Giv’er: Miramichier Builds Career in TV From Home
Thirty-two-year-old Adam Lordon first caught the TV bug when he moved from the Maritimes to Toronto in 2007 after completing his studies at St. Mary’s University in Halifax.
Growing up in Miramichi, he never thought a career in the industry was even an option.
“Only in Toronto did I start to get into media and producing and stuff because growing up here, I didn’t really know that was something you could do for a career. Then when I moved to Toronto, all a sudden it was everywhere,” Lordon says.
“It was always an interest of mine and I thought ‘wait a minute, I can do this.'”
Lordon went back to school and took a TV production and writing course at Humber College, where he did various internships including one at MTV Canada. From there he went straight to work as a driver on So You Think You Can Dance Canada. He quickly moved up to production assistant, then audience coordinator then climbed to assistant production manager. After a season and a half, Lordon left to become a producer for what would be The Marilyn Denis show at CTV-Bell Media.
“My first creative job in TV was with the Marilyn Show and it was really like almost any other startup,” Lordon says. “When you’re starting a new show you’re trying to figure out exactly what it is, what works, what doesn’t. There’s a lot of turn-over and it really allowed me to move up very quickly on the show and become one of the senior producers and senior field producers there.”
Lordon worked at The Marilyn Denis Show for years, while working on other projects and segments for the network that mostly fell under the “lifestyle” category, such as travel, home and yard makeovers and adventure series.
It was the traditional story of a young man moving from a small town to the big city and building a successful career. But in the summer of 2014, life called Lordon home to the ‘chi.
His mother, Nancy, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“I didn’t really have a plan other than saying I was stepping away from the network and coming home to be with her,” Lordon says. “I didn’t really think of what would be next, that was my focus at that time.”
After his mother passed away that fall, Lordon knew he wanted to stay in New Brunswick for a little while. After the fog of loss began to lift, he started to consider working again. He was approached by the province to lead a working group to examine the film industry in New Brunswick and develop a new funding program. With help from his contacts back in Toronto, things progressed from there.
“I was able to keep working,” Lordon says. “A lot of the work I do now is through people in Ontario, through former colleagues or contacts. A lot of the work that I do is on the pre-production side of things, like development, writing or scriptwriting. You can do that here.”
Some of Lordon’s latest projects include the Saint John episode of the Amazing Race and directing the entire Far and Wide series with MUCH. He is currently working on a documentary series with his new production company, Ninen Productions.
“When I came home, I’m not sure if I intended at that time to stay, but love being home, and I love being back in New Brunswick,” Lordon says. “But I also love my career and what I do professionally so if I couldn’t have kept doing it, I might not have been able to stay. But it’s been really wonderful to be home and continue to work in the industry.”
Lordon says contacts his work at CTV Bell Media was crucial when it came to making a living as a TV production freelancer in northern New Brunswick. However, he thinks young professionals today may not have to move away to work in the industry.
“My perspective now is that if you build up contacts and a portfolio and you’re good at what you do, there’s always going to be opportunities for you, no matter where you are,” he says
“I think they could do it either way. The media landscape is changing so quickly and there is a small but vibrant industry here in the province … It might be a little bit easier if you started elsewhere, but I think if you’re really passionate and you want to do it and you go the drive, then you definitely, absolutely can be successful here too.”
He says working out of a small province like New Brunswick may also provide some advantages for filmmakers wanting to create their own content.
“There are a lot of great regional programs to fund stories being told in provinces like New Brunswick,” Lordon says. “So in a way, if you’re really driven it can be easier to get the resources you need out here than it might be in Ontario.”
In a world where traditional TV viewers are dwindling and more people are turning to platforms like YouTube and streaming services to get their regular entertainment, Lordon says the long-standing geographical boundaries that have limited content creators before are disappearing.
“It’s almost like the middlemen are being cut out even in terms of network television. There’s an opportunity for content creators,” he says. “If you look at the YouTube content creators they are going directly to consumers themselves. I think the lines are only going to continue to blur so creates a lot of opportunities for New Brunswick and elsewhere.”