{"id":627,"date":"2019-11-16T17:22:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-16T17:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/?p=627"},"modified":"2019-11-19T02:00:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T02:00:54","slug":"biggest-break-greatest-mistake-dana-johl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/biggest-break-worst-mistake\/biggest-break-greatest-mistake-dana-johl\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Break \/ Greatest Mistake &#8211; Dana Johl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>What was the biggest break in your TV career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent the first few years of my TV career in Toronto as a coordinator and segment producer for HGTV\/Life\/Food Network. When I moved home to Vancouver in 2000 there was very little unscripted TV being made here. I got a job producing a small technology show after convincing them, and myself, that I was perfectly qualified to produce a series from start to finish! Accomplishing that was great boost to my confidence, however the real break came when the same employers let me create and executive produce a high budget series for YTV. This was&nbsp;<em>real<\/em> television and I didn\u2019t really know what I was doing, but I managed to succeed and even got a renewal. That took my resume to the next level and I was hired by a Toronto production company opening in Vancouver.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What has been your greatest mistake in your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same perceived confidence that convinced my employers I could produce TV, also had them give me a large commercial. I happened to have become friendly with a pretty big-time American director who was dating someone I knew, and so I hired him. I naively embarked on the project without putting a proper written deal into place. I had verbally agreed to pay him a percentage of the budget, but then the budget went up and I didn\u2019t increase the director rate \u2013 thinking we had the number locked it in. It wasn\u2019t in writing and that came back to bite me. I learned to always paper the deal, even (and perhaps especially) with people you think are your friends.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What was the biggest break in your TV career? I spent the first few years of my TV career in Toronto as a coordinator and segment producer for HGTV\/Life\/Food Network. When I moved home to Vancouver in 2000 there was very little unscripted TV being made here. I got a job producing a small technology [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fieldandpost.ca\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}