No one goes to school to be a Producer.
Intro: I’m Derek L. Tedrick-Peters. Born in 1985 in Kettering, Ohio, to a pair of busy body parents. My parents have always been good at a lot of things, but not necessarily a master of any one thing. I inherited those jeans. Born a Buckeye and converted to a Cheesehead at the age of 9, from age 9 to 18, I had the blue collar work ethic pounded into me. Most days waking up in Northern Wisconsin where it snows from early October until May, walking up the hill to my first job, past the grave yard, and to a carpet cleaners’ house to shovel his driveway and sidewalks. Hoping to get a chrome BMX bike in the spring, but for various reasons my pay never amounted to the $350 that I needed for that bike. I went to a boarding school my freshman year of high school where we worked half days and went to school for the rest. I was the main maintenance and grounds man for two years. Then two years as an “RA” or what Harry Potter would call a Prefect. There was a brief point during that time where I worked at Rhode’s Bake n’ Serve, a frozen dough packing plant. That’s the one job that everyone should work once in their life, it’s the one job I think back to every time I start bitching about being a film producer and the entitled knuckleheads I work with, and remember nothing is worse than working in a frozen dough factory. During my senior year of high school we had an assignment to research 3 careers we might be interested in. I chose: Law Enforcement, SFX Cosmetology, & Photography. The next fall I was enrolled in Andrews University’s Photography Program, AU is an overpriced Christian university that loves to make an strong example out of those that don’t tow-the(ir)-line especially if those troublemakers don’t have powerful family within the organization. I was expelled twice and went on the Van Wilder plan of taking most of a decade to graduate. My first job out of college was at Johnson-Rauhoff, best quoted as “a place photographers go to die” They did product photography for companies such as Wal-Mart Target, Amway, Sur La Table and others. I worked hard as they dangled a carrot in front of me for over a year. “work really hard Derek, we’re going to someone full time soon”. As they said that I looked over at my friend “E” who had been stuck as a photo assistant since the 80s and I made an ultimatum. I’m going to quit in 2 weeks if they don’t offer me full time work. 2 weeks later I was a self-made jobless 20-something-year-old. (I made 17k my first year out of college, 12k of that was supposed to be going to student loans) Exactly two weeks after I quit at JR I got a call from one Mr. Lawrence McCay of LarryMcCay.com - my former student manager had recommended me to him after Larry had fired his assistant. I started on a Monday, by noon Larry pulled me aside and said “Hey buddy, if you work this hard all the time, I expect that I’ll offer you a full-time job by the end of the week. In the the few hours you’ve been here I can see that you’re already better than my last assistant of twp years” I had a full-time job that day and for the next two years. Larry came up in the Detroit automotive scene and brought all that experience back to the South Bend, Indiana area where he held down the RV photography scene for years and years. Larry was having a hard time adjusting to the switch from Film to Digital as many of us did. We made a great pairing. He taught me from his wealth of old school tried-and-true techniques and I taught him the bit that I knew about digitizing. I was with Larry for two years. Eventually I felt it was time to move on and was offered a job at the Tire Rack, in their marketing department. It was my first time in the corporate world, making big boy pay with premium benefits. I worked as a photoshop artist for 2 years, occasionally making it over to the photo studio, but avoided it when I could. This job allowed me to make some progress on my student loans and prepay for my entire wedding. After two years and a marriage, we moved to Chattanooga, TN one of our our favorite vacation spots where snow is pretty rare. Landing in Chattanooga I had to start my career from zero. My wife got a pretty good architect job which allowed me to network and explore where I fit within Chattanooga. I started Chattographer.com - A photography and digital production company. I did that for about two years until I was approached by some friends to join them at their film company Pathfinder Films. My in-laws had visited from South Korea and during their visit they wanted to do some site-seeing, so I booked us some flights from Chattanooga to Phoenix, to visit every US National Park from PHX to Denver (then home). Each morning we’d leave a hotel and drive a few hours to explore a nearby park, then when we we’s seen enough we would drive to a new hotel and repeat the process for about a week. Shortly after we flew home and had friends over for turkey dinner and a slide show. Leif & Lucky Ramsey were in attendance and had just found out they were pregnant and landed an extended contract with the US Navy. So a few weeks later they approached me and asked if I wanted to learn to become a film producer. They saw that I had all the tools to excel. I could manage people, book hotels, cars, flights, keep a schedule, feed people, etc. I had no idea how life changing this job offer would be. I had no idea how well the title would fit me. I always thought of myself as a creative, not as a suit. It took me a couple years to shed the imposer syndrome, with regular reminders that “no one goes to school to become a producer.” Here I am, over 5 years in, freelancing mostly with PathfinderFilms with nothing on my horizon except for everything.
