brad's job at natgeo

a lot of people have asked, so here's the lowdown on what I do: I'm a Production Coordinator for National Geographic Television's Mission Programing and US and International Channel programming. I took the place, believe it or not, of April Chabries, who used to be on BYU's Film Department faculty, and who was instrumental in getting me the internship back in 2004. She has since gone on to be an Associate Producer for a series I also work on called, "Wild Chronicles", which airs on local PBS stations around the US, and is Executive Produced by my old NatGeo All Roads Film Festival boss, Mark Bauman. (few know, but I was the other candidate for that job, but I'm glad April received it, because I'll need some more time to get caught up with NG's policies and procedures again...so I don't look like a complete idiot with all the beauracracy and red tape!)

I'm in charge of roughly 7 different series', that comprise approx 30-40 hours worth of on-air programming. We have shows in every stage of production, from development, all the way through to shows delivering for air. One of the main duties is coordinating the production deliverables, or the materials that each production needs to turn in to the Channel for marketing, and of course, to air. So all of the DVD cuts (rough cut, fine cut), scripts, marketing and promotional materials, hi def master tapes go through me before they go to the Channel.

I also coordinate production schedules, budgets, approve people's timecards (get to see how much everyone makes...which is not so fun when you see people making USD$17,500/month), pay and track a couple hundred invoices a month (in the millions of $$$), prepare travel advances (where teams loan tens of thousands of dollars from the travel office to fly all over the world to film), and then the travel expense reports (where they show proof of payment, receipts, etc. to pay off the travel advance). I've also been involved in trying to get a crew off a glacier in Alaska, securing insurance for a man who will hunt big Nile crocs, play with bears, and get a little too close to a prescribed forest fire.