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Career Exploration

Media Technical Directors/Managers

Also called: News Technical Director, Production Director, Production Manager, Technical Director

What they do:

Coordinate activities of technical departments, such as taping, editing, engineering, and maintenance, to produce radio or television programs.

On the job, you would:
  • Switch between video sources in a studio or on multi-camera remotes, using equipment such as switchers, video slide projectors, and video effects generators.
  • Observe pictures through monitors and direct camera and video staff concerning shading and composition.
  • Supervise and assign duties to workers engaged in technical control and production of radio and television programs.
On the job, you'll need:

Communications

  • multimedia
  • telecommunications

Engineering and Technology

  • computers and electronics
  • product and service development

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Business

  • management

Basic Skills

  • keeping track of how well people and/or groups are doing in order to make improvements
  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

People and Technology Systems

  • thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one
  • figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it

Verbal

  • communicate by speaking
  • listen and understand what people say

Ideas and Logic

  • notice when problems happen
  • use rules to solve problems

Attention

  • pay attention to something without being distracted
  • do two or more things at the same time

Visual Understanding

  • quickly compare groups of letters, numbers, pictures, or other things

Enterprising

People interested in this work like activities that include leading, making decisions, and business.

  • Cooperation
  • Attention to Detail
  • Adaptability/Flexibility
  • Stress Tolerance
  • Dependability
  • Initiative

Video creation and editing software

  • Adobe After Effects
  • YouTube

Object or component oriented development software

  • Perl
  • Swift

Development environment software

  • C
  • Software development tools

Video courtesy of CareerOneStop.

Job Outlook

The job outlook for this position is Bright.

New job opportunities are very likely in the future. This career will grow rapidly in the next few years.

Median Annual Salary: $85,320

Education

Bachelor's degree is usually needed.