Every issue a Field and Post member shares their biggest career break and their greatest professional mistake. This time its David Gullason, an accomplished Showrunner and Executive Producer whose credits include Ice Pilots NWT, Jade Fever and Wild Bear Rescue …
Biggest Break
My biggest break probably goes back to my first media job, at 16, at a small radio station in the town where I grew up. Sounds like a Ted Baxter story but …there was a guy in my high school in Grade 12 who was working on-air at the station. So one day I just turned up at their door asking about part-time work. I ended up doing the on-air shift Sunday nights and getting needled Monday mornings about it in school. I was pretty awful on the radio but that little high school gig got me into Ryerson and from there, lots of other radio/tv jobs.
Greatest Mistake
I was at Realscreen about 10 years ago and pitching to a big cable network. Nothing was sticking so at the end of the meeting, I just mentioned an idea I’d been thinking of with an unusual concept and title. I never wrote it down—I just soft pitched it and then moved on. Eighteen months later, I see a promo for the exact title and show on that net. (Worst thing about it is the show has now become a bit of a franchise and over the last decade, I keep seeing new versions of it.) While I have no recourse, I wish I hadn’t just dropped it (or at least had written a one-sheet for it).
