Serious question about my next step

[Sober]

Hey all, I'm wrapping up my contract with the US Air Force in a couple months. For those who haven't been following my every move, I did 4 years as a broadcast producer. Combat videography, graphics, radio, TV production, etc.

Now, the cool thing is that I have four years of free school plus monthly stipend waiting for me, and a completed AA. I'm looking at Texas schools, particularly University of Houston, as I have good contacts in the area. I plan to finish a graduate degree, but I'm having second thoughts about doing a straight communication/media degree, because I want to maximize my hirability/salary potential.

I love my job. I love being behind the camera, and I'm excellent at it. But I am aware that it's tough to make great money at it. I also really enjoy training others to do the job, and I feel that I would make a good manager/leader in the field as well.

I guess I'm looking for advice on what you would do if you had four years of free money to go to school to set yourself up for a comfortable living. Do I get an MA in communications and hope that gets me a high-paying production job? Or do I get an MBA or something else that sets me up to manage or train in the video world?

Any Houston-specific advice is also appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[roymond]

A "high paying production job" is like a high paying music recording contract. There are very few of them, and those that have them have a long career of genius behind them. This is not to say you shouldn't pursue it. Those who have such jobs didn't plant their destiny, they enabled it, and your post here is exactly how you start to do that. Unfortunately I don't have answers for you, but I do know a few successful (not necessarily highly paid) producers of both music and video.

To make a good career there are many things to master, including (and not everyone masters them all):
- creative abilities, vision
- technical skills
- business acumen (industry-specific and financial)
- social and networking mgmt (to both lead and collaborate)
- balls (you just grew some these last four years)
- ego, well, self confidence. Not bullshit, but more tenacity
- persistence

Various media programs touch on some or all of these. I'm not familiar with current offerings but I sure wish I had focused on more of the business side early on. You're in a great position. Go for it!

[Caravan Ray]

Congratulations on getting through in one piece.

While there are many reasons that I personally would not consider the military a good career path - there is no denying that for people like yourself who have used your time there to develop a real-world skill that can be used in the real-life world - the training you will have received will be invaluable. You really have got yourself into an excellent position with excellent prospects. Good work. There is no reason why you shouldn't have a good crack at whatever you want. While I am no reliable judge of such matters, to me - the photos you have posted here were fantastic. You seem to know your stuff.

I don't know anything about the industry you are in (from my construction and mining industry perspective - an engineer or tradesperson fresh out of the military would be a very, very valuable commodity indeed at the moment). But at a guess - I would suspect that the skills you have learnt in the past 4 years probably far exceed anything a simple communications degree may give you. (Are you talking about a first degree? Did you get degree qualifications while serving? Or are you talking post-graduate?). If you have management type ambitions - the MBA sounds like a good way to go.

Good luck

[Sober]

Roy/Ray:

Thanks for the responses. Roy, I am aware that any creative industry is more about what you can do and who you know than about your education. That's why I'm questioning the 'technical expert' route, and considering the management/training route. I do think I have some 'natural leader' traits that bloomed over the last four years. A year of live morning radio certainly helped with my public speaking abilities, as well.

Ray, I'm with you. The military is wrong for some, good for some in small doses, and a good career for others. I fall into the second category for sure. I've earned an associate's degree, and now Uncle Sam will pay for four years of school - I can take four years to finish a bachelor's, or I can finish a master's. The whole time, my tuition is completely covered, I get $1000 per term for books and supplies, and I get a monthly housing/food allowance that will be enough to live frugally on. I'm gonna try and cram 12 or 15 hours into two or three days, and spend the rest of the week freelancing, playing gigs, etc.

I technically leave the military at the end of August, but since I've taken practically no vacation, I'll be going back to Texas as early as mid-July. I'm stoked as hell to begin the next chapter.

[Paco Del Stinko]

I love my job. I love being behind the camera, and I'm excellent at it.

Sometimes, this can be worth more than big money. It's a great head start, anyway. Good work and good luck. You can hold your head high.

[roymond]

I definitely think you should complete a Masters program. I totally regret not completing mine. Even though I feel I've done really well without it, today's market is a different story than back in the 80s. But by all means, keep shooting and producing! As Ray said, your photos are beautiful and the video has been great too, and I'm sure we haven't seen a fraction of your work.

[Billy's Little Trip]

You say you really like being behind the camera and that you're good at it. At my age now, I say that doing something you really like is the most important thing you can do. You are already in a field that you can make a good living with the potential to make great money. So I say stay the course.

Here is an example I can share about my wife's friends husband Tim, who is a camera man for a morning news show in Arizona. He just, as in the past 6'ish months, took a job offer to run the camera crew for a reality show that will be airing sometime this summer. He has a contract with that network and will be there until he retires most likely.

Tim went to school specifically to be a camera man, that's all he ever wanted. He's always loved it and knew after shooting movies with his brother that he wanted to always do that. Right after graduation, the school he went to (I have no idea which) set him up with a company that does on location filming for training videos and documentaries. It's where most graduates start from his school. The pay was good and after a year, he started sending resumes for the thing he's wanted his whole life, to be a news camera man. His first job was here in Cali for a local station up north. He loved it, made good money and got married. This is when we'd do things together because our wives were old friends.

After a few years he wanted a bigger network and wanted an in studio position so he didn't have to travel so much and be away from home so much because his wife wanted to start a family. That's when he got offered a job in Arizona at a news station. The job started with a great salary and he loved it. He later moved up the ladder and was running "whatever it is camera guys do" and became head of the cam crew. That put him well into a 6 figure position and has been there ever since, put his daughters through college and very well set in life.

Now he wanted to get more into television, his primary love in his career. He missed being on location and now that his daughters were grown, and his wife can travel with him if she wants to occasionally, he put out the resumes. He got job offers all over the world, but wanted to stay in the US. So he took an offer to run a film crew for a company that mostly films reality TV shows. Not only does he get paid well, in the union, but as an incentive, gets percentages if the shows do well.

At 50 years old still doing what he loves AND he's back doing exactly what he loves the most, being on location filming TV shows.

So there's what I can offer. I don't know if the business is different now, but Tim has always done well AND he can't even play guitar nor sing like you.

PS. Before you ask me to put in a good word for you with Tim, I pretty much fell out of touch with him when they moved to Arizona. My wife and his wife Sandy stay in touch.

[Sober]

Great input, BLT, thanks. I think I'll have enough free time over the next four years to freelance and develop my portfolio. I'm not looking at getting into civilian news - I had a fair taste of it in the military, and the civilian guys work too hard for too little pay at first.

A big benefit of the way my job works in the military is that we're all one-man-bands. I shoot, edit, write, and produce all of my own products - much like Songfight makes musicians be engineers and producers. The civilian news world is shifting to one-man-bands, and smaller production houses are as well. I love being able to control a project from filming to 'printing.'

I know that networking is more important than the particular degree I earn, which is certainly why I'm trying to schedule my schooling the way I am. Now I'm looking to maximize my networking potential by choosing a degree plan that balances a chance to practice and improve my technical skills with picking up business and networking contacts.

In case anyone's interested, here's a short compilation of Afghanistan footage, which recently won me 2nd place in Combat Documentation in the Military Videographer of the Year competition: