Working on travel tv shows?

Wait till the end of program credits to see which production company makes the show. Then google them, they may well have job vacancies on their websites. I would imagine that you would need relevant experience working with different companies in the media or to have a degree in film making or whatever. I cant imagine they have a massive crew and obviously you cant just blag a job as a cameraman or whatever. From what I gather alot of people get their first breaks in tv by being 'runners'.

If Ian Wright (from my hometown incidentially) can do it then anyone can! He is just an average kind of guy although he did a lot of work in Childrens entertainment before.

You could try and put something together on a video camera and then get it onto Youtube where you might get picked up or at least you could direct people to some work you have done?

Counting on such work to feed yourself might not be the best of ideas.

You might want to also look into teaching English or something that has a higher probability of keeping food on the table.

Just my opinion.

Good Luck. Not to be negative, but crew jobs on a travel show are tough to come by. Most shows need a lot of people to make them happen, but the majority of those people never leave the office. They only bring the bare minimum on location with them- a host, field producer, camera guy, sound guy, and makeup/hair artist. If they need any additional support, they usually hire local. It's all about the bottom line. And you might be surprised just how planned out and structured these "spontaneous" travel shows actually are.

well said na1414.

i have worked on these travel gigs and na 1414 is exactly right except we've never travelled with a field producer of make-up artist. director/ camera/ sound/ local assistant/ talent. lean and mean.

my advice, if your interested in travel/ tv production... come up with an original idea and get started on it yourself. no one will pay attention unless you got something to show first. this is one way to side-step all the volunteer/ work your way up the ladder boot-licking. but then you still have to know how to make productions happen.

enjoy.

You could check out a great international site for pro documentary filmmakers:

www.d-word.com<BR><BR>It has a forum area like the TT. There's a public part (the "forum) and a private part (the "community"). You need to register with a short application as they try to keep the community part for pros only. If you tell them that you're looking for collaboration or advice about an idea for travel-related doc they might let you in. The community side has all of the best information about all aspects of doc making. You should read all the old posts in the areas pertaining to your interests - it really is a gold mine. You might also post and get some advice about getting involved with travel docs.

www.dvinfo.net/conf/<BR>This is another good site, but broader in scope than the d-word. There are people from all over the world to get advice from. There are also forums concerning the business side of the industry that might be interesting.

(Craig's List - there migth be one for your local area)
Jobs and other postings. Be careful as some posts are scams or from dishonest people.

mandy.com
Jobs and other postings about filmmaking. Again, some posts migth be a little dishonest, but I find it better than Craig's list.

Thanks for the tips, everyone. These ideas are great jumping-off points.

Those are some great suggestions. I recently saw a panel of travel show guides (digging for the truth, survivorman, etc) at the NYC Tribeca Film Festival. They said that the key is to come up with a unique concept. For example, the Digging for the Truth guys background is in history and he tries to bring some of the history as well as some extreme sports to keep in entertaining.

They also said that budgets are the biggest thing to these production companies - it's got to be shot as cheaply as possible.

The big threat to The Travel Channel type companies is youtube and other video posting sites because in the end people will watch content regardless of production value or where it is. One idea maybe to set up a website and post videos you film. Try to get lots of traffic and then make money off google adsense or get travel companies to advertise on your site.

Also, the feeling that I got was this has become their lifestyle. They are not just travelling around but sent places by their producers. Still a fun life, but not so carefree.