About Me

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Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I work in the Camera Dept for Television and Movies. I am a member of IATSE 667 Camera(International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees)and AQTIS (Alliance Québécoise des Techniciens de l’Image et du Son). I began my career in Television at the age of 15 as a Studio Camera Operator part time while I was in High School but now work as an HD Technician and Video Assist. ● Very Ambitious ● Aiming to become one of the Best in my field ● Team Player

A Brief History

At age 15, I visited the cable company in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia where I grew up. At the time, for them to have a licence, they had to provide a community studio to the public. This I thought would be a great way to do school assignments and I immediately became a volunteer. After viewing the quality of my productions and the enthusiasm I showed working with the equipment, the production manager was so impressed, she asked if she could air them and offered me a part time job at the station. I then knew that this was the career I wanted to pursue. She took me under her wing and taught me everything she knew. Her name was Cindy Kidd and back then, she was the first female technical technician east of Montreal.
I worked there every free moment I had. It was so fascinating to me that I didn’t look at it as a job but as a fun hobby. When I finished my high school, I worked there full time. Being a community studio, I was able to learn all stages of television production. I began as a cameraman and later worked in the control room. From there I moved to remotes on location. In the seven years I worked for this station, I went from using 1" reel to reel tape on VTR`s to cassettes.
After this, I took a job at a production house that produced commercials for local companies to be shown on the NBC network in Bangor, Maine, which provided the cable feed for the Halifax area. After three years there, I moved to Toronto where I came up against a wall. In Toronto, it was difficult to get a job in this field because no one believed that someone in his 20’s could have so much experience without having studied it first. So I enrolled part time at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and worked as a disc jockey on the side.
Having worked from age 15, I decided to take a break and travel a few years. I then moved to Montreal and again was unable to find employment in my field, as I had no knowledge of French. At this point I had no choice but to make a career change and take a job with an English company in the clothing industry because I wanted to live in Quebec. I figured I could do this for a while, learn French, then return to my career later. But 12 years past and I was still working in clothing. The hours were long and I was becoming scared that I would end up doing this for the rest of my life. It was a boring and unrewarding career. In my heart I wanted to return to TV but was beginning to worry that too much time had past and too many things have changed. I would have to start all over again just to catch up with the new technology. I was in a fix. I was working long hours in a job I did not like and no time to upgrade my television skills.
Then in fall of 2004, a door opened up for me. While on a leave of absence from work, I contacted a friend who worked in video to get advice on what I could do to upgrade my skills and return to the career that I loved. It was just luck a home renovation show was doing a “make over” in his home that week for TV. He invited me to visit the set and meet the crew.
Wow! Then it hit me. While there, I felt like I was back home again. Since carpentry was one of my hobbies, I volunteered my time just so I could remain on the set without being in the way. On the last day of the shoot, the host offered me a job as a carpenter/painter on the show. I felt like I had won the lottery. Even my friend commented that the only thing missing from this scene was the lighting bolt coming down from the sky with a deep voice saying “Go for it”. So here I was, a few days before returning to that clothing job I felt stuck in, ending up in the right place at the right time. It is said that your boat only sails once. I was lucky that mine had sailed a second time. This time I am staying on it.
I have since moved on to movies and have worked with such industry greats as Debbie Travis, Fred Meyers, Beau Flynn, Christopher Townsend to name a few. I even had the pleasure of meeting James Cameron. It has been a long time since I had been this excited about my future. I want to continue on this path and look forward to all that may lie ahead.
One final note. That 1st Christmas after returning to television, I called my sister in Nova Scotia. She knows my former boss, Cindy Kidd at the cable station where it had all began. It had been many years since I had been in contact with Cindy and I wanted to share my news about returning to this career after such a long absence. I knew she would be proud of me since it was her that put me on this road in the first place before venturing off of it. But sadly I found out Cindy had died of breast cancer the same week that I had returned to television. I will greatly miss Cindy. She had taught me so much and had introduced me to so many fascinating people. In my heart, I am also doing this for her.



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