and Peter gave me my biggest break in the TV industry. I had been freelancing for 2 years in Vancouver, and had the good fortune of working with companies like Force Four and The Eyes, working on docs and corporate videos. However, adventure called and I made plans to move to Nelson in the fall of ’98. Just shortly after I’d decided to move there, Bev called me up and asked if I’d like to be the production manager for a project they’d been producing called Voyagers of the Heart. It was an indie doc series about Canadians doing humanitarian work around the world – and I could tele-commute over the next 2 years from my new home in Nelson. Amazing! The first episode I’d be working on featured an extraordinary woman named Jean Buchan, who ran a women-and-children’s clinic in rural northern India, in a little village called Bansi. Not only was this fulfilling the dream of my youth, it was also working on a project that had substance and depth, promoting compassion and showcasing the accomplishments of someone who had dedicated their life to helping others. This was a dream come true, and over the course of this project I traveled on shoots to India and Cambodia. It was my biggest break in the industry and set the course of my career from there on in.
What has been your greatest career mistake?
It’s funny. The India project was such a pivotal experience in my life, my biggest mistake was related to this as well. My two-year contract had run its course and I ended up working on other small video projects from my home base in Nelson. Some paid projects and some passion projects, such as an educational doc about the Sinixt First Nation, who had been deemed extinct by the federal government in the ’50’s despite members of the First Nation surviving in their traditional territory that spanned across the Canada/US border. I was also working on another initiative, setting up the Kootenay Film & Video Cooperative, when Bev called me up and asked if I’d like to join them in the production of their next episode, featuring a Canadian doing humanitarian work in Vietnam. I made the poor choice of not accepting the offer, thinking I was… well, I’m still not sure what I was thinking, and so far I feel it’s my greatest professional mistake. I missed out on traveling to Vietnam, very likely having more incredible overseas adventures and working with two of my favourite people in the industry. And after that, I didn’t have the opportunity to work with them again. I’ll always wonder the direction my career path would have taken if I had accepted that offer.
However, one door opens, and another closes. I think the people who took the Vietnam job went on to have some truly life-altering experiences with Bev and Peter, and in hindsight I’m glad this project provided career building opportunities to others. And thankfully, since then, and over the past 25 years that I’ve spent in the industry, I feel like I’ve had incredibly good fortune, and have fulfilled many of my personal and professional dreams. It wasn’t always easy, and as a freelancer there can often be a pattern of feast and famine, but if you truly want a career in an extraordinary industry that can offer you access to extraordinary experiences, stick with it! Staying power is a powerful force in this business, and if you can stay the course with a positive attitude despite the challenges and storms, it’s very likely you’ll thrive in this industry.
