Sunday, February 24, 2008

Q. Do you see the value of doing a Masters in Business for someone who wants to end up in broadcasting and/or producing?

I know a couple of people who came out of UCLA's Anderson School of Management who went on to careers as studio execs, e.g. Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Presumably they got a leg up on the competition because of their MBA. My roommate from when I was in film school went to the ASM, and he's done a lot of serious number crunching for Fox, which is something he learned in his MBA program. I imagine there must be other jobs at networks -- e.g. in programming -- where number crunching comes in handy.

I also know some women who in those days, I suspect, got MBA's purely as a credential, so they wouldn't be perceived as "girls." I hope no one is doing that any more.

If you want to produce, then an MBA is probably useless. Not much statistical analysis in producing. The best thing you can do if you want to produce is go to work in the mailroom of a major agency, if you can get a job there. (The MBA might help you there, though the debt load probably won't help.) The second best thing would be to go work as a producer's assistant. If you absolutely must spend large sums of money, then you can go to the Stark Program at USC, or similar producing programs at NYU and UCLA.

Labels: breaking in, your career

10:21 AM

1 Comments:

MORE GOOD ADVICE! Excuse my enthusiam - and barrage of comments. But I actually was fretting over this exact dilemna: I had tracked the careers of some prod. execs at NBC, Fox and MGM and saw that many of them carried MFA and/or MBA and thought it was a path I should follow. But I decided to pursue the MFA first (I already work in a mid-to-low position at a film company and am making contacts). Anyway, this post just solidified for me that my first mind was right: MBA is good for credentials but not necessarily to get me where I'm trying eventually end up.

Thx!

By  Haute in LA, at 3:38 PM  

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