Expert: Peter Gabany - 4/25/2005

Question
Im not sure if your the right person i should talk to, but you seemed to be expierenced in a lot of different areas so i figured I would give you a shot. I am a junior in high school trying to find a career that suits me. I am in an electronic media class at school and I make segments for the school TV show. I think that I would enjoy making TV commercials, but dont really know what kind of careers deal with that. The thing i enjoy most about TV production is coming up with ideas and seing everything come together into something great. I can see myself coming up with ideas for a companys commercial or ad. What careers should I look into considering what I like to do? Like I said, I dont know if your the right person to talk to, but if you are, I think all I am looking for is a push in the right direction towards a career that suits me. thanks.

Answer
Phillip,

I wish I knew where you lived as I believe I could direct you better. You are looking for a career in advertising. There are several ways to go about this. There are two distinct schools of learning. They are Advertising and the other is Radio and Television arts.

One deals with the purpose of the television commercial, the side that deals with the what a commercial has to be in order to sell as well the concept or story - the creative side and secondary to that the how to create the commercial - the mechanics. This is Advertising.

The other deals with the how right out of the blocks. What is a film camera, what is video, HD, frame rates, lighting and the like. It is the mechanics. Then they teach you - how to produce, direct, storyboard, write etc.

The results can merge but I have witnessed people going into very different directions with either choice. Commercial production and directing is VERY competitive - but rewarding.

The reason to know where you live is that I could advise where to tke these courses either in the US or Canada. for instance U of Texas and NorthWestern in Chicago are premier advertising courses and possibly the best in the nation. as for radio and television arts, I believe that Rochester Institute of Technology still has the best course in New York State, University of Ryerson is the best in Toronto, Canada and Berkley in California.

Unless you are a real techno junky I would recommend taking advertising. It offers the fullest incite into the world of advertising. Please refer to - http://advertising.utexas.edu/world/index.asp - as a resource. Bookmark that site. I use it all of the time. You will get lots of inspiration looking through the different ad agency sites.

Also, subscribe to the trade publications - or see them on-line - and study them. Pick up a copy of Advertising Age, Brand Week, www.aaaa.org, Communication Arts, How Magazine, Graphis, Print, AdWeek. There are more but these are the key ones. These are also available in some libraries.

I'm uncertain if this is what you were looking for but feel free to ask me more and feed me more information.

Good luck

Pete