This month’s professional spotlight features Emmanuel Ocbazghi. Emmanuel is a Video Producer at Business Insider. Read this month’s spotlight to learn more about Emmanuel and his work.
Q: Could you briefly explain some of your responsibilities in your current career role.
My job as a video producer entails finding, shooting, and editing news-oriented video. I also facilitate Business Insider’s podcasting efforts, which includes recording and editing audio.
Q: How did you come to decide that this was the right career path for you?
I knew I was interested in making videos as soon as I saw the movie Rush Hour 2 in the early 2000s. It sounds silly, but it was the first piece of media that gave me an idea of what I wanted to do when I was older. My ultimate goal is to direct film, so I view my current career in video as a stepping stone to that.
Q: Is there a philosophy that drives your career?
Always say “yes”! So many opportunities opened themselves up to me by simply being willing to do things. Whether that’s something related to your interests, or a favor for a friend, just putting yourself out there will do wonders for you.
Q: What do you consider to be your greatest professional accomplishment?
At Business Insider we interview a lot of high-profile politicians and celebrities. Getting to be in the room with the likes of LeBron James, Terry Cruise, Hillary Clinton, etc, makes me feel pretty proud of where I’m at. It helps when some of these people retweet your content, of course.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you would give someone looking to transition into your line of work?
If you’re looking to go into video, I’d tell you to start teaching yourself some of the industry-leading programs. I’m not knocking college at all (you of course learn a plethora of valuable things there), but I learned way more about producing video on my own than I did in school. Sometimes your own trial-and-error method is more helpful than a syllabus. If you want to teach yourself programs like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut but can’t shell out the money for it, there are a lot of student-oriented deals you can take advantage of, where you pay a small subscription fee per month instead of buying the program outright.
Q: Outside of all of your hard work and efforts toward building your brand, what do you do for fun? Hobbies?
It has helped my career that my hobby also includes video-producing, but I also make music on the side, and I’m starting to get into cooking (finally). You can usually find me at a happy hour with friends, or playing some kind of sport at the park. I live in New York City so there’s virtually nothing you can’t do here.